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HOOD COUNTY — Danny Lakey and his spouse have spent numerous evenings sitting on rocking chairs on their entrance porch, watching the solar slowly dip behind the cows grazing on their neighbor’s ranch.
It was the calm nation life they dreamed of in 2021 once they purchased their log dwelling, tucked into the woodlands of rural Hood County, southwest of Fort Value. Danny Lakey proudly calls their dwelling their “private Cracker Barrel,” the place they’ve extra cows and horses as neighbors than individuals.
However ever since a noisy cryptocurrency facility moved in about half a mile away in 2023, he stated their rocking chairs have largely sat empty. Different close by residents additionally say they don’t spend a lot time exterior anymore due to what many name “that roar.”
Some examine it to a aircraft that by no means lands, or a lawnmower that by no means turns off. A county commissioner stated it’s like “sleeping with a leafblower underneath your pillow.” Regardless of the comparability, there’s one frequent thread — it’s relentless.
It’s the sound of 1000’s of followers blowing in unison, cooling down nearly 60,000 computers working at lightning pace day and night time, racing to earn bitcoins, the most typical sort of cryptocurrency. The ability, in-built 2022, is a sprawling compound of computer systems saved in containers roughly the dimensions of the cellular properties lower than 100 yards away, the place dozens of households dwell.
Residents say they repeatedly requested the power, owned by MARA Holdings, also referred to as Marathon, to do one thing in regards to the noise. The Florida-based firm responded by extending a 2,000-foot lengthy, 24-foot tall soundproofing wall final 12 months and changing some cooling followers with an immersion cooling system.
However residents say it’s performed little to muffle the noise, which close by residents have measured with decibel readers at slightly below the statewide ordinance of 85 decibels — the amount of a meals blender or rubbish disposal.
Now, neighborhood members have turned to an formidable technique to decrease the amount: create a metropolis. Lakey and others led a drive to accumulate sufficient signatures supporting incorporation, and in November, residents will vote on whether or not to create town of Mitchell Bend, named after Mitchell Bend Freeway, the two-lane street that binds the neighborhood.
If the roughly 250 registered voters approve the measure, Mitchell Bend would cowl two sq. miles and have round 600 residents and one cease signal.
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Mitchell Bend Freeway runs subsequent to a 24-foot tall soundproofing wall that separates the Marathon cryptocurrency facility’s computer systems from neighboring resident’s properties and land in Hood County on Sept. 24, 2025.
Credit score:
Shelby Tauber for The Texas Tribune
Incorporating into a metropolis would give the neighborhood the facility to create a noise ordinance they hope will drive the $5 billion Bitcoin firm to settle down. Residents initially requested their county commissioners to set a noise restrict, however in Texas, counties don’t have that energy — solely the state and municipalities do.
It’s a conflict that’s enjoying out throughout Texas as extra crypto services and data centers transfer to rural elements of the state, recruited by state leaders and drawn by plentiful land, fewer rules and enticing tax offers. In contrast to some states, Texas doesn’t tax crypto corporations’ income. Texas additionally has cheaper electrical energy.
Marathon, which has not less than three different crypto services in Texas, has been firmly defending its place in Hood County. The corporate despatched a letter to the county choose in August asking him to invalidate the poll measure, alleging that it had discovered that some individuals who signed the petition dwell exterior the proposed metropolis’s boundaries.
Marathon informed The Texas Tribune in a written assertion that the corporate is “conscious that a few residents try to create a new town in what seems to be an try to negatively influence its Granbury facility” referring to the close by county seat.
The corporate pointed to financial advantages it brings to the neighborhood: “MARA has a monitor report of including jobs and tax revenues to the communities during which we function and has invested greater than $1.2 billion in our Texas websites, contributing thousands and thousands in native tax revenues and supporting native colleges and nonprofits. We’re dedicated to sustaining our well being and security requirements on the Granbury knowledge heart and being good neighbors.”
