Orangefield
Orange, Orange County, Texas
Marker Inscription
THIS COMMUNITY HAS ITS ORIGINS IN THE FIRST WELL DRILLED IN THE ORANGE OIL FIELD. A SHALLOW WELL DRILLED IN 1903 YIELDED NO OIL. AFTER SUCCESSFUL DEEPER DRILLING ON OTHER SALT DOMES, RIO BRAVO OIL CO., A SUBSIDIARY OF THE SOUTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD, DRILLED THE NO. 1 BLAND WELL IN 1913. THIS “WONDER WELL” PRODUCED 150 BARRELS PER DAY FROM 3,209 TO 3,227 FEET, THEN THE DEEPEST WELL IN TEXAS. IN 1921, HUMBLE OIL’S CHESSON NO. 5, ON A HILL ON THE WEST SIDE OF COW BAYOU NEAR THE OLD BRIDGE, PRODUCED 15,000 BARRELS DAILY. ITS SUCCESS SPURRED WILDCATTING AND LED TO DISCOVERY OF THE ORANGE OIL FIELD. TO OVERCOME MARSHLAND AND COW BAYOU FLOODING, ORANGE COUNTY BUILT A SIX-MILE PLANK ROAD TO ACCOMMODATE HEAVY OIL COMPANY EQUIPMENT. EIGHT BUSES HAULED WORKERS TO ORANGE FIELD, WHICH WITH ORANGE EXPERIENCED A POPULATION BOOM. BUSINESSES SPRANG UP, INCLUDING STORES, HOTELS, ROOMING HOUSES, CAFES AND TWO THEATERS. JAPANESE NATIVE KICHIMATSU KISHI ESTABLISHED AN AGRICULTURAL COLONY NEAR THE OIL FIELD. JAPANESE INVESTORS ALSO HEADED THE ORANGE PETROLEUM COMPANY, WHICH RECORDED THE WORLD’S DEEPEST ROTARY-DRILLED WELL AT 5,589 FEET IN 1922. THE ORANGEFIELD POST OFFICE OPENED IN 1922. A JULY 1923 FIRE SPREAD THROUGH THE BUSINESS DISTRICT, CAUSING AN ESTIMATED $75,000 IN DAMAGES. THIS MAY HAVE MARKED THE TURNING POINT IN THE TOWN’S PROSPERITY. BY 1925, MOST OF THE DRILLING CREWS WERE GONE, AND ONLY ONE SECTION CREW REMAINED IN 1927. A 1926 TORNADO AND 1927 FIRE WHICH RAZED THE SCHOOLHOUSE WERE ADDITIONAL SETBACKS. DEMAND FOR OIL AND GAS AFTER WORLD WAR II LED TO A SURGE IN DRILLING ACTIVITY. IN 1963 THE U.S. CONGRESS AGREED TO CHANNEL THE FIRST 7.7 MILES OF COW BAYOU TO SOLVE FLOODING PROBLEMS. HURRICANES AUDREY (1957), RITA (2005) AND IKE (2008) DESTROYED OIL DERRICKS ALONG COW BAYOU. TODAY THE COMMUNITY IS CENTERED AROUND THE ORANGEFIELD INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, CHURCHES, BUSINESSES AND HOMES.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
A shallow well drilled near Orange in 1903 struck no oil, but deeper drilling into the Gulf Coast salt domes changed everything: Rio Bravo Oil Company's 1913 "Wonder Well" was briefly the deepest in Texas, and Humble Oil's 1921 gusher opened the Orange oil field to a wave of wildcatting. A boomtown of stores, hotels, cafes, and theaters rose overnight—served by a six-mile plank road and eight buses—and even drew a Japanese agricultural colony and petroleum company that logged a record-deep rotary well in 1922. A 1923 fire, a tornado, and dwindling crews later thinned the town, which today centers on its school district, churches, and homes.
Why it matters
Orangefield captures the boom-and-bust rhythm of the early-twentieth-century Texas oil rush that transformed the Gulf Coast economy and drew workers and investors from around the world.
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Related people
- · Kichimatsu Kishi
Related events
- · Orange oil field discovery
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Site of The Kishi Colony
Vidor, TX
In 1908, Kichimatsu Kishi—a Japanese native and veteran of the Russo-Japanese War—founded an agricultural colony here, bringing Japanese tenant farmers who found the wet Orange County soil ideal for rice. The settlers became American citizens and adopted Western ways while keeping their homeland's traditions, and Kishi gave land for a church, a school, and a cemetery as Mexican and French Louisiana workers joined them. Falling prices and the Depression broke the colony in the 1930s, though many families stayed and their descendants remain in Southeast Texas.
Alexander Gilmer
Orange, TX
An Irish immigrant who reached America in 1846, Alexander "Sandy" Gilmer built ships in Orange with his cousin and ran a mercantile before the Civil War, when he served the Confederacy as a blockade runner trading local cotton and lumber for scarce supplies and took part in the 1863 Battle of Sabine Pass. After the war he turned to sawmilling, and though fires destroyed four of his mills, he became one of the region's leading lumbermen, with holdings that included the town of Remlig—his name spelled backward. He died in 1906 while on business in New York.
Samuel H. Levingston
Orange, TX
Born in northern Ireland in 1832, Samuel H. Levingston left home at fourteen and learned ship carpentry in Apalachicola, Florida, before moving near present-day Orange just before the Civil War. He served the Confederacy as a ship carpenter and blockade runner, then returned to build paddle-wheel boats hauling cotton down the Sabine. His son George later grew the family trade into the Levingston Shipbuilding Company, and the land the family once farmed became a city park.
Henry Jacob Lutcher
Orange, TX
The son of German immigrants, Henry Jacob Lutcher built a successful lumber business in Pennsylvania before he and partner G. Bedell Moore, drawn by the vast pine forests of southeast Texas, relocated part of their operation to Orange in the 1870s. There he raised a large sawmill, bought up timberland, and introduced improved milling techniques that other operators adopted. His support for deep-water ports at Sabine Pass, Orange, and Beaumont, and for new rail lines, helped knit the region into the national economy; his widow Frances Ann continued his philanthropy after his 1912 death.