Oil Industry in Gaines County
Seminole, Gaines County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The first oil lease in Gaines County was in 1912 and the first drilling occurred in 1925. Ten years later the Landreth Co. brought in the first producing well. In 1936 Amerada Oil Co. opened up the Seminole Pool, a major field that yielded 350 wells within a decade. Less than 50 years after that discovery, Gaines County had produced over one billion barrels of crude oil. With several active fields, Gaines ranks as one of the top oil producing counties in Texas. The petroleum industry accounts for much of this area's prosperity. (1979)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Gaines County's first oil lease dates to 1912, but real drilling waited until 1925, and the Landreth Company brought in the first producing well a decade later. In 1936 Amerada Oil opened the Seminole Pool, which yielded 350 wells within ten years. Less than fifty years after that strike, the county had produced over a billion barrels of crude.
Why it matters
It marks the West Texas oil boom that transformed the arid Permian Basin into one of the nation's great engines of petroleum wealth.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Gaines County lies on the high, dry plains of far West Texas, near the New Mexico line. For much of its history it was ranching country, with wide open grassland, scarce water, and few people. Like much of West Texas, its future changed when geologists and wildcatters began to suspect that oil lay deep beneath the surface.
The early twentieth century was the age of Texas oil. After the famous Spindletop gusher near Beaumont in 1901, oil fever spread across the state. Through the 1920s, exploration pushed into West Texas and the Permian Basin, a vast geological region that would prove to be one of the richest oil-producing areas on Earth.
The Seminole Pool opened in 1936, in the middle of the Great Depression. At a time of hardship across the country, oil brought jobs, money, and new residents to places that had struggled. In the decades that followed, World War II and the postwar boom made petroleum more valuable than ever, and fields like those in Gaines County helped fuel the nation.
People & events
Gaines County's oil story was a long wait followed by a great payoff. The first oil lease in the county was signed in 1912, but it was not until 1925 that anyone actually drilled. Exploring such remote country was slow and expensive, and early drillers did not always find what they hoped for.
The breakthrough came about a decade later, when the Landreth Company brought in the county's first producing well. The following year, in 1936, the Amerada Oil Company opened the Seminole Pool. This was the discovery that changed everything: within a decade, the field had yielded 350 wells.
From there, the county's output grew to enormous scale. Less than fifty years after the Seminole discovery, Gaines County had produced more than a billion barrels of crude oil. With several active fields, the county ranks among the top oil producers in Texas, and the petroleum industry accounts for much of the area's prosperity.
Its place in the American story
The story told on this marker is part of one of the most important economic stories in modern America: the rise of the Permian Basin. Over the twentieth century, the oil fields of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico became one of the nation's leading sources of petroleum, powering cars, factories, and the American military.
Oil transformed the region socially as well as economically. Quiet ranching counties gained new towns, schools, roads, and residents almost overnight. Oil money paid for public services and built local fortunes, and the industry's booms and busts shaped the lives of generations of West Texans.
Gaines County's billion barrels are a striking reminder of how much of America's energy came from places most travelers have never heard of. The marker captures that national story at the local level, from a single lease in 1912 to a county ranked among the state's top oil producers.
If you visit
Driving through Gaines County, you can see the marker's story written across the landscape. Look for pumpjacks nodding steadily in the fields, storage tanks, and the network of pipelines and lease roads that tie the oil country together. Against the wide, flat plains and big West Texas sky, the industry is hard to miss.
The marker is in the area of Seminole, the county seat, which shares its name with the famous Seminole Pool. Take a moment to imagine the county before 1936, when it was mostly ranchland, and compare that picture to the working oil country around you today. Stay off private oil leases and well sites, which are working industrial areas and can be hazardous.
This stop fits naturally into a road trip across the Permian Basin. It is a good chance to understand why West Texas looks the way it does, and why so many of its towns owe their growth to what lies far below the ground.
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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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Dan Cobb
Seminole, TX
A Tennessee native, Dan Cobb was the builder who gave early Gaines County much of its shape, constructing both the first county courthouse in 1906 and its 1922 successor, along with a Baptist sanctuary, a schoolhouse, and other landmark buildings. He and his wife Aurelia raised six children in the home they built here in 1906, and he held civic roles and even a federal mail contract spanning three counties. His work and leadership were central to the young county's growth.
Gaines County
Seminole, TX
Gaines County was created in 1876 and named for James L. Gaines, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. Anglo settlement began around 1895, the county formally organized in 1905 with Seminole as its seat, and a courthouse rose the next year. Ranching and farming ruled the economy until the 1930s, when booming oil production reshaped this corner of the West Texas plains.
C. M. Armstrong Building
Seagraves, TX
Clifton Martin Armstrong helped build northern Gaines County from its earliest days, brokering major land deals and selling town lots when Seagraves was founded in 1917. He served twelve years as mayor and, with his wife Carobel — daughter of pioneer rancher Col. D.H. Snyder — was a fixture of community life. In 1926 he raised this building to house his Seagraves Motor Co., and after a fire leveled the block in 1928 it briefly sheltered a bank and the post office.
Discovery Well in the Wasson Field
Denver City, TX
Ranchers L.P. and Ruth Bennett, facing foreclosure amid Depression-era drought, saw their fortunes reversed on October 10, 1935, when wildcatter Red Davidson and Honolulu Oil crews struck oil on their Yoakum County land. The discovery well opened the vast Wasson Field and sparked a boom that gave birth to nearby Denver City in 1939. Petroleum remains the region's economic engine, and the family later donated this ground for a county park.