Conroe Oil Field
Conroe, Montgomery County, Texas
Marker Inscription
One of the great petroleum areas of the Texas coastal region. Opened December 13, 1931, by the discovery well of George Strake (No. 1 South Texas Development Company), about 1.4 miles west of here. Initial daily flow: 15,000,000 cubic feet of gas, along with white gasoline. Strake's second well, a 900-barrel-a-day producer, and the Heep Oil Corp. No. 1 Freeman (both coming in during June 1932) proved existence of a large field. Fast-paced drilling ensued. In January 1933 Madeley No. 1, of Kansas Standard, came in as a wild well and on fire. TNT charges and tons of earth did not smother the fire; it burned about three months. Cratering spread to Harrison and Abercrombie well nearby, and that gushed out of control. In January 1934 a driller for Humble "killed the blowout," by using directional drilling for first time in coastal Texas. This saved the field. (The crater is 600 feet deep.) The Conroe field was the first in Texas to adopt 20-acre spacing, before this was mandatory under conservation rules. It has yielded over 400,000,000 barrels of oil; now produces at the yearly rate of 5,300,000 barrels. After the dramatic discovery here, Montgomery County developed eleven other oil fields, and has reserves for continuing production. (1967)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
On December 13, 1931, George Strake's discovery well opened the Conroe Oil Field, one of the great petroleum finds of the Texas coastal region during the depths of the Depression. Explosive early wells—including a wild well that caught fire and burned for months—proved a giant field before a pioneering directional-drilling operation by Humble in 1934 tamed a runaway blowout. The field went on to yield over 400 million barrels and helped make Montgomery County an oil powerhouse.
Why it matters
Conroe's crisis and rescue advanced the drilling techniques that shaped the modern oil industry, and its riches buoyed a Texas economy battered by the Great Depression.
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Related people
- · George Strake
Related events
- · Conroe Oil Field discovery
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Crater Hill
Conroe, TX
In 1933 the Madeley wells, drilled by Standard Oil of Kansas, came in on fire and threatened to destroy the entire Conroe oil field, sending flames as high as 150 feet as crews battled for three months with water, mud, and explosives. Humble Oil finally quelled the inferno with a directional well never before tried on the Texas Gulf Coast, pumping mud into the blowout crater. Crater Lake, born of those explosions, still marks the site.
The Isaac Conroe Property
Conroe, TX
A New Jersey native and Union Army veteran of the Civil War, Isaac Conroe moved to Southeast Texas in 1866 and in 1878 built a sawmill whose lumber business gave rise to the town of Conroe, connected by a tram line to the International and Great Northern Railroad. He became the settlement's first postmaster and built this residence in 1885. From 1889 to 1891 it served as the temporary Montgomery County courthouse until a permanent one was completed, and his son William later expanded the home.
Conroe Telephone Exchange
Conroe, TX
Conroe's telephone service began in 1899 inside Gilbert's Drug Store, where a local exchange grew out of a long-distance line running up from Houston. George Madeley soon bought the operation and ran it from his building on this site, and by the late 1920s it had grown into a busy switchboard staffed by toll, rural, and local operators. A dial system arrived in 1954, carrying the small-town exchange into the modern era.
Conroe Fire of 1911
Conroe, TX
In the early morning of February 21, 1911, a fire broke out in the Capitol Drug Store on Chambers Street and, driven by a north wind, swept through downtown Conroe toward the railroad tracks. The volunteer fire company, armed with a single hand-pulled hose cart and too little water pressure, could not stop it, and sixty-five buildings, businesses, and homes were lost at a cost of some $150,000. In response the city council quickly required fireproof construction, then mandated brick and stone, and downtown rose again in the stately masonry buildings that still stand.