DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of the story on the official marker for Dr. Charles Newton Gould, right here in Potter County. Now, if you want to talk about a man who changed the Texas Panhandle forever — and I mean *forever* — you pull over, you let the engine cool, and you listen.
Charles Newton Gould was born in Ohio in 1868. Grew up in Kansas, where he started out as a teacher. Didn't have a fancy university laboratory to learn his science in — no, he built his knowledge in summer schools and out of the back of covered wagons, on horseback, riding across the land reading the earth the way some men read a book.
By the time he was twenty-five years old, he was a widely-known paleontologist. Let that settle in a moment. Twenty-five.
Eventually he became a professor at the University of Oklahoma, and that is where the story really starts to pick up speed. In 1903 and 1905, Gould came out to the Texas Panhandle doing studies of water resources for the United States Geological Survey. Hard, patient, scientific work.
And in 1904, he observed a particular geological structure out here — a formation he would later name the Alibates Dolomite in 1907. He filed that observation away in the back of his mind the way a careful man does when he knows something matters, even if he can't yet say exactly how. Then came 1918.
Amarillo merchants and ranchmen were looking for something — looking hard — and Gould stepped forward and suggested a drilling site. The site for a well they called Hapgood No. 1-Masterson. Now, you might hear that name and think, well, that's just a well.
But Hapgood No. 1-Masterson was the discovery well of the Panhandle-Hugoton Gas Field. The world's largest known source for helium. The world's largest.
The rapid economic growth this whole region saw in the nineteen twenties and thirties — that growth traces right back to Gould's selection of that drill site. One man. One site.
One geological structure he'd been quietly thinking about for over a decade. And he wasn't finished. In 1919, he set the location for Gulf No. 2 — the first oil well in the Texas Panhandle and High Plains region.
But here's what I want you to sit with before you pull back onto the highway. Those quarries you can visit today — Alibates National Monument — Gould was the scientist who first identified them as the source for flint artifacts made by Ice Age Folsom Man. A major North American anthropological discovery.
The same ground that held helium for the modern world had also supplied the tools of the ancient one, and Charles Newton Gould is the man who made both of those connections. He lived from 1868 to 1949, and by any measure, the Panhandle you're driving through right now looks the way it does because of where that man told people to drill. Not bad for a fellow who learned his geology on horseback.
What the marker says
Pioneer in Texas Geology and Paleontology Dr. Charles Newton Gould (1868 - 1949) One of early scientists to use geology in search for oil and gas. This region's rapid economic growth in 1920's and 30's was result of Gould's selection of drill site for Hapgood No. 1--Masterson, discovery well of the vast Panhandle-Hugoton Gas Field, the world's largest known source for helium. Gould was born in Ohio; grew up in Kansas, where he began teaching; gained scientific background in summer schools and in covered wagon and horseback field trips; by 25 was a widely-known paleontologist; became a professor at the University of Oklahoma. In 1903-1905 he made studies of Texas Panhandle water resources, for the United States Geological Survey. A geological structure he observed (1904) and named Alibates Dolomite in 1907 led him to suggest to Amarillo merchants and ranchmen the drilling site in 1918 for Hapgood No. 1-Masterson Well. In 1919 he set the location for Gulf No. 2, first oil well in the Texas Panhandle and High Plains region. Gould was the scientist who first identified these quarries (now Alibates National Monument) as source for flint artifacts made by Ice Age Folsom Man--a major North American anthropological discovery. (1967)