DUANE
Get the App
Duane's take
The way the marker tells it, here's what happened out in Andrews County, and I'm takin' every word straight from that official Texas Historical Commission inscription. December of 1929. Deep Rock Oil Company brings in a well.
They call it C. E. Ogden No. 1, and when it comes in, it comes in swinging.
Two hundred barrels a day, pulled right up from the San Andres lime formation down below. Now, you have to understand what that moment means out on that West Texas hardpan. That one well is the Andrews County discovery well.
The first. The opener. And what does it open?
The Fuhrman-Masco oil field. Seven hundred and thirty wells would eventually follow that first one into the ground. But in December of 1929, there's just the one.
Fast forward to February of 1932. The Tripplehorn brothers, over out of Fort Worth, buy the well. Life goes on.
The pump keeps turning. By the time this marker was written in 1965, that well had been pumping for more than thirty-five years. Think about that the next time you figure something's outlived its usefulness.
And the field it started? The Fuhrman-Masco field had produced fifty-five million barrels of oil. Fifty-five million.
That's just its share of a much larger number, because Andrews County itself crossed one billion barrels total in May of 1965. One billion barrels. And since 1956, Andrews had been the top producing county in all of Texas, and the top producing county in the entire United States.
It all started with one well. Two hundred barrels a day. December of 1929.
C. E. Ogden No. 1, still pumping.
What the marker says
C. E. Ogden No. 1, producing 200 barrels a day from San Andres lime formation was brought in, Dec. 1929, by Deep Rock Oil Co.--the Andrews County discovery well and first of 730 wells in Fuhrman-Masco oil field. Bought, Feb. 1932, by Tripplehorn brothers, of Fort Worth. Has now pumped for more than 35 years. Since 1956, Andrews has been top producing county in Texas and U. S. Fuhrman-Masco field has produced 55 million barrels of oil--its contribution to total of more than a billion barrels for Andrews County in May, 1965. (1965)