Town of Texon

🏛️The era

For most of the nineteenth century, the country around present-day Big Lake was the kind of place people crossed on their way somewhere else. Travelers on the region's historic trails found it dry, open, and hard on people and animals. Water was scarce and shade was scarcer. Little about the landscape invited anyone to stay.

In 1876 Texas gave large tracts of this West Texas land to the University of Texas. It was meant to be an endowment, but for decades it looked like a poor one. Leasing the range to cattlemen was about the only way to get money from it. Even the arrival of the Kansas City, Mexico & Orient Railroad in 1911 changed little. The line ran through, but there was not much local freight to carry.

The early 1920s were a restless time in the American oil business. Automobiles were spreading quickly across the country, and demand for gasoline was climbing. Wildcatters were testing ground that geologists and bankers had written off. Nationally the decade was a boom time. Out here, a boom had not yet arrived, and many doubted it ever would.

👥People & events

The turn came from promoters willing to bet on long odds. Frank Pickrell and Haymon Krupp of the Texon Oil and Land Company set out to drill on this university land. Their driller, Carl Cromwell, worked the rig through the long, uncertain months that wildcat drilling demanded. On May 28, 1923, Santa Rita No. 1 blew in. It was the first gusher in the Permian Basin, and it proved that a great oil province lay under the scrub.

The well's name has become part of its legend. It is widely told that the drilling venture's Catholic investors suggested naming it for St. Rita, the patron saint of impossible causes. Whatever blessing was involved, the well did what many had called impossible.

A boom needs workers, and workers need a place to live. In 1924 the Big Lake Oil Company founded Texon, the first company town in the Permian Basin. Levi Smith, the company's president, planned the town and oversaw its construction, and Ted Williams served as city manager. This was no rough tent camp. Texon had stores and shops, a school, a doctor, a dentist, a hospital, a theater, a park, and a baseball team people knew well beyond town. A post office opened in 1926.

At its height as many as 2,000 people lived here. Boosters, as boosters will, claimed up to 10,000. Residents worked the drilling crews, a gasoline plant, an oil treating plant, and the other operations of a working oil field. Over the years the business changed hands. Plymouth Oil Company absorbed Big Lake Oil, then sold to Marathon Oil Company. In 1962 the company town closed, and Texon went from a busy community to a ghost town.

🇺🇸Its place in the American story

Santa Rita No. 1 opened the Permian Basin, which became one of the most productive oil regions in the United States. The oil that followed helped fuel a century of American driving, industry, and economic growth. It also changed West Texas from ranch country into a key part of the nation's energy supply.

The gusher also transformed the University of Texas. Oil royalties from the endowment lands, once thought nearly worthless, flowed into the university's Permanent University Fund. That fund became one of the largest educational endowments in the country and has supported public higher education in Texas for generations. The rig from Santa Rita No. 1 was later moved to the university's Austin campus, where it serves as a reminder of where that wealth began.

Texon shows another side of the story too: the company town. Across America, mining, timber, and oil firms built whole communities for their workers. They provided housing, schools, medical care, and recreation, and they kept a firm hand on daily life. Texon is a clear example of that era, both in how quickly such towns grew and in how completely they could vanish once the company no longer needed them.

🧭If you visit

Standing at this marker, look around at the open land and try to picture it crowded with derricks, plant buildings, houses, and a ballfield full of cheering fans. The contrast between the quiet you see today and the bustle the marker describes is the heart of a visit here.

The wide skies and long views of Reagan County are a good reminder of why early travelers found this country hard going. Bring water, and dress for strong West Texas sun and wind.

Texon fits naturally into a road trip through the Permian Basin, where the story of oil is still visible in working pumpjacks across the landscape. If you later pass through Austin, look for the Santa Rita No. 1 rig on the University of Texas campus. Seeing both ends of the story, the lonely field and the university it helped build, makes this marker especially rewarding.