Town of Texon

At a time when oil towns meant wildness, Texon was considered a model community. Pittsburgh wildcatters Mike Benedum and Joe Trees formed the Big Lake Oil Company from Texon leases, and its president, Levi Smith, built the town from 1924 to 1926, adding a golf course, tennis courts and a swimming pool to the company houses, school, church and hospital. Smith, a baseball fan, sponsored the semiprofessional Texon Oilers. The town had 1,200 people in 1933 but only 480 by 1952 as production fell. Its post office closed in 1986, and twelve people lived there in 2000.

What the plaque says

Town of Texon Early travelers along many historic trails in this area found the region arid and inhospitable. Given (1876) to the University of Texas, the lands around this marker were leased to cattlemen. The Kansas City, Mexico & Orient Railroad built its line here in 1911, but did little local hauling. Development came after Frank Pickrell and Haymon Krupp of Texon Oil and Land Company drilled for oil. Their driller, Carl Cromwell, brought in Santa Rita No. 1, the first gusher in the Permian Basin, on May 28, 1923. Texon, first company town in the Permian Basin, was founded in 1924 by Big Lake Oil Company. Levi Smith, president of the firm, planned and supervised building of the town, and Ted Williams served as city manager for the company. Texon had stores, shops, a school, a physician, a dentist, a hospital, a theater, a park, a well-known baseball team, and many facilities for recreation. The post office opened in 1926. As many as 2,000 people lived here -- boosters claimed up to 10,000 -- manning the drilling, a gasoline plant, an oil treating plant, and other operations. Plymouth Oil Company absorbed Big Lake Oil Company, then sold out to Marathon Oil Company. The company town was closed in 1962. (1977)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Rankin Museum (Yates Hotel) — 15 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.
• Alley Oop Park and Iraan Museum — 25 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.

More markers nearby

• Santa Rita No. 1 — 0.3 mi
• Grierson Spring — 7.5 mi
• Rankin — 9.1 mi
• The First Bank in Big Lake — 14 mi