Archer County Discovery Well

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker says about the Archer County Discovery Well. Now settle in, because this one starts small, real small, and ends up meaning a whole lot more than anybody might've guessed back in 1911. That year, a drill bit was boring down into Archer County earth on a well called M.

P. Andrews No. 1. Down it went, foot by foot, until it hit oil sands at nine hundred and twenty feet.

Not a gusher out of some dime novel. Just a quiet meeting between a drill and a sand formation somewhere beneath the Texas prairie. Then came March of 1912, and Andrews No. 1 flowed oil for the first time, at a rate of ten barrels a day.

Ten barrels. You might laugh at that number now, but keep listening. Production in that shallow sand development area rolled along, then stumbled when oil prices dropped.

That's the part of the story they don't always tell you: a well can find oil and still hit hard times. But Archer County wasn't finished. From 1916 to 1921, other pools in the region were tapped, and production rose again.

Then in 1939, the Hull-Silk-Sikes Well came in and opened a major field, a whole new chapter written right on top of the earlier ones. By the time anybody sat down to add it all up, Archer County had produced more than three hundred and thirty-three million barrels of crude oil since 1911. And Andrews No. 1, that ten-barrel-a-day well that started it all, was still pumping.

That's the part that ought to land on you. While the world changed around it, while fields opened and prices swung and decades stacked up, that first well just kept going. Quiet, steady, and still in the game.

What the marker says

M. P. Andrews No. 1, drilled in 1911, reached oil sands at 920 feet. Well first flowed oil, March, 1912, at rate of 10 barrels a day. Production in this shallow sand development area fell off when oil prices dropped, but rose after other pools in the region were tapped from 1916 to 1921. Since then, Archer County has become one of the state's most productive. The Hull-Silk-Sikes Well, 1939, opened a major field. More than 333 million barrels of crude oil have been produced by the county since 1911, with Andrews No. 1 still pumping. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1967.