Dr. Charles Newton Gould
Amarillo, Potter County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Pioneer in Texas Geology and Paleontology Dr. Charles Newton Gould (1868 - 1949) One of early scientists to use geology in search for oil and gas. This region's rapid economic growth in 1920's and 30's was result of Gould's selection of drill site for Hapgood No. 1--Masterson, discovery well of the vast Panhandle-Hugoton Gas Field, the world's largest known source for helium. Gould was born in Ohio; grew up in Kansas, where he began teaching; gained scientific background in summer schools and in covered wagon and horseback field trips; by 25 was a widely-known paleontologist; became a professor at the University of Oklahoma. In 1903-1905 he made studies of Texas Panhandle water resources, for the United States Geological Survey. A geological structure he observed (1904) and named Alibates Dolomite in 1907 led him to suggest to Amarillo merchants and ranchmen the drilling site in 1918 for Hapgood No. 1-Masterson Well. In 1919 he set the location for Gulf No. 2, first oil well in the Texas Panhandle and High Plains region. Gould was the scientist who first identified these quarries (now Alibates National Monument) as source for flint artifacts made by Ice Age Folsom Man--a major North American anthropological discovery. (1967)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Dr. Charles Newton Gould, an Ohio-born, Kansas-raised scientist who taught his way into paleontology and geology, became a pioneer of using earth science to hunt for oil and gas. His reading of the Texas Panhandle's rock led him to pick the drilling site for the 1918 Hapgood–Masterson well, opening the enormous Panhandle-Hugoton gas field—the world's greatest known source of helium—and he set the location of the region's first oil well the next year. Gould also identified the Alibates flint quarries as the source of tools made by Ice Age Folsom hunters, a landmark discovery in American archaeology.
Why it matters
Gould's work helped turn the Texas Panhandle into an energy powerhouse and linked modern science to the deep human past of the North American plains.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Around 1900 the Texas Panhandle was cattle country: an enormous, windswept plain of ranches and small railroad towns. Water was its defining problem, and the federal government sent scientists to study what lay underground. What they found beneath those grasslands would reshape the region's economy.
The same years saw the birth of the modern petroleum age. After the great Spindletop gusher near Beaumont in 1901, oil fever spread across Texas. Early drilling, though, was often guesswork, driven by surface seeps, hunches and luck. The idea of reading rock formations scientifically to decide where to drill was still new and far from universally trusted.
In the 1920s and 1930s the Panhandle had its own boom. Oil and natural gas brought new money, new workers and new towns to the plains around Amarillo. That boom rested in part on the patient fieldwork of one geologist.
People & events
Charles Newton Gould's path into science was anything but conventional. He was born in Ohio in 1868 and grew up in Kansas, where he started out as a teacher. He learned science in summer schools and on long field trips by covered wagon and on horseback. By his mid-twenties he was a well-known paleontologist, and he went on to become a professor at the University of Oklahoma.
Between 1903 and 1905 Gould studied the water resources of the Texas Panhandle for the U.S. Geological Survey. During that work he noticed a rock formation he later named the Alibates Dolomite. Years afterward, that observation led him to recommend a drilling site to a group of Amarillo businessmen and ranchers. The result was the Hapgood No. 1–Masterson well of 1918, the discovery well of the vast Panhandle-Hugoton Gas Field. The next year he picked the location for Gulf No. 2, the first oil well in the Panhandle and High Plains.
Gould also left a mark on the study of the deep past. He was the first scientist to identify the Alibates quarries as the source of flint used in tools made by Ice Age Folsom people. Few careers stretch from wildcat drilling sites to the earliest chapters of human life in North America, but his did.
Its place in the American story
Gould's work is a clear example of a big shift in American industry: using science instead of guesswork to find energy. As petroleum geology matured, companies came to rely on trained geologists to read the land. That change helped the United States lead the world in oil and gas production for much of the twentieth century.
The gas field his well opened had one more surprise: helium. The Panhandle-Hugoton field became the world's largest known source of the gas, which was scarce and strategically important. Helium filled airships and later supported science, medicine and space exploration, and Amarillo became closely tied to national helium supplies.
The Alibates discovery matters just as much. Flint from these quarries shows up in tools found far across the Great Plains. It gives archaeologists a way to trace how ancient people moved and traded, and it reminds visitors that people lived on these plains for thousands of years before any well was drilled.
If you visit
Take a moment at this marker to picture the Panhandle before the boom: open grassland and scattered ranches, with a scientist on horseback studying the rocks. Then look around at a landscape shaped by the energy industry that his work helped start.
The best companion stop is Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument, a short drive north of Amarillo near Lake Meredith. There you can see the colorful, banded flint that drew people here for thousands of years and learn how it was quarried and traded. Check with the National Park Service ahead of time for how to visit, since access to the quarries is managed.
Amarillo makes a good base for a Panhandle road trip. You can combine Gould's story with the region's ranching heritage, the canyon country to the south, and the long history of travel across the High Plains.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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