DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, every good oil story needs a beginning, and Ector County's beginning is a beauty — because it starts not with a gusher, but with a whole lot of nothing. The year is 1924, and geologists are practically buzzing with excitement, forecasting oil beneath this West Texas ground, and — if that wasn't enough — urgently-needed potash too.
So they bring in Pennsylvania experts, serious men with serious equipment, including a chilled shop core drill, and they get to work right here near this very site. Down they go. Fifty feet.
A hundred. Five hundred. Nine hundred feet into the earth — and then they stop cold.
What stopped them? Red Bed Rock. A substance entirely new to them.
Now you have to picture these Pennsylvania men, standing out here in the Permian Basin heat, staring down at something they'd never encountered before, and deciding that was enough of that. The well was given up at nine hundred feet. Between that first attempt and a second drilling, the loss came to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
That is a considerable sum under any sky. So they packed up, and West Texas went back to being, officially, a dry hole. But here is where the story takes its turn — because in 1927, a well was brought in just west of Odessa.
And then, in a few years, oil was found within yards. Yards. Of the first dry hole.
The treasure was right there the whole time, practically waving at those Pennsylvania men from nine hundred feet down. By 1964, Ector County was sitting on nine thousand six hundred oil wells and twenty-two gas wells. Now, before you get too hard on those experts who quit early, the marker leaves you with one last thought worth chewing on around any campfire: the U.S. average is eight dry holes out of every nine wells drilled — just like the one put down here in 1924.
So maybe those Pennsylvania men weren't foolish. Maybe they were just, statistically speaking, right on time.
What the marker says
Drilled in 1924 near this site. Geologists were forecasting oil and urgently-needed potash, but Pennsylvania experts (using a chilled shop core drill) gave up the well at 900 feet, on "Red Bed" Rock--A substance new to them. Loss in this and a second drilling was $150.000. In 1927 a well was brought in just west of Odessa, and in a few years oil was found within yards of the first dry hole. By 1964 Ector County had 9,600 oil and 22 gas wells. However, the U.S. average is 8 dry holes out of 9 wells such as that drilled here in 1924.