Rankin may refer to:
Rankin is a city in Upton County, Texas, United States. The population was 800 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of the thinly populated county – in 2000, only 3,404 people lived in the entire county, and McCamey was the only larger town. It is named after F.E. Rankin, a local rancher.
Rankin is located at 31°13′28″N 101°56′27″W / 31.22444°N 101.94083°W / 31.22444; -101.94083 (31.224412, −101.940866). It is at the junction of U.S. Highway 67 and Texas State Highway 329, known locally as Ranch Road 870.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 1.1 square miles (2.7 km²), all of it land.
The town was founded in 1911, and the post office was built a year later. In 1921, still a tiny community based around the ranching industry, it was designated county seat. Rankin was served by the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway.
The discovery of the Yates Oil Field in adjacent Pecos County in 1926 converted Rankin into a boom town. Since Rankin was the nearest settlement on a rail line, it became the center for the oil services industry for the nearby oil fields. During the Great Depression the population declined as the price of oil fell, and as workers moved away to work in newly discovered fields in East Texas and elsewhere; however, a secondary boom occurred in the 1940s with the discovery of the nearby Benedum Oil Field. A hospital, three new schools, and a library date from this period. The population has gradually fallen since its secondary peak of 1,278 in 1980.
Rankin is a last name of Scottish and Irish origin. The name is derived from the medieval personal name Rankin which is a diminutive of Ronald or Rand, combined with the diminutive suffix kin. In the 18th century one Hebridean family bearing the surname—the Conduiligh Rankins—produced pipers to the Macleans of Coll, Duart and Mull.
Erika may refer to
Erika is a genus of moths in the family Lymantriidae.
"Erika" (or "Auf der Heide blüht ein kleines Blümelein" ("On the Heath a Little Flower Blooms") is a marching song of the German military. The song was composed by Herms Niel in the 1930s, and it soon came into usage by the Wehrmacht, especially the Heer and, to a lesser extent, the Kriegsmarine. The theme of the song is based on "Erika" being both a common German female first name and the name of the heath plant Erica. In itself, the song has no military themes, beyond the fact that the narrator (evidently a soldier, though this is not explicitly stated) is away from his beloved and recalls her when seeing the plant which has the same name.
The lyrics and melody of the song were written by Herms Niel, a German composer of marches. The exact year of the song's origin is not known; often the date is given as "about 1930," a date that, however, has not been substantiated. The song was originally published in 1938 by the publishing firm Louis Oertel in Großburgwedel. It was a great success even before the start of World War II. Niel, who joined the NSDAP in early May 1933 and became a leading Kapellmeister at the Reichsarbeitdienst, created numerous marches that largely served the National Socialist propaganda campaigns. In particular the Reichspropagandaminister Joseph Goebbels, noticed early that down-to-earth, simple songs were a useful propaganda tool.
Rankin may refer to: