Upshur County Discovery Well

🏛️The era

In 1931 the country was sinking into the Great Depression. Farm prices had collapsed, banks were failing, and rural East Texas, a land of cotton patches, pine woods, and small towns, was feeling the hard times as much as anywhere.

Then came oil. In the fall of 1930, a wildcat well in neighboring Rusk County opened what turned out to be the East Texas oil field, one of the largest oil fields ever found in the lower forty-eight states. Within months drillers were racing across several counties to find how far the field reached.

The rush brought jobs and money to a struggling region, but also chaos. So much oil poured out so quickly that prices crashed, and state officials struggled for years to control production. Upshur County's first well came in right in the middle of that frenzy.

👥People & events

The J. D. Richardson No. 1 was completed on May 6, 1931. It was drilled by the Mudge Oil Company, with Clark and Cowden Drilling Company as contractor, and it went down to a total depth of 3,754 feet. When it came in, the marker records, it produced 35,000 barrels of oil and ten million cubic feet of gas in its first day, a stunning figure that told everyone the great field extended into Upshur County.

What makes this marker special is that it remembers the workers, not just the company. Drilling supervisor T. P. Kirk oversaw the job, with Dave McCullough and R. D. Kirk as drillers. The crew included Jess Wright, John Bloomfield, W. B. Stroheim, Grady Williams, R. E. Powers, C. O. Kirk, W. D. Emerson, and Tommie Thompson.

Drilling in those days was dangerous, dirty, exhausting work, done around the clock by men who handled heavy pipe and machinery on a wooden rig floor. Having several Kirks on the job hints at something common in the oil patch: family members often worked together.

The Richardson well was only the start. According to the marker, some 2,000 wells would follow in the county, and in 1952 this pioneer well was bought by the General American Oil Company.

🇺🇸Its place in the American story

The East Texas field changed the American oil industry. Its huge output flooded the market in the early 1930s and drove prices to record lows, which forced a national debate over whether and how government should limit production.

Out of that crisis came a new system. The Texas Railroad Commission, backed at one point by the governor's declaration of martial law in the oil field, began setting limits on how much each well could pump, and federal law was later passed to stop illegally produced oil from moving across state lines. Those controls shaped oil prices for decades.

The field also helped pull East Texas through the Depression and went on to supply fuel during the Second World War. This Upshur County discovery well marks the moment that national story reached one more county, and the moment when a rural community's future changed overnight.

🧭If you visit

There is no gusher to see today, and oil field sites can be quiet, rural spots. That is part of the appeal. Stand near the marker and try to imagine the scene in 1931: a tall wooden derrick, the roar of machinery, and a crowd drawn by news that the well had come in.

Take time to read the crew's names. It is rare for a marker to honor the drillers and roughnecks this way, and it is a reminder that the boom was built by people's hands, not just by lucky finds.

Union Grove fits well into a drive through the East Texas oil country. Combine it with other oil boom sites and museums in the surrounding counties to get a fuller picture of how the great field transformed the region. As always, respect private property and any active oil equipment nearby.