First Producing Gas Well in Kleberg County
Kingsville, Kleberg County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Natural gas was first encountered in 1912 by Frank House while drilling for water on the Oscar Rosse farm. Other efforts to obtain fresh water resulted in more gas pockets or water contaminated with salt or oil. An unsuccessful attempt was made in 1915 to develop gas production. In Oct. 1919, the Kleberg County Oil and Gas Company was formed in Kingsville by lumber and hardware merchants Charles H. Flato and his son, Charles, Jr., oil sales manager H. C. Dennett, grocer J. F. Ivey, postmaster Marcus Phillips, Kingsville mayor J. C. Nolan, and retail merchants Sam Sellers, Ben F. Wilson, and C. M. Allen. The company leased the Rosse farm on October 30, 1919, and contracted Hammill and Bess Drilling Company of Bay City to drill a well. The Rosse No. 1 was completed on January 16, 1920, at a depth of 3,000 feet. Pipelines were soon laid into Kingsville to supply businesses and residences with gas. Another well, the Rosse No. 2, completed in March 1920, was the first producing oil well in the county. The discovery of gas and oil in the county provided a foundation for economic growth through development of petrochemical and refining industries.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Kleberg County's petroleum age began by accident in 1912, when Frank House struck natural gas while drilling for water on the Rosse farm. Local merchants and civic leaders organized the Kleberg County Oil and Gas Company in 1919, and their Rosse No. 1 well came in at 3,000 feet in early 1920, soon piping gas to Kingsville's homes and businesses. A second well that spring became the county's first producing oil well, laying the foundation for a petrochemical economy.
Why it matters
This chance discovery launched the oil and gas industry that would reshape South Texas, part of the petroleum boom that transformed the state's economy.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the early twentieth century, South Texas was ranch country. Kingsville grew up in the early 1900s alongside the vast King Ranch and a new railroad line. Kleberg County itself was organized in 1913. The economy ran on cattle, farming and the merchants who served them. Fresh water mattered more than anything else, and people drilled wells to find it.
In the rest of Texas, oil had already changed everything. The famous Spindletop gusher near Beaumont in 1901 set off a rush that spread across the state in the decades that followed. Towns that had never thought of themselves as oil country started wondering what might lie under their own fields.
The years around World War I made those questions more urgent. Automobiles were multiplying, industry needed fuel, and natural gas was becoming a practical way to light and heat homes and power businesses. Across Texas, local investors began pooling their money to test the ground beneath them.
People & events
The story begins with a disappointment. In 1912, Frank House was drilling for water on the Oscar Rosse farm and hit natural gas instead. For a farmer, that was a problem, not a prize. Later attempts to find fresh water kept turning up more gas, or water fouled with salt or oil. Someone tried to develop gas production in 1915, but it failed.
By the fall of 1919, the town was ready to try again. A group of Kingsville's leading citizens formed the Kleberg County Oil and Gas Company. They were an ordinary slice of small-town life: lumber and hardware merchant Charles H. Flato and his son, oil sales manager H. C. Dennett, a grocer, the postmaster, the mayor and several retail merchants. They leased the Rosse farm at the end of October and hired a drilling company from Bay City.
In January 1920, the Rosse No. 1 was completed at 3,000 feet and became the county's first producing gas well. Pipelines soon carried its gas into Kingsville, to homes and businesses alike. That March, the Rosse No. 2 became the county's first producing oil well. A water well that went wrong had become the start of an industry.
Its place in the American story
The Rosse wells are a small chapter in one of the biggest economic stories of twentieth-century America: the rise of petroleum. The oil and gas found under Texas fueled cars, factories and cities across the nation. It helped make the United States the industrial power it became.
What stands out about this marker is who took the risk. There were no distant corporations or famous wildcatters here. A grocer, a postmaster, a mayor and a few shopkeepers pooled their money on a hunch. Similar local ventures played out in many American towns in the oil era, and some of them paid off in ways that changed their regions for good.
As the marker notes, the discovery laid a foundation for refining and petrochemical industries in the area. That kind of change repeated itself along the Texas Gulf Coast, where oil and chemicals became a pillar of the modern American economy.
If you visit
Kingsville is an easy stop on a South Texas road trip, and the town still reflects its ranching roots. The marker is a chance to picture this flat, open country before the oil age, when a farmer's biggest hope for a new well was simply clean water.
When you stand at the marker, think about how unremarkable the start of it all was: a drill rig on a farm, looking for something to drink. Many oil booms began with an accident like this one.
Pair a visit with the area's ranching history and the wide coastal plain that stretches toward the Gulf. Together, cattle and petroleum tell the two great economic stories of this part of Texas.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Frank House
- · Charles H. Flato
- · H. C. Dennett
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Dawson Richard Murchison
Kingsville, TX
Born in Bastrop County in 1887, Dawson Richard Murchison served as a Texas state game warden from 1930 until his death, stationed at Kingsville. In 1938 he was killed in the line of duty in neighboring Jim Wells County when he and fellow wardens confronted men illegally "spotlighting" deer at night. He and his wife, Mattie B. Wright, had five children.
Uriah Lott
Kingsville, TX
Albany, New York native Uriah Lott came to South Texas in 1868 and devoted his life to binding the region together with railroads. He chartered the line that became the Texas-Mexican Railroad, built the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway to 688 miles of track, and finally pushed rails to the southern tip of Texas, reaching Brownsville by 1904. The new town of Kingsville marked that arrival with a Fourth of July celebration.
Kingsville Cotton Mill
Kingsville, TX
Built in 1921 after a North Carolina promoter rallied local investors, the Kingsville Cotton Mill spun locally grown cotton into yarn for northern carpet makers, employing 250 workers at its peak. Low profits closed it in 1924, but new operators reopened it to make Model-T brake linings and packing twine; during World War II it turned out twine and khaki belts for military uniforms. After the war the King Ranch bought the building and converted it into an elementary school, which it gave to the community in 1947.
The King Ranch
Kingsville, TX
In 1853 Rio Grande steamboat captain Richard King bought two Spanish land grants on Santa Gertrudis Creek and began building what became the legendary King Ranch. Through drought, cattle thieves, and the Civil War—when the ranch funneled Confederate cotton to Mexico—King and his heirs bred longhorns into fortunes, pioneered the Santa Gertrudis cattle breed, and expanded the ranch to nearly a million acres.