Weir No. 1 Oil Well
Rankin, Upton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Except for the original Yates Ranch gusher of 1926, most dramatic oil discovery in Upton County. Brought in December 6, 1961. West of this site 3.5 miles. First quadruple completion of petroleum engineers the most important development of the year 1961-- and the most prolific discovery in many years. Drilled to depth of 12,432 feet. Plugged back at 9,925 feet. Produces from upper, middle and lower strawn zones, and from the bend, with perforations in lower detrital gas zone. Contractor was Brahaney Drilling Co. Discovery made by E. G. Rodman, W. D. Noel and Odessa Natural Gasoline Co., founded by Rodman and Noel, and affiliated with El Paso Natural Gas Products Co. Rodman and Noel, who began their Upton County operations in 1940, have been led in the establishment of a vast petrochemical complex in Odessa. This utilizes in the making of such things as plastics, many petroleum by-products once scrapped as waste. Such leadership and such wells as Weir No. 1 have enabled Upton County to remain for many years one of the outstanding production areas in Texas. (1964)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Brought in on December 6, 1961, the Weir No. 1 well was Upton County's most dramatic oil strike since the Yates gusher of 1926. Drilled past 12,000 feet, it made history as the first quadruple completion by petroleum engineers, tapping multiple producing zones at once. The discovery came from wildcatters E. G. Rodman and W. D. Noel, whose West Texas ventures helped anchor a vast petrochemical complex at Odessa.
Why it matters
Weir No. 1 captures the postwar boom in Permian Basin oil and the engineering ingenuity that turned West Texas crude into a modern petrochemical industry.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
West Texas in the years after World War II was the beating heart of the American oil industry. The Permian Basin, sprawling beneath Upton County and its neighbors, had become one of the most productive petroleum provinces on earth, and the postwar decades saw it drilled deeper and worked harder than ever before as the nation's appetite for energy surged.
Upton County knew the drill-bit's promise well. Its landscape had been reshaped since the 1920s by the search for oil, and the county measured its history in strikes. The Yates Ranch gusher of 1926 had already entered local legend as the discovery against which all others were compared.
By the early 1960s, the easy, shallow oil was long since found. Reaching what remained meant going deeper and getting smarter — pushing wells past two miles into the earth and engineering ways to pull crude from several rock layers at once. That was the frontier when Weir No. 1 came in.
People & events
On December 6, 1961, Weir No. 1 was brought in a few miles from this spot — and it was no ordinary well. Drilled to a depth of 12,432 feet and then plugged back to just under 10,000, it was engineered as the first quadruple completion of its kind, producing from multiple distinct underground zones simultaneously through a single wellbore. In an industry that prized ingenuity, it was hailed as the year's most important development and its most prolific strike in years.
Behind the well stood two names that had been shaping Upton County since 1940: E. G. Rodman and W. D. Noel. Working through the Odessa Natural Gasoline Company they had founded, and drawing on the drilling work of the Brahaney Drilling Company, they turned a difficult discovery into a landmark.
But their real achievement reached beyond any single well. Rodman and Noel led the way in building a vast petrochemical complex at Odessa — an operation that took petroleum by-products once burned off or thrown away as waste and turned them into valuable products, including plastics. The gusher was the headline; the transformation of what oil could become was the lasting work.
Its place in the American story
Weir No. 1 captures a pivotal shift in the American oil story. The wildcatter's era of luck and surface gushers was giving way to something more deliberate — the age of the petroleum engineer, who could read the rock, drill with precision, and coax production from several layers at once. That quadruple completion was a signpost pointing toward the technically sophisticated industry we know today.
Just as important is what happened to the oil after it left the ground. The petrochemical complex that men like Rodman and Noel helped anchor at Odessa reflected a nationwide realization: that crude was not merely fuel to be burned, but raw material for an entire modern world of plastics and manufactured goods. Waste became wealth.
Together, the deep well and the refinery downstream tell the story of how remote West Texas crude helped power — and help build the very materials of — postwar American life.
If you visit
The marker stands near Rankin in Upton County, in the heart of the Permian Basin, where the working oil field is not a museum piece but the living landscape. Pump jacks nod steadily across the horizon, and the industry the marker commemorates is still very much underway all around you.
Don't expect a preserved rig — this is a place to appreciate scale and continuity rather than a single monument. Read the marker, then look out at the surrounding country and consider the two miles of earth beneath your feet that the drillers of 1961 had to conquer, and the engineering it took to do it.
On a drive through West Texas oil country, it fits neatly alongside the region's other petroleum-history markers, offering a specific, human anchor to a story usually told in barrels and statistics. It rewards travelers curious about how the modern industrial world was quite literally pulled out of the ground here.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · E. G. Rodman
- · W. D. Noel
Themes & tags
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