Barbers Hill Oil Field

Oil usually hides along the flanks of a salt dome, and Barbers Hill held out for years. Drillers failed about twenty-eight times before a small well came in during 1916 at 1,571 feet. The surprise arrived in 1930, when a well drilled below the salt, more than 5,000 feet down, became the first on the Gulf Coast to produce from beneath a dome. By 1974 the field was producing from below 10,000 feet. Later the dome itself became the asset: caverns carved into the salt now store liquid propane for the region's refineries.

What the plaque says

Barbers Hill Oil Field While digging a 65-ft. water well near his home in 1889, Elmer W. Barber (1854-1935), whose father Amos Barber first settled this area, encountered inflammable gas near the top of the salt dome known as Barbers Hill. After the Spindletop discovery in 1901, prospectors sought leases here. In 1902 Pattillo Higgins (1863-1955), an early Spindletop promoter, drilled on the northwest slope of the hill. His shallow well, like those of other early operations, yielded little, and the low price of crude oil discouraged large investment. The United Petroleum Co. No. 1 Fisher, drilled in 1918, produced 70 barrels a day, the field's first oil in commercial quantities. Drilling resumed in 1926, when the Mills Bennett Production co. and the Humphreys Corp. brought in the A. E. Barber No. 1, yielding 500 barrels a day. The success later that year of their B-2 Kirby, reaching a depth of 4,174 ft., triggered a leasing campaign and launched a period of rapid expansion which lasted until the late 1930s. Rows of oil derricks and tent dwellings were a common sight during the boom. As the population of the community grew, oil money helped upgrade and enlarge school facilities. By 1977, the local economy had shifted from production to storage of petroleum.. (1977)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site — 12 mi
  The 1,200 acres of coastal prairie and marsh where the Texas Revolution ended in eighteen minutes, and the 567-foot shaft of fossil-studded limestone that has stood over them since 1939.
• Space Center Houston — 23 mi
  The visitor center of NASA's Johnson Space Center at Clear Lake, with flown capsules, a shuttle replica riding a 747, and tram tours to Mission Control and a Saturn V.

More markers nearby

• First United Methodist Church and Cemetery of Mont Belvieu — 1.3 mi
• Near Home Site of John Peter Sjolander — 3.2 mi
• Victoria Taylor Walker — 4.3 mi
• Old River — 4.9 mi