World's Richest Acre

Texas Highways reports that wells here were sunk even at a Presbyterian church, whose members tore down their sanctuary to make room, and at the Kilgore National Bank, where a well was drilled through the floor. By 1940 the block had 24 wells pumping. By the early 1960s all but one derrick had been removed as production declined. In the 1990s the Kilgore Historical Preservation Association turned the block into a park at Commerce and Main streets and added 12 derricks to recreate the historic skyline.

What the plaque says

World's Richest Acre Part of fabulous East Texas oil field discovered in 1930. This 1.195-acre tract had first production on June 17, 1937, when the Mrs. Bess Johnson-Adams & Hale No. 1 well was brought in. Developed before well-spacing rules, this block is the most densely drilled tract in the world, with 24 wells on 10 lots owned by six different operators. This acre has produced over two and a half million barrels of crude oil; selling at $1.10 to $3.25 a barrel, it has brought more than five and a half million dollars. A forest of steel derricks for many years stood over the more than 1,000 wells in downtown Kilgore, marking the greatest concentration of oil wells in the history of the world. Dozens of these derricks still dot city's internationally famous skyline. Since 1930, the East Texas oil field has produced nearly four billion barrels of oil. It now has more than 17,000 producing wells, and geologists predict a future of at least 45 years for this "granddaddy of oil fields." Its development has attracted to the area many diversified industries and a progressive citizenship with a high degree of civic pride. (1966)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• East Texas Oil Museum — 0.8 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 — 11 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.
• Camp Ford Historic Park — 23 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.
• 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.

More markers nearby

• The Kilgore I&GN-Missouri Pacific Railroad Station — steps away
• Lou Della Crim Home — steps away
• Site of Alexander Institute — steps away
• The New Deal Era in Kilgore — 0.4 mi