Cromwell

Cromwell's well was one strike in a larger field. The Bruner opened the Cromwell pool seven months after the Betsy Foster brought in Wewoka on March 16, 1923, and by summer 1926 operators meeting to discuss proration were calling the area's pools the Greater Seminole Field; thirty-nine eventually developed. On July 30, 1927, the district pumped 527,400 barrels in a day, and runaway production once drove oil down to seventeen cents a barrel. The town did not ride the field out: a fire burned the business district soon after Tilghman's death, and by 1930 Cromwell counted 249 people.

What the plaque says

Cromwell The Cromwell oil field and town were named for Joe I. Cromwell of Muskogee, Oklahoma. A gas well, the #1 Jim Willis in the SE/4 SE/4 NW/4 of Section 15-10N-8E, was completed at a depth of 3,466 feet by the Cosden Oil Co. on November 11, 1922. However, it was not until the discovery of oil by the Cromwell Oil & Gas Company at the #1 Bruner in the NW/4 NE/4 SW/4 of Section 15-10N-8E on October 2, 1923 that the drilling boom started. This well was completed to a depth of 3,475 feet. A total of 393 wells produced oil in the field with the largest oil well producing 5,600 barrels per day and the largest gas well producing 125,000,000 M.C.F. The town of Cromwell and the sur- rounding oil field had a peak popula- tion of 10,000 during 1923 and 1924. Lawlessness became rampant and caused the town to be named "Cromwell the Wicked" in September, 1924. Prisoners from Cromwell were handcuffed to a log chain and marched 14 miles to the county jail in Wewoka. To help curb the lawlessness in the town, William (Bill) Tilghman, a pioneer law officer and one of the famous "Three Guardsmen" of Oklahoma was named chief of police in September 1924. On November 1, 1924, at the age of 70, Tilghman was slain at the entrance of Murphy's dance hall located where this marker stands.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Boley Historic District — 11 mi
  The downtown of the largest of Oklahoma's All-Black towns, praised by Booker T. Washington, squeezed by Jim Crow and white land oaths, bankrupt in 1939 and still living today.
• Seminole Nation Museum — 13 mi
  A community museum in Wewoka, capital of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, telling the Seminole story from Florida to Indian Territory and the town that John Horse's people founded in 1849.

More markers nearby

• Boley, Oklahoma — 10 mi
• Boley — 11 mi
• Lima — 14 mi
• Clearview — 16 mi