First Irrigation Well in Lamb County

