Wichita Falls' Central Stock Exchange, at 714 Ohio, was one of the busiest places in town in 1919, less than a year after the "Fowler's Folly" well sparked the Burkburnett Oil Boom. "Oil" wasn't included in tHe exchange's name, but oil company stocks were what was being bought and sold at Central and the city's four other new stock exchanges.

Everyone wanted a part of the boom, whether they were local residents turned oil drillers, returning doughboys invited to settle in Wichita Falls or the hordes of job seekers and investors packing tent hotels and boarding houses that sprang up like Texas bluebonnets in May.

Like the oil boom, the stock exchanges were an ephemeral part of Wichita Falls history. The Central exchange changed owners and locations several times between its founding and 1925, when it is last listed in the Wichita Falls City Directory. The oil-related  companies were still in full swing, filling three full pages in the directory, but the packed stock trading houses had moved on.

The Central Stock Exchange's original home on Ohio would later house a hardware store, the Texas Athletic Club restaurant and eventually a beer joint before giving way in the 1960s to the parking lots that now occupy the site.

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