Million Barrel Tank

The tank went up as Monahans became an oil town. The town had grown slowly until the Hendrick oilfield opened nearby in 1926. It incorporated in 1928 under its first mayor, Fred G. Gibson, and in 1929 the Texas-New Mexico Railway laid track from Monahans to Lovington, New Mexico, to serve the oilfields. A carbon black plant opened in 1937 and a chemical plant the next year, and in 1938 Monahans took the county seat from Barstow. The population rose from 816 in 1930 to 3,944 in 1940 and 8,567 in 1960.

What the plaque says

Million Barrel Tank A project of the Shell Oil Company, the construction of this oil storage tank in 1928 was the result of an oil boom in the area. Built to accommodate crude oil until it could be shipped to refineries, the tank was constructed by crews working on a 24-hour schedule using hand operated and horse-drawn equipment. Covering eight acres of land, the tank was able to hold over one million barrels of oil. It was filled to capacity only once. Efforts to convert it into a water-filled recreation center in the 1950s were unsuccessful, and it became a museum in 1986.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Million Barrel Museum — steps away
  An oil reservoir that could not hold oil, then a water park that lasted one day, now a museum in Monahans with the story of the Pyote bomber base beside it.
• Monahans Sandhills State Park — 4.2 mi
  A small corner of a 200-mile dune field east of the Pecos, where fresh water lies just under the sand and a forest of shin oak grows no higher than your knee.
• Roy Orbison Museum — 20 mi
  A volunteer-run room in the oil town where Roy Orbison spent his high school years, opened on request, with a guitar he played and his tinted prescription sunglasses.
• Odessa Meteor Crater — 26 mi
  A shallow bowl in the ranchland southwest of Odessa where a shower of iron meteorites struck in the late Ice Age, with a trail down into it and a small museum on the rim.

More markers nearby

• Monahans Sandhills State Park and Museum — 4.2 mi
• Willow Springs — 9.6 mi
• Ward County — 12 mi
• Rattlesnake Bomber Base — 16 mi