Left: Cheryl Shadden has indicators positioned round her property protesting the noise generated from Marathon’s cryptocurrency facility in Hood County. Proper: Residents say the 24-foot-tall soundproofing wall has performed little to cut back “the roar,” the hum generated by followers cooling the cryptomining computer systems.
Credit score:
Shelby Tauber for The Texas Tribune
The battle with Marathon has additionally created an inside battle amongst residents weighing whether or not to type a metropolis: Many moved to the countryside to escape not solely noisy cities, however metropolis rules.
“We’re nonetheless conservative, we love our freedom,” Lakey stated of his GOP-leaning neighborhood. “The most important pushback that we’re getting on incorporation is from individuals who worry that a new metropolis goes to strive to set a lot of rules. They’re very Texan, which implies: don’t inform me what to do with my property.”
He and others say they’ve come to this level not solely as a result of the noise is a nuisance, however as a result of residents say it’s robbing them of sleep and inflicting numerous well being issues: listening to loss, vertigo, migraines and hypertension.
“We’re bored with billion greenback corporations coming in and ruining our lives,” Lakey informed County Choose Ron Massingil throughout an August commissioners court docket assembly. “And we’re getting actually good at preventing Goliath.”
How Texas grew to become the world’s crypto magnet
Texas’ rural sprawls have change into a magnet for crypto corporations.
In 2021, after China banned cryptomining, many flocked to the U.S. and Gov. Greg Abbott laid out a welcome mat for corporations looking for a new dwelling. On X he posted: “Texas is open for Crypto enterprise.”
Texas is now dwelling to at least 27 bitcoin facilities, in accordance to the Texas Blockchain Council, making it the highest crypto mining spot on the planet. Services in Rockdale and in Corsicana are the 2 largest on the earth.
In 2023, in accordance to the state’s comptroller’s office, crypto mines throughout Texas used round 2,717 megawatts of energy, sufficient to energy roughly 680,000 properties and much surpassing anyplace else in North America; Georgia is a distant second, at 525 megawatts.
State leaders have warmly welcomed crypto corporations as a result of they characterize tax {dollars} and jobs: The business pumped $4 billion into the state financial system and employed 12,000 Texans final 12 months, Carol Haines, senior vp at digital infrastructure firm Core Scientific, said during a Texas Tribune panel. Texas now has around 40% of the nation’s crypto investment, she said.
Many Hood County residents say they help companies coming to Texas — however they need rules in place to shield communities’ peace.
“You will be right here, I do not thoughts,” Lakey stated. “Simply be quiet, be a good neighbor. Act like a good neighbor, and also you’re welcome to keep.”
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Danny Lakey and his canine Jax on his porch at his dwelling in Hood County on Sept. 25, 2025.
Credit score:
Shelby Tauber for The Texas Tribune
Lakey and others who pushed for incorporation say they’ve butted heads with Massingill, the county choose, who rejected the petition for the poll measure three months after the county had authorised it — and a week after Marathon challenged among the petition signatures.
In a heated second throughout an August commissioners assembly, Massingill addressed a variety of residents who expressed frustration about his choice to invalidate the petition. Massingill stated he initially thought the petition had been reviewed by the county lawyer, however it wasn’t. He stated the county’s elections coordinator later knowledgeable him that the petition didn’t have sufficient legitimate signatures.
“I simply don’t need anyone to say I am not doing my job,” he informed the viewers.
When residents began over and obtained greater than sufficient signatures to put incorporating Mitchell Bend on the poll, Massingill authorised it.
Different rural communities have included to battle business
Utilizing incorporation as a software to regulate corporations has change into a frequent technique for rural residents, stated Alan Bojorquez, an Austin lawyer who says he’s helped a dozen communities strive to change into cities.
He’s labored with residents in Webberville in Travis County, which incorporated in 2003 to regulate gravel-making corporations within the space that created massive quantities of mud. He additionally labored with a neighborhood west of San Antonio known as Quihi, the place residents hoped to set rules for a number of mines inflicting noise and dirt, however their poll measure failed in 2004.
