Lambrecht's Artesian Well

Lambrecht's well flowed because the water under Humble was under pressure. Before heavy pumping, a U.S. Geological Survey case history says, the pressure surface of the region's aquifers stood roughly 49 to 98 feet above the ground, which is how a hole drilled for oil could run with water. Regional pumping began in the 1890s and kept climbing. Between 1943 and 1973 levels in the Evangeline aquifer fell as much as 325 feet, and the land at Pasadena sank about seven and a half feet. In 1975 the legislature created the Harris-Galveston Coastal Subsidence District to regulate pumping.

What the plaque says

Lambrecht's Artesian Well An oil well drilled at this site in 1912 yielded not oil, but free-flowing artesian water. The following year, German native Nick Lambrecht (1855-1920) purchased the property. Lambrecht served as justice of the peace and mayor during Humble's oil boom days in the early 20th century and in 1904 had installed a water system to meet the needs of the many oil field workers who came to town. Lambrecht's artesian well was used to supply water to bathhouses and was also piped to nearby homes. In earlier years, water had been hauled to town in barrels on horse-drawn wagons. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Houston Park and the Heritage Society — 18 mi
  Ten historic buildings gathered in a downtown park below the skyscrapers, among them the 1870 house of the Reverend Jack Yates, built five years after emancipation.
• Emancipation Park — 19 mi
  The Third Ward park that freedpeople bought for Juneteenth in 1872, rebuilt in 2017 on Emancipation Avenue and still the center of the city's June 19 celebration.
• Buffalo Soldiers National Museum — 20 mi
  A museum in Houston's 1925 Light Guard Armory that tells the service of Black soldiers from the Revolutionary War onward, built from one veteran's thirty years of collecting.
• Rothko Chapel — 20 mi
  An octagonal chapel open to all faiths, built by the de Menils around fourteen dark canvases by Mark Rothko, with Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk standing in the pool outside.

More markers nearby

• First United Methodist Church of Humble — 0.2 mi
• Humble Cemetery — 0.4 mi
• Humble Lodge No. 979, A.F. & A.M. — 0.5 mi
• City of Humble — 0.6 mi