Geological Riches of Moore County
Dumas, Moore County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Have proved beneficial from earliest times when prehistoric man developed first industry in Texas by mining flint deposits along the Canadian River. Items made from these quarries have been found over a large portion of the western United States. Slabs of dolomite from area were used to build sturdy, warm homes; interiors were coated with mixture of sand, clay and caliche -- an advance uncommon in prehistoric North America. Modern man has established 31 industries based on oil and gas, to take advantage of geological riches untapped by ancient man. (1970)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The land around Dumas has been prized for its geology far longer than any oil derrick suggests. Prehistoric peoples mined flint from quarries along the Canadian River — an early Texas "industry" whose tools turn up across the western United States — and built sturdy, insulated homes from local dolomite slabs, an unusually advanced technique for the era. Centuries later, modern Moore County tapped a different underground treasure, oil and gas, to support dozens of industries.
Why it matters
It links the oldest human industry on the Southern Plains to the modern energy economy, showing how the same ground rewarded very different peoples across thousands of years.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Site of Historic Drift Fence
Dumas, TX
Before the mid-1880s the Texas Panhandle had no range fences, so winter blizzards drove cattle south from Oklahoma, Colorado, and Kansas onto Texas ranges, mixing the herds and overgrazing the Canadian River breaks. To stop the costly spring separations, ranches like the Turkey Track, LX, and LIT joined to build a 200-mile, four-strand barbed-wire drift fence — until an 1889 state law against fencing public land forced most of it down by 1890.
City of Dumas
Dumas, TX
In 1891 Louis Dumas and J.R. Wheat organized a townsite company on the high, dry plains of the Texas Panhandle and named the new community for Dumas himself. A post office arrived that year, county-seat status the next, and a bank by 1908—yet the arid land drew few settlers and the town stayed small. Everything changed when oil was discovered in 1927, transforming Dumas's fortunes almost overnight.
Moore County
Dumas, TX
Carved from the Bexar Land District in 1876 and formally organized in 1892, Moore County took its name from Edwin W. Moore, commodore of the Republic of Texas navy. In its early days stagecoaches and freight wagons crossed a thinly settled Panhandle where ranching was nearly the only livelihood. That changed sharply after oil and gas were struck in 1926, and the county's economy grew into petrochemicals, helium, cattle feeding, and grain.
Masterson
Masterson, TX
In 1927 three companies joined forces to build a natural gas plant and pipeline carrying fuel all the way to Denver, and a small company town of workers' cottages, a hotel, and a one-room school grew up around it, first called Bivins. World War II brought a second boom: a federal Bureau of Mines helium plant opened nearby in 1943, ringed by seventy-five new homes and a recreation hall for the Exell workers. Renamed Masterson after the post office rejected "Bivins," the community thrived until the 1960s, when residents were told to move on and the twin camps emptied by 1970.