Moorhead Cable Tool Rig

The rig came to a town the oil boom kept remaking. In the 1940s real estate prices in Kermit doubled, housing ran so short that some people lived in tents, a bank opened by 1945 and a hospital was built. By 1960 Kermit had more than 6,000 people and 215 businesses, and in the 1960s it counted 10,465 people. The flat ground flooded easily, so the town built new crowned streets. In the 1970s and 1980s the population moved between 8,500 and 6,912, and the 2000 census counted 5,714.

What the plaque says

Moorhead Cable Tool Rig Last wooden oil derrick in U.S. to retire from daily use. Drilled Moorhead No. 1 well on Chapman-McAlvane lease, Loving County. Has bull wheels and rig irons of type not made since 1920s. However, in its day it made deep drilling possible. Pump was steam-driven until 1942, when 4-cylinder gasoline engine began to run the "Yo-Yo" wheels and walking beam. Well was put on electric pump, 1966. Given by R. O. Moorhead to city of Kermit, as a Permian Basin oil empire history exhibit, rig was moved 35 miles to this site without being dismantled. (1966)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Roy Orbison Museum — 8.3 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.
• Million Barrel Museum — 22 mi
  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 — 23 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.

More markers nearby

• Winkler County — steps away
• Kermit — 0.5 mi
• Colonel C. M. Winkler — 0.8 mi
• Old Duval Townsite — 3.0 mi