Jarman No. 1 Discovery Well

The Handbook of Texas records what the well did when it came in: 147 barrels in the first hour, from the Woodbine sand at 2,710 feet. Pure Oil, which began seismograph and torsion-balance studies in February 1927, held 81.7 percent of the field's unit and became its operator; the entry calls Van the first unitized field in Texas. By April 1930 twenty-four wells were making about 20,000 barrels a day. The peak year was 1932, with 17,192,857 barrels. Cumulative production reached about 502 million barrels by January 1, 1994.

What the plaque says

Jarman No. 1 Discovery Well The Pure Oil Company conducted seismograph surveys in Van Zandt County in 1927 and that summer leased about 17,000 acres in the Van area for exploration. Core drilling began in January 1929, and the first derrick was erected in a cotton patch on the farm of W. T. Jarman (1856-1928). The flurry of activity in the area brought many curious onlookers. Families brought picnic lunches and spent entire days watching the drilling crews. On October 13 thousands of people came and waited all day, leaving that evening disappointed that nothing had happened. Early on the morning of October 14 the Number One well quietly came in, launching the village of Van into a boomtown overnight. In 1929 Van was a small farming community, with a general store and a two-room school. Suddenly stores, hotels, and dance halls sprung up throughout the town, and new schools and roads were built to serve the increased population. The Jarman Number One Well was the first of 591 wells in the Van field. In the first twenty years over 200 million barrels of oil were produced, and in December 1985 the field yielded its 500 millionth barrel of oil. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Governor Hogg Shrine — 21 mi
  Quitman's 27-acre city park, once a state historical park, where two houses tied to James Stephen Hogg's marriage stand beside an arboretum, a nature walk and the grounds of the Old Settlers Reunion.
• Tyler State Park — 21 mi
  A 985-acre park eight miles north of Tyler, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps from 1935 to 1941 around a 64-acre spring-fed lake, with more than 13 miles of trails.
• Tyler Rose Garden and Rose Museum — 23 mi
  More than 38,000 rose bushes of about 600 cultivars in a free city garden, beside a museum of the Texas Rose Festival, which began in 1933, and of the rose industry.
• Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center — 23 mi
  A Texas Parks and Wildlife hatchery and visitor center in Athens where visitors can borrow tackle and fish a stocked pond, watch native species in gallery tanks and ride a tram around the hatchery.

More markers nearby

• The Free State of Van Zandt — 2.9 mi
• Union Chapel Cemetery and Church — 2.9 mi
• Brady P. Gentry — 3.0 mi
• Colfax Cemetery — 5.6 mi