Crater Hill

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Somewhere out in Montgomery County, there's a lake sitting quiet on the landscape — and if you didn't know the story, you might just drive right past it and think nothing of it. But that lake has a name, and that name is Crater Lake, and the story of how it got there is the kind of story that'll make you glad you pulled over.

Now, the marker doesn't mince words, so neither will I. In 1933, Standard Oil Company of Kansas drilled two wells out here — Madeley No. 1 and No. 2, they were called. Those wells came in on fire.

Not a little fire. Not a manageable situation. They came in on fire, and the flames reached as high as one hundred and fifty feet.

You think about that for a second. A hundred and fifty feet of fire, right here in the Conroe oil field, threatening the whole operation. Firefighters went at it with everything they had — water, mud, and explosives — and still that inferno held its ground.

Three months. Three long months, that fire burned. Now, eventually, it fell to Humble Oil Company to try something that had never been tested on the Texas Gulf Coast before — a directional well.

They drilled it, they pumped mud down into the crater the blowouts had torn open, and they put those fires out. The crater left behind by the explosions filled with water and became Crater Lake, and it remains on the site to this day. Still waters, friend.

But they earned their quiet.

What the marker says

Oil wells known as Madeley No. 1 and No. 2, drilled in 1933 by Standard Oil Company of Kansas, came in on fire and threatened the entire Conroe oil field. The flames reached as high as 150 feet as firefighters struggled for three months to control the inferno with water, mud, and explosives. Finally Humble Oil Company, using a method never before tested on the Texas Gulf Coast, drilled a directional well, pumped mud into the crater caused by the blowouts, and extinguished the fires. Crater Lake, created by the explosions, remains on the site. (1967, 1995)