“Usually you see individuals creating a metropolis as a result of they’re attempting to shield one thing that is being threatened,” Bojorquez stated. “It is this huge stability of wanting the countryside life but in addition needing the rules to shield it when you’re there.”
County Commissioner Nannette Samuelson, whose district contains the power, stated there are days when she will hear the crypto facility’s followers at her dwelling, six miles away. She stated she and the opposite commissioners urged the Texas Legislature final 12 months to set stricter noise rules for the state, however their plea fell on deaf ears.
State lawmakers have debated proposals in previous legislative periods to give counties the facility to set noise ordinances like cities can, however have failed to agree on a invoice. Cheryl Shadden, Lakey’s neighbor who’s lived in Hood County for round 40 years, stated it’s a hole within the state’s insurance policies that rural Texans are falling by means of.
“So if it is in a huge metropolis, then ‘Hey, we’ll put some extra safety in as a result of there’s extra of you individuals, however because you’re simply a small, two square-mile town, you do not deserve any safety?’” she requested. “How does that equate?”
Cheryl Shadden provides treats to her horses on her land in Hood County. Shadden has lived in Hood County for round 40 years and now has the Marathon cryptocurrency facility as a neighbor.
Credit score:
Shelby Tauber for The Texas Tribune
The noise “goes by means of your physique”
Because the November vote approaches, some residents stated they really feel trapped as a result of they fear their property values have plummeted due to the fixed noise.
Donna Adair, 65, has a brick dwelling with a cozy yard shed that she’s transformed into her rockhounding lab. Vivid purple crepe myrtles line her driveway, and he or she’s adorned her yard with colourful birdhouses. She says she misses studying on her porch bench in peace.
Promoting her dwelling isn’t an possibility. “I couldn’t morally do it,” Adair stated. “It’s incorrect when you have a drawback and also you don’t inform individuals what it’s. It might not be a sin of fee, however it’s a sin of omission.”
A mile away, Geraldine Lathers, 74, lives in a cellular dwelling down the street from the crypto facility and says she started taking Vitamin D drugs as a substitute of going exterior for the reason that fixed hums of the followers started two years in the past. She added the dietary supplements to drugs she takes for vertigo spells, intense complications and hypertension, illnesses she says started final 12 months.
“It’s simply that terrible,” Lathers stated from her lounge. “That noise is so loud, oh my God it makes you sick … it goes by means of your physique.”
Left: Geraldine Lathers at her dwelling along with her canine, Gizzmo. Due to the noise from the neighboring Marathon cryptocurrency facility, Lathers stated she takes Vitamin D drugs as a substitute of going exterior, and her nice grandkids don’t come to go to as a lot. Proper: Donna Adair sits on her porch swing along with her canine, Lily. Adair says she misses having the ability to learn on her porch in peace with out the noise from the neighboring Marathon cryptocurrency facility.
Credit score:
Shelby Tauber for The Texas Tribune
However what makes her coronary heart ache is that her household visits much less usually due to the noise.
She stated her grandkids grew up spending Sunday afternoons in her yard when her huge household — she now has 23 grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren — usually obtained collectively for barbecues. Now, she stated, they don’t go to as a lot as earlier than. The mother and father don’t need their youngsters close to the noise, she stated.
The 2 bounce homes they used to blow up for the youngsters are within the shed, Lathers stated. “They don’t exit no extra.”
That’s why Lathers stated she’s planning on voting in favor of making Mitchell Bend in November, regardless that she’s not enthusiastic in regards to the concept.
“I am for it, if it will make the noise go away,” she stated whereas petting her canine, Gizzmo. “I do not need to actually be a metropolis, however what decisions have you ever obtained?”
Disclosure: Texas Blockchain Council has been a monetary supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan information group that’s funded partly by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Monetary supporters play no function within the Tribune’s journalism. Discover a full list of them here.
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