Oklahoma's First Waterflood

Bert Collins was borrowing an eastern trick. Waterflooding began by accident at Pithole, Pennsylvania, by 1865 and was common practice in Pennsylvania fields by the 1880s, so the 1931 test adapted an old method to new ground. The hub the stone names had its own history first: Nowata grew from a trading post on land the Delaware under Chief Charles Journeycake bought from the Cherokee Nation in 1868, its name is believed to come from a Delaware word meaning welcome, and its 1904 discovery earned the region a reputation as the world's largest shallow oil field.

What the plaque says

Oklahoma's First Waterflood Injection of water into an oil reservoir to increase recovery was first attempted in Oklahoma on an oil lease 5.8 miles east of this location. From that effort, a recovery method previously used in eastern fields was a- dapted to conditions found in this area. Since then, waterflooding to obtain great- er oil recovery has spread to adjoining states and around the world. The initial waterflood, experimental in nature, was developed by Bert Collins on a shallow producing property in Rogers County in May 1931 on a Carter Oil Com- pany lease. As the test was encouraging, the method was applied to other oil res- ervoirs. Water for modern flooding projects is injected under high pressure into oil-bear- ing formations to force the oil through the strata to nearby producing wells from which it is pumped. On the average, 10 bar- rels of water is injected for each barrel of crude oil recovered. The city of Nowata became the hub of waterflooding for the area with most of the field activity being in Rogers County where vast oil reserves had been proven. Billions of barrels of crude oil have been recovered by waterflooding to pro- vide man with increased supplies of energy and fuel that could still be locked in the earth without the industry's constant effort to improve its recovery methods. Oklahoma Historical Society 1973 with Oklahoma Petroleum Council

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Will Rogers Memorial Museum — 18 mi
  The limestone memorial and museum on the Claremore hilltop Will Rogers bought for his retirement, opened on his birthday in 1938 and holding his papers, his films and his tomb.
• Frank Phillips Home — 20 mi
  The 26-room Neo-Classical house in Bartlesville that the founder of Phillips Petroleum built in 1909, kept almost as the family left it, furniture and all.

More markers nearby

• Birthplace of Will Rogers — 10 mi
• Claremore Mound — 14 mi
• Cabin Creek Battlefield — 24 mi
• Battle of Chustenahlah — 26 mi