First Oil Well in Cooke County

Callisburg was already an old crossroads when the well came in. The Handbook of Texas says the town grew up near the Butterfield mail route and on the Mormon Trail of 1846, and takes its name from the blacksmith Sam Callis, its first settler. A post office opened by 1873, and the town claimed 300 people ten years later, then shrank to about 110 by 1902 when a planned electric rail line never came. The 1924 Big Indian well, a mile east of town, brought a different boom. Callisburg had incorporated by 1980.

What the plaque says

First Oil Well in Cooke County Located on the Bud W Davis Farm (1 mile E), Cooke County's first producing oil well came in on Nov 9, 1924, heralding the beginning of a multi-million dollar industry and a new life style for the surrounding farm community. Carnival atmosphere prevailed while sightseers and reporters flocked to the lease. One enterprising man charged admission until questioned by a worker. The discovery well, drilled by C.A. Doudrick's Big Indian Oil Company continued to produce until 1970 when it was plugged. (1976)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Great Hanging Memorial — 9.0 mi
  Two granite monuments in a Gainesville park, dedicated in 2014, for the Cooke County men the Confederate militia hanged in October 1862 on suspicion of Unionism.
• Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge — 15 mi
  A 1946 refuge on the Big Mineral Arm of Lake Texoma, laid over land bought for Denison Dam and the site of the vanished railroad town of Hagerman, now a winter stop for geese.
• Lake Murray State Park — 25 mi
  Oklahoma's first and largest state park, built by New Deal crews on former Chickasaw Nation land south of Ardmore, with Tucker Tower, a governors' retreat never finished, on a point above the lake.
• Eisenhower State Park — 25 mi
  A bluff-top park on Lake Texoma opened in 1958 on land leased from the Corps of Engineers, in the Red River country of Fort Johnson, Colbert's Ferry and the Butterfield stages.

More markers nearby

• Callisburg United Methodist Church — steps away
• Gainesville — 3.7 mi
• The Cross Timbers — 3.8 mi
• Diamond Horse Ranch — 5.6 mi