First Irrigation Well in Lamb County

Ewing Halsell, born in Jacksboro, grew up in Vinita, Oklahoma, where at Willie Halsell College he began a lifelong friendship with Will Rogers. At twenty-one he took charge of his father's Bird Creek ranch north of Tulsa and brought bookkeeping and inventories to it. In 1916 he and three sisters formed the Halsell Cattle Company to run Spring Lake, and in 1923 the Halsell Farms Company to sell it to farmers. He moved his offices to San Antonio in 1945, set up the Ewing Halsell Foundation with his wife in 1957 and died in December 1965.

What the plaque says

First Irrigation Well in Lamb County Dug by hand in 1902 for crops, cattle, and household use of Ewing Halsell (1877-1965), son of land promoter and settler W. E. Halsell. An irrigation ditch carried water half a mile to headquarters of Halsell's "Mashed O" Ranch. Six feet in diameter but only 30 feet deep, well is no longer in operation. (1972)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge — 25 mi
  The oldest national wildlife refuge in Texas, a ring of salt lakes in the sandhills south of Muleshoe where tens of thousands of sandhill cranes winter in a wet year.

More markers nearby

• Spring Lake — 0.3 mi
• Earth — 4.9 mi
• Springlake-Earth School — 7.9 mi
• Springlake Cemetery — 9.3 mi