Love Bug-Wink Black Stone Outline

I maintain records on my trackables. They have the goal to circulate more than five years and to be moved by at least 25 cachers. That is a target rate of five drops per year for five years, or a drop every 73 days. The average drop rate of my trackables in the US is 124 days, in Europe it is 71 days. As of 24-Aug-25 this trackable had survived for 1.4 years and had been moved by 7 cachers, for an average drop every 73 days, or 5.0 drops per year. Please keep it moving, then drop it in a safe place!

No permission is needed to leave the U.S. While in the U.S., please drop it at an event, in a Premium Member only OR a rural cache near a busy trail or road. Do not place it in an urban, non-premium cache. Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean and dry, protects the number and prevents tangling with other items. Otherwise, take the trackable anywhere you wish.

This is one of a series of heart-shaped items obtained from different places and converted into travel bugs. They are named either for the places of their origin or for Texas Panhandle-South Plains towns with interesting names or histories.

Wink is a city in Winkler County. The population was 919 at the 2000 census. Wink was the hometown of singer and songwriter Roy Orbison, although he was born in Vernon, Texas. There is at least one Orbison mural on a downtown building. Wink began in 1926, when oil was discovered in Hendrick oilfield in Winkler County. By mid-1927 the Wink Townsite Company was selling lots in the Horse Wells pasture of the Hendrick Ranch. The oil boom brought new people to Wink, causing a shortage of housing. Newcomers set up tents and built makeshift houses.

Wink was originally named Winkler, for the county. When a post office was requested, postal authorities notified the applicant that there was a post office bearing that name already in operation. The citizens shortened the name to Wink and received a post office in 1927. In that year, the first public school was organized, and a temporary building was constructed. The population of the town was reported at 3,500. By 1929 that number climbed to 6,000. It is possible the actual population would have been around 10,000 to 25,000 people. The boom brought lawlessness, bootlegging, prostitution and gambling to Wink. Even the city government came under the control of a well-organized underworld. In 1928 District Judge Charles Klapproth declared the incorporation election void, and the city government was reorganized. In the 1930s the boom declined and the population hovered around 4,000. Since that time the decline has been steady to the present level of less than 1,000.