O'Donohoe, John F.

Petrolia, in Clay County, was an oilfield that mattered more for gas. It was named for an oil town in Pennsylvania, and a 1910 gusher, Dorthulia Dunn No. One, made 700 barrels a day, but the field peaked at 550,585 barrels in 1914. The first gas well came in on May 5, 1907. Edwy R. Brown piped gas to Dallas, Fort Worth and twenty-one other towns by 1913 and formed Lone Star Gas in 1909. Because the gas carried a trace of helium, the Army built the country's first helium extraction plant there in 1915.

What the plaque says

O'Donohoe, John F. Mississippi native John F. O' Donohoe (1885-1967) first came to Wichita Falls in 1909 as a scout for the J.M. Guffey Petroleum Company, which later became the Gulf Oil Corporation While staying in the Jolene Hotel, the wildcatter O' Donohoe staked out the company's first lease in Clay County in what became knkown as the Petrolia Oilfield near Henrietta. Without the assistance of a surveyor, he located the company's first major discovery well in the area. After leaving the Guffey Company, O' Donohoe opened an office in the Anderson-Bean building at this site, where other significant businesses, such as Wichita Truck, Wichita Falls Traction Co. and Floral Heights Realty had also operated. In 1916, he was appointed manager of the Wichita Falls Fuel and Development Company, a firm established by the city's Chamber of Commerce. He continued his success in the oil business, organizing the United Petroleum Producers Company in 1919. The next year, he joined the Cline Oil Company, and in 1927 he organized the Petroleum Producers Company, serving for many years as the group's president. In 1941, Shell Oil bought all of the stock in the company. O' Donohoe married Carrie Kell, daughter of oilman and miller Frank Kell, with whom O' Donohoe was associated. Active in the local community, O' Donohoe served as chair on the board of Midwestern University (now Midwestern State University). He also served as director of many industry institutions: Independent Petroleum Associates of America, North Texas Oil and Gas Association, and Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association of Texas, as well as Wichita Falls' First National Bank. In 1941, the Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association honored O' Donohoe with a distinguished service award. He died in 1967 and was buried in the city's Crestview Memorial Park, Today, he is remembered for helping establish Wichita Falls in the petroleum industry. (2004)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• World's Littlest Skyscraper — steps away
  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.
• Kell House Museum — 0.6 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.
• Lake Arrowhead State Park — 12 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.
• Clay County 1890 Jail Museum — 18 mi
  Henrietta's 1890 stone jail a block from the domed courthouse, now the county museum, with its original cells, a gallows that was never used and the sheriff's family quarters.

More markers nearby

• The Zale Legacy — steps away
• Site of St. James Hotel — steps away
• Wichita Falls Opera House — steps away
• Wichita Falls Bank Robbery of 1896 — steps away