The Powell Oil Field
Powell, Navarro County, Texas
Marker Inscription
One of the world's most noted petroleum fields. Discovered 1905; developed in three periods. A number of early shallow wells (800' - 1,000' in Nacatoch Sand), drilled by Claude Witherspoon, are still producing. Field's second and greatest era came as a result of three heartbreaking years of drilling. On Sunday, Jan. 7, 1923, the W. H. Warren-R. K. Blackshear "J. H. Burke No. 1" (2,933' in Woodbine Sand) blew in as a gusher, triggering a feverish drilling boom. As this was prior to spacing and proration regulations, derricks sprouted by the dozens. The site of "J. H. Burke No. 1" is one mile southwest of this marker. On May 8, 1923, another great gusher, the "J. K. Hughes-W. J. McKie No. 1" (2.25 mi. SW), blackened the area with oil which soon ignited, causing 15 deaths. This 8,000-barrel-a-day gusher defined the main pool. By fall, the six-square mile field was outproducing Pennsylvania plus nine other oil states. On Nov. 23, 1923, came peak day of 354,893 barrels. The population skyrocketed. Corn and cotton patches became townsites for Oil City, Tuckertown, Wildcat. In 1923 Powell ran over 30 million barrels; in 1924, over 40 million. It then declined, with last million-barrel year in 1931. Waterflooding ushered in third yield period, 1964. (1973)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Discovered in 1905, the Powell field near Corsicana became one of the world's most famous oil fields when, after years of disappointment, the J. H. Burke No. 1 blew in as a gusher in January 1923 and touched off a frenzied drilling boom. Derricks sprouted by the dozens, a deadly gusher that ignited claimed fifteen lives, and on its peak day the field produced nearly 355,000 barrels, briefly outproducing Pennsylvania and nine other states combined.
Why it matters
Powell's chaotic boom — before spacing and proration rules — helped drive the regulations that would govern the American oil industry for a century.
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Related people
- · Claude Witherspoon
Related events
- · Powell oil boom
- · J. H. Burke No. 1 gusher
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Site of Tuckertown
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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.
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