Upshur County Discovery Well

Sources disagree about the day this well came in. The marker says May 6, 1931; G. H. Baird's 1946 county history gives 4:50 p.m. on May 7, with an estimated 30,000 barrels a day; the county's genealogy site, following the Handbook of Texas, says April 26, with twelve wells producing by the end of May. Baird says the strike shocked a corn-and-cotton county. The assessed valuation climbed from about $8,000,000 to over $25,000,000, old debts were wiped off, and people poured in to buy and sell leases and royalties.

What the plaque says

Upshur County Discovery Well J. D. Richardson No. 1. Completed May 6, 1931; first of 2,000 county wells that produced over 225,000 barrels of oil. Drilled by Mudge Oil Co.; bought by General American Oil Co., (1952). Total depth of well: 3,754 ft.; initial daily production: 35,000 barrels of oil and 10,000,000 cu. ft. of gas. Contractor was Clark and Cowden Drilling Co. Drilling supervisor: T. P. Kirk; Dave McCullough and R. D. Kirk, drillers. Crew: Jess Wright, John Bloomfield, W. B. Stroheim, Grady Williams, R. E. Powers, C. O. Kirk, W. D. Emerson, Tommie Thompson. Is in extension of East Texas oil field, one of world's largest. (1967)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• East Texas Oil Museum — 15 mi
  A Kilgore College museum that rebuilds the 1930s oil boom in a full-scale Boomtown with a general store, drugstore and newspaper office, plus dioramas, films and antiques given by East Texans.
• New London Museum and Cenotaph — 24 mi
  A volunteer-run museum beside the pink granite cenotaph for the March 1937 school gas explosion, holding a model of the school, a blackboard from that day and an odorizer device.
• Tyler State Park — 25 mi
  A 985-acre park eight miles north of Tyler, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps from 1935 to 1941 around a 64-acre spring-fed lake, with more than 13 miles of trails.
• Camp Ford Historic Park — 26 mi
  A free county park north of Tyler on the site of the largest Confederate prison camp west of the Mississippi, with a kiosk, an interpretive trail and a historical society museum downtown.

More markers nearby

• Site of Shiloh School — 1.5 mi
• Shiloh Baptist Church — 1.5 mi
• Union Grove Schools — 2.9 mi
• West Mountain Cemetery — 2.9 mi