KMA Oilfield

The partners began as land dealers. The Handbook of Texas says that in 1912 they formed a company that bought 1,000 acres of Wichita River valley land for resale. The oil venture cost $50,000. The town around the wells was K-M-A, then Kemp City by 1928. The first wells stopped producing in the 1930s, but deeper ones succeeded, and by 1938 more than 100 were operating around Kemp City, along with three natural gas plants. By the late 1940s it had 700 people and twenty-one rated businesses, and it reported 642 from the late 1950s to 1990.

What the plaque says

Covering 135,000 acres and holding more than 3,000 wells, the KMA Oilfield has impacted the north Texas area since the early twentieth century. In January 1919, four local businessmen, Joseph A. Kemp (1861-1930), S.I. Munger (1855-1921), H.M. Munger (1854-1923) and Reece S. Allen (1874-1946), joined together to form the Kemp-Munger-Allen Oil Company and bought a plot of land in southwestern Wichita County. From its inception, the KMA Oilfield continuously produced oil from depths of 75 to 4,300 feet and almost all major oil companies profited from the operation. KMA's first oil well began flowing in October 1919 and by August 1921, the oilfield produced 7,200 barrels of oil per day. However, with production declining and the appearance of saltwater, investors had to find alternate methods for oil acquisition. Deep Oil Company's 1931 discovery of the 3800-ft. oil zone led to the 1937 Kadane-Mangold 2000-barrel-per-day gusher and the 1942 Ellenberger 4300-ft. oil zone. Pressurized gas and saltwater injection advances in the 1940s and 1950s ensured continued oil recovery in the KMA field. Over the years, the success of the KMA Oilfield led to the boom of the old town of Kemp City. As the town expanded in size, residents called for a post office. Because Kemp, Texas, already existed to the southeast and KMA was not accepted as a word, the postmaster added an "a" and a "y" to KMA to designate the town as Kamay, naming the town after the oilfield that spurred the region's initial boom. (2018)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Kell House Museum — 19 mi
  The 1909 Classic Revival house of Frank Kell, the miller and railroad builder who helped make Wichita Falls a city, shown by guided tour with its family furniture still in place.
• World's Littlest Skyscraper — 19 mi
  A four-story brick tower in downtown Wichita Falls, 40 feet tall and 10 feet wide, the leftover of a 1919 oil-boom office deal in which, the story goes, investors misread inches as feet.
• Royal Theater — 21 mi
  Archer City's movie house, burned in 1965, given a false front for The Last Picture Show and brought back by the town in the 1990s as a working stage on Main Street.
• Lake Arrowhead State Park — 25 mi
  A prairie park on the north shore of the Wichita Falls water-supply lake, which drowned the town of Halsell in 1965-66, with mesquite campsites, a lighted pier and more than 200 bird species.

More markers nearby

• Van Dorn Trail — 3.1 mi
• Site of Valley View School — 3.1 mi
• The D. S. Dudley Show — 5.3 mi
• Maggie and Herod "Pap" Simpson — 7.5 mi