Site of Tuckertown
Corsicana, Navarro County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Oil was discovered in Corsicana on June 19, 1894, during the drilling of a water well, setting off the oil boom in Texas. In the ensuing years, oil developers, lease hounds, rough-necks, businessmen, bootleggers, prostitutes, gamblers and other adventurers rushed to Corsicana and the rich fields to the southeast. A number of small boomtowns sprang up after oil was discovered in the Powell field around this site. Tuckertown was the largest of the oil boomtowns in this area. Percy T. Fullwood (1891-1958) of Corsicana had a small grocery on land leased from Corsicana attorney William J. Mckie, who drafted the charter for the Texas Company (Texaco) in 1902. Fullwood and Harry L. Tucker, a town site promoter, formed a partnership in 1923. They sold lots around the store on both sides of the gravel road to Beaumont (now Farm-to-Market Road 637.) Within two months, 3,000 people were living in the tents, houses and shanties of Tuckertown. It exemplified the freewheeling, often unruly life of the Navarro County oil boomtowns. In October 1923 a fire burned most of the north side of town, but the residents rebuilt. In November, the Powell field was completely drilled, and no new digging could be done. Another fire in February 1924 did further damage to Tuckertown. The field continued to decline, and by 1931 most structures in Tuckertown had been torn down. The last grocery store, located in what was once a house, was converted to a barn in 1935. Tuckertown was the center of the earliest and largest oil production in Powell field, which produced about 186,000,000 barrels of oil. By the end of the 20th century, its location was obscured by pasture. (2000)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When oil gushed from a Corsicana water well in 1894, it launched the Texas oil boom, and boomtowns soon sprang up over the rich Powell field to the southeast. Tuckertown, the largest, exploded from a single grocery into a settlement of 3,000 people in tents and shanties within two months of its 1923 founding—a freewheeling mix of roughnecks, businessmen, gamblers, and bootleggers. Fires, the field's rapid depletion, and the end of new drilling emptied it just as fast, and by 1931 most of the town was gone, its site later lost beneath pasture.
Why it matters
Tuckertown is the classic American oil boomtown—born overnight, wild and unruly, and vanished within a decade—capturing the volatile birth of the petroleum industry that transformed Texas.
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Related people
- · Percy T. Fullwood
- · Harry L. Tucker
- · William J. McKie
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Capt. Charles Henry Allyn
Corsicana, TX
A New York native, Charles Henry Allyn served as a Union captain in the Civil War before coming to Texas in 1868 and settling in Corsicana with his wife Angela in 1871. There he became a pillar of the growing town's economy, helping organize its first national bank, savings and loan companies, and cotton mill. He served on the city council and as mayor from 1888 to 1890, remaining active in civic, educational, and church affairs until his death in 1918.
Oil Field Worker
Corsicana, TX
This bronze figure of a roughneck honors the workers who launched Texas's oil industry after crews drilling for water in Corsicana instead struck oil in 1894. That accidental discovery gave Texas its first commercial oil field and its first refinery, years before the more famous Spindletop gusher, turning a modest Navarro County town into a pioneer of the petroleum age. The statue stands for the anonymous laborers who did the dangerous work of pulling that fortune from the ground.
Jester-Butler House
Corsicana, TX
Completed in 1920 for rancher and banker Charles Jester and his wife Marion, this Colonial Revival home was designed by architect Birch D. Easterwood, whose work also graced the Baylor University campus. Its slate roof, wide woodwork, and deep red brick are hallmarks of his refined sense of detail and proportion. Sold to oilman Joe E. Butler in 1932, the house remained in his family until 1979.
The Fortson Family
Rice, TX
The Fortson family came from Mississippi to Navarro County in the 1840s, and Civil War veteran James T. Fortson married into another pioneer family before settling near Rice. His son Joe B. and brother John built up large farming and ranching holdings and became local pillars—running a cotton gin and mercantile, founding the First State Bank of Rice, and organizing levee districts to aid area farmers. Joe B. also served on the school board, and the family's home was built at this site in 1904.