Cimarron by Edna Ferber

Sabra Cravat, Congresswoman from Oklahoma, had started a campaign against the disgraceful condition of the new oil towns. With an imposing party of twenty made up of front-page oil men, Senators, Congressmen, and editors, she led the way to Bowlegs, newest and crudest of the new oil strikes.

Cities like Osage were suave enough in a surface way. But what could a state do when oil was forever surging up in unexpected places, bringing the days of the Run back again? At each newly discovered pool there followed the rush and scramble. Another Bret Harte town sprang up on the prairie; fields oozed slimy black; oil rigs clanked; false-front wooden shacks lined a one-street village. Dance halls. Brothels. Gunmen. Brawls. Heat. Flies. Dirt. Crime. The clank of machinery. The roar of traffic boiling over a road never meant for more than a plodding wagon. Nitroglycerin cars bearing their deadly freight. Overalls, corduroys, blue prints, engines. The human scum of each new oil town was like the scum of the Run, but harder, crueler, more wolfish and degraded.