Marathon Oil Company Discovery Well

The field's later records were as striking as its start. In October 1928 oil escaping from poorly cased deep wells was found seeping under the banks of the Pecos and floating on the river, and by mid-1933 more than 3.25 million barrels had been recovered by skimming and by shallow wells. In September 1929 the Yates 30-A set a world record of 8,528 barrels an hour, and the field produced more than 41 million barrels that year. Marathon became unit operator on July 1, 1976, and the field produced its billionth barrel on January 11, 1985.

What the plaque says

Marathon Oil Company Discovery Well Opening one of greatest oil fields in the world, Mid-Kansas Oil and Gas Company (a subsidiary wholly owned by the Ohio Oil Company, whose name has now been changed to Marathon Oil Company) brought in the I. G. Yates "A" No. 1 well on October 29, 1926. The well at the shallow depth of 1,150 feet had a rated potential daily flow of 72,869 barrels. Previously oil men had said: "You won't find any oil west of the Pecos." This did not stop the work of Mid-Kansas Oil and Gas Company and its partner, Transcontinental Oil Company, later acquired by Marathon Oil Company. The strike was sensational. Scarcely more than a year later, the Yates field had 100 wells--two of which had higher yields than Yates No. 1. Under the 20,000-acres Ira G. Yates ranch and adjoining lands lay one of the largest oil reserves in the world. The many developers voluntarily adopted proration. Their plans for allocating and restricting Yates fields production were approved by the Texas Railroad Commission in 1928. This was the first complete commission in 1928. This was the first complete proration of an oil field in the state --and an important milestone in petroleum conservation. The Yates field now has 607 wells. (1966)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Alley Oop Park and Iraan Museum — 0.3 mi
  An oil-boom town named for Ira and Ann Yates, where the creator of the caveman comic Alley Oop once worked, and a park of giant cartoon figures beside the town museum.
• Rankin Museum (Yates Hotel) — 21 mi
  The fireproof hotel Ira Yates built beside the Orient railway depot months after oil came in on his ranch in 1926, kept as it was down to the wicker lobby furniture.
• Fort Lancaster State Historic Site — 21 mi
  An 1855 post on Live Oak Creek above the Pecos, on the lower road to El Paso, where the army's camels passed three times and Buffalo Soldiers held off an attack in 1867.
• Mendoza Trail Museum — 24 mi
  A 1966 museum in a 1925 oil town, named for the Spanish officer who crossed this country in 1683 at the invitation of the Jumano, with a 1915 bungalow beside it.

More markers nearby

• Iraan — 0.7 mi
• Giddings' Pecos Station — 4.2 mi
• Camp Melvin and the Pontoon Crossing of the Pecos River — 9.0 mi
• Sheffield — 16 mi