Joiner No. 3 Daisy Bradford

The land was Daisy Bradford's, an 80-acre tract in the Juan Ximines Survey; a museum text calls her a widow who ran a large farm. Bradford No. 1, begun with driller Tom M. Jones, was lost to stuck pipe at about 1,098 feet after six months. Bradford No. 2, a hundred feet northwest and paid for by a second syndicate, reached 2,518 feet before the pipe twisted off. On November 26, 1930, H. L. Hunt bought the well and Joiner's leases; the Handbook records $30,000 down, though Joiner's entry gives $1 million.

What the plaque says

Joiner No. 3 Daisy Bradford East Texas Oil Field Discovery Well. Discovery genius was C. M. (Dad) Joiner, 70-year-old Oklahoman who for years believed there was oil in Rusk County. Driller was E. C. Laster. Crew: Dennis May, Dave Cherry, Glenn Pool, Jim Lambert and Dave Hughes. Joiner's 2 early efforts failed-- one with a jammed bit, one with the drill pipe stuck. The rig was next skidded 300' down slope. "This is as good a place as any," said Laster. Then on May 8, 1929, Joiner No. 3 Daisy Bradford was spudded in. Equipment consisted of an old rotary rig powered by a single-cylinder engine; one 45 hp boiler; one old cotton gin boiler fired with soggy oak and pine chunks by roustabout Dan Tanner. The depression was on, and money scarce. The crew often went without pay. Joiner sacrificed much of his 10,000 acre block of leases. Finally, on Sept. 5, 1930, a drill stem logged at 3536' into the Woodbine Formation showed oil. A better rig had to be brought in. On Oct. 3, 1930, the well blew in and oil went over the crown block. The boom was on. Cars were bumper-to-bumper on all access roads. Derricks rose in all directions. In its first 30 years, this great field produced more than 3.5 billion barrels of oil. It now covers some 200 square miles-- the largest in the world. (1965)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• New London Museum and Cenotaph — 4.4 mi
  A volunteer-run museum beside the pink granite cenotaph for the March 1937 school gas explosion, holding a model of the school, a blackboard from that day and an odorizer device.
• East Texas Oil Museum — 14 mi
  A Kilgore College museum that rebuilds the 1930s oil boom in a full-scale Boomtown with a general store, drugstore and newspaper office, plus dioramas, films and antiques given by East Texans.
• Camp Ford Historic Park — 25 mi
  A free county park north of Tyler on the site of the largest Confederate prison camp west of the Mississippi, with a kiosk, an interpretive trail and a historical society museum downtown.
• Goodman-LeGrand House and Museum — 25 mi
  A Tyler house begun in 1859 as four rooms, enlarged by the Goodman family over 73 years, and left to the city in 1939 with its furnishings, in a garden that fills a city block.

More markers nearby

• Pleasant Hill Missionary Baptist Church — 2.9 mi
• Pleasant Hill Cemetery — 3.0 mi
• New London School Explosion — 4.3 mi
• Sartain Homestead — 6.8 mi