Archer County Discovery Well
Archer City, Archer County, Texas
Marker Inscription
M. P. Andrews No. 1, drilled in 1911, reached oil sands at 920 feet. Well first flowed oil, March, 1912, at rate of 10 barrels a day. Production in this shallow sand development area fell off when oil prices dropped, but rose after other pools in the region were tapped from 1916 to 1921. Since then, Archer County has become one of the state's most productive. The Hull-Silk-Sikes Well, 1939, opened a major field. More than 333 million barrels of crude oil have been produced by the county since 1911, with Andrews No. 1 still pumping. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1967.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Drilled in 1911, the M. P. Andrews No. 1 struck oil sand at 920 feet and first flowed in March 1912 at a modest ten barrels a day. Production sagged when prices fell but revived as other pools opened between 1916 and 1921, and the 1939 Hull-Silk-Sikes well unlocked a major field. Since that first strike Archer County has yielded hundreds of millions of barrels, with the pioneering Andrews well still pumping decades later.
Why it matters
This unassuming well opened one of Texas's most productive oil counties, part of the petroleum boom that transformed the state's economy and the nation's energy supply.
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Related events
- · Archer County oil discovery
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Archer County Copper Mines
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Word of copper here first spread after Texas Rangers on an 1860 campaign against the Comanches at the Pease River — led by Lawrence "Sul" Ross, a future governor — carried nuggets back to Austin. During the Civil War that ore was processed into gun caps for Confederate forces, and the Texas Copper Mining & Manufacturing Company was chartered in 1864, though wartime labor shortages stalled it. Repeated ventures into the 1880s and a 1899 lease by an Arizona firm all shipped some ore but failed to find a central vein, and the mines never met expectations.
Extinct Town of Anarene
Archer City, TX
In 1908 landowner Charles E. Graham granted the Wichita Falls and Southern Railroad a route across his property and laid out a townsite, naming it Anarene for his wife, Annie Lawrence Graham. He built a hotel and secured a post office, cattle pens, and a dipping vat, and the schoolhouse doubled as a place of worship. Oil discovered nearby in 1921 and a refinery in 1938 sustained the town until production ceased and the trains stopped in 1954, after which Anarene quickly faded.
Dad's Corner
Holliday, TX
When oil was struck in Archer County in 1923, a wildcat boomtown erupted at this crossroads almost overnight, complete with a hotel, cafe, school, ice house, and roughly two dozen businesses. It took its homespun name from a food-stand operator known simply as "Dad." As the county's largest oil field drew workers half a mile to the southeast, cowboys traded their saddles for drilling rigs, and residents long remembered a rowdy stretch of lawlessness patrolled by the Texas Rangers. When the wells and the boom played out, Dad's Corner emptied into a ghost town.
Bridwell Park
Windthorst, TX
Joseph Sterling Bridwell, a Missourian who moved to Texas in 1909, drilled his first well in 1921 and built the Bridwell Oil Company into an operation that ultimately produced fifty million barrels. He poured his fortune back into the region as a rancher breeding prize Hereford cattle, a founder and president of the West Texas Chamber of Commerce, and the donor of the land for Sheppard Air Force Base. This park was among the gifts he made to his fellow citizens.