Oil patch recollections  2-17-07

Editor’s note: Major portions of the following are excerpted from a paper titled “A History of Black Gold” by Bill Jones. The paper is undated.

We are more than a generation removed from the oil patch as it was. Wooden rigs today are just fragments of a way of life but the shadow of the oil derrick lies long over modern Texas.

The oil fields represented a rough, tough way of life – the gushers and blowouts, the wild boom towns and the self-made millionaires. Now many facts have been lost in a fog of historical legend.

Oil has had a giant impact on the state and on Wood County. The county shared in the emergence of Texas from an agrarian economy into an industrial giant during the 20th century and this trend continues unabated today as the state moves forward with the technological revolution.

Spanish explorers mentioned oil in their records. They put in at Sabine Bay to caulk ship leaks with the thick, gooey stuff. Petroleum was discovered near Nocogdoches in 1866, two years before the famous Drake well in Pennsylvania. Texas crude was sold as a lubricant or bottled as patent medicine in the 1870s. One East Texas farmer used his oil as a hog wallow. Early farmers, drilling for precious water, hit oil.

In 1894, the first commercial development for raw petroleum in the sate began at Corsicana. Thirty thousand acres were leased for mineral rights. The Corsicana discovery well produced 22 barrels a day. The first refinery for refining unprocessed oil began at Corsicana and initially produced kerosene until rail locomotives were converted from coal fuel to oil.

In 1901, Texas was changed forever with the discovery at Spindletop near Beaumont. A rotary bit was used to penetrate the quicksand of this giant salt dome and brought in a gusher that took nine days to control. Approximately 800,000 gallons flowed before the well could be capped. In one year, Texas oil production went from 836,000 to 17,421,000 and prices dropped to three cents a barrel.

Oil had as much and perhaps more of an impact on Texas than even the coming of the railroad as new towns sprang up and existing towns began to flourish. These included Brownwood-Wichita Falls, 1902 to 1910; Electra in 1911, Burkburnett in 1912, Mexia in 1920, the Permian Basin at Midland/Odessa in 1926, Sugarland in 1928 and Van in 1919 were just some of the boom towns.

Then in October 1930, the Daisy Bradford Well blew in as a gusher at Joinerville in Rusk County. C.M. (Dad) Joiner finally made the “big hit” after sinking dusters over much of East Texas including several dry holes on Wood County. The biggest of them all, the East Texas field, soon extended to Kilgore, Longview and Gladewater. The field resembled a forest of derricks as there were no rules governing the spacing of wells. Derricks were often only a few feet apart. Because of the oil glut in the East Texas field, the Texas Legislature enacted proration, the system used to regulate the flow of raw oil from the ground.

On December 5th, 1940, oil came to Wood County. A wildcatter, Bobby Manziel, struck promising pay dirt in the deep Woodbine Sand at 4,909 feet, three miles northeast of Hawkins on the Frank Morrison farm. He became the first to bring “black gold” and new found wealth to the county. Hotels, cafes and rooming houses around Hawkins, then a town of 200, could not handle the business. Overnight, Hawkins became a boom town.

Lease hounds were busy leasing land at $250 to $500 an acre. Everyone wanted a piece of the action. Oil field trucks and equipment arrived daily. On Christmas Day 1940, F.R. Jackson and Steve Rotundi brought in the first Hawkins well, the Cobb Heirs well. It washed in with an estimated production of 10,000 barrels per day and gas pressure of 700 pounds. Tests showed 111 feet of oil sand and four feet of shale.

During the summer of 1942, Amerada Petroleum Company sank a test well eight miles west of Winnsboro near the Coke community. It appeared to be a duster, but the showing improved at 6,000 feet and at 6,320, the Kennemer #1 gushed in. By November 1942, Amerada had completed 21 wells. Next the Delta Drilling Company brought in another field north of Quitman which became known as the Quitman field.

By April 1943, the Tidewater #1 Andy Bacon discovery well northeast of Winnsboro in Franklin County roared in as a gusher with 2,100 pounds of pressure. About 65 wells initially formed the field. Petroleum products could be produced from six different pay sands. It was one of the world’s richest small fields.

