Bead-Iraan Blue Brown Stone Donut TB

Please drop this item in rural OR Premium Member Only caches.  Do not place it in an urban cache or abandon it at a caching event.  Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean and prevents tangling with other items.  Otherwise, take the travel bug anywhere you wish.  No permission is needed to leave the U.S.

Photos in the travel bug logs are appreciated.  I will be re-post them here, where they can be seen by other cachers.

This is one of a series of large beads obtained from different places and converted into travel bugs.  They are named for Texas towns with interesting names or histories.

Iraan is near the Pecos River in eastern Pecos County.  It came into existence after the discovery of oil on the nearby Ira G. Yates ranch in 1926.  It was named for Ira and Ann Yates in a contest that offered a town lot as a prize.  Tents, shacks, and bunkhouses were initially the only housing available, as oil companies rushed to move workers and their families to the boomtown.  The Ohio Oil Company built company houses, drilled water wells, and in 1927 hired teachers and provided a school.  A post office was established in 1928.  By 1930 Iraan had sixty rated businesses and an estimated population of 1,600.

In the 1930s V. T. Hamlin, a local newspaper man, began the "Alley Oop" comic strip, which was nationally syndicated by the Newspaper Enterprises Association.  A park named for the cartoon character was dedicated in Iraan in 1965.  The population of Iraan dropped to 951 by 1967, when declining oil production forced several major oil companies to move their offices from the community. In 1986, after the temporary rally in the oil business in the 1970s and early 1980s, Iraan had twenty-five businesses and a population of 1,358.  In 1990 the population was 1,322, and in 2000 the population was 1,238.