In September 1943, N.J. Delaney Drilling Company moved a standard rig to Winnsboro. Gulf Oil had a contract with Delaney to do exploration drilling one and one-half miles south of town near state highway 37 on the Horace Brewer 70 acres.

The Delaney crews rigged-up and broke surface on September 15th, 1943. Gulf had its sights set on the Travis Peak formation to be found at 8,800 feet. Drilling an oil well 60 years ago was a much slower process than it is today. Often, the drill bit only cut a few feet in a hard formation before it had to be changed. It might taken several months to drill an exploratory hole 900 feet deep, whereas drilling time today would be 40 to 45 days.

Drilling went on from September through January. By February, promising pay sand began to show. On March 9th, 1944, “black gold” began to erupt from a depth of 8,400 feet. It was a dual producer, producing oil from 7,990 feet and gas at the depth of 8,014. The Gulf #1 Brewer Well initially flowed 34 barrels per hour during testing before being placed under choke.

Other discoveries near Winnsboro included the McCrary, Way-Lake, Manziel 1943, Merigale-Paul 1944, Coats 1949, Pickton and Cornersville 1945 in Hopkins County, Moncrief in Franklin County and the Newsome-Leesburg fields east of town in Camp County.After the Gulf #1 Brewer discovery well, Winnsboro was thronged with oil scouts from all sections of the country. Trading in leases and royalties became brisk. Scouts speculated that the Winnsboro discovery well could possibly pink up with what was then the world’s largest oil field at Kilgore and Longview. Overnight, the town changed from being a center for farmers to a stomping ground for hundreds of oil field denizens.

This adventuresome breed came to the sleepy little town from oil patches throughout the United States. Boomers, tank and derrick builders, roughnecks, truckers and almost anyone looking for a job came to Winnsboro. Hotels and rooming houses were full. Anyone with an extra bedroom could name their price. Vacant building turned into hotel or supply houses. At one time during the oil heyday, Winnsboro had three all-night cafes and a Gulf station that never closed. These were all located near Main and Broadway streets. The White House and the McGee cafes were headquarters for the roughnecks and other oil workers. Often 200 or more workers would be standing on the sidewalks near the cafes waiting to go out to a rig. Others were returning after completing a tower. In front of the cafes was the place to “hire-out.” If the crew found itself short of a man, the driller would pick a hand off the streets. This was the way many locals went to work in the oil field.

During the boom, when Saturday came, the two movie houses, all the cafes and the skating rink were always filled with people. Everything was looking up as well-paid jobs became plentiful in the oil industry. People had money for the first time since the Depression. On Saturdays when everyone came to town, Main Street was thronged with automobiles and pedestrians lined the sidewalks. Most businesses remained open until nine or 10 p.m. on Saturdays. The barber shops kept their doors open until the last customer was served.

O.E. Vick established the first well service business and was followed by Ray Holbert. Both became drilling contractors. Haliburton opened a yard in 1944-45. Continental, Arrow, National and Bethlehem operated supply houses.

In 1951, Lee Ray moved to Winnsboro and for over 30 years he built oil field roads, locations and pits in every place drilling took place in East Texas. Frank White arrived in 1956 as owner of Winnsboro Well Service. Hershel Tate owned Renshaw Well Service. Later, Homer Smith and Ben Jack McLarty operated Vick Well Service.

The boom period lasted about 10 years. By that time, most of the drilling contractors and boomers had moved on to the next oil strike. After 1955, drilling was still important, but it was selective drilling in proven fields. Wildcats were just a memory out of the past.

As of this writing, date unknown, oil continued to support the local economy. Some oil families moved on to the next boom but other stayed and retired in Winnsboro.

Most of those who shared in the excitement of the early oil boom days have passed on. Towns such as Winnsboro and Hawkins settled into the slower easy going way of life they had known before the discovery of oil. They would not be described as wild today, but they were once Texas boom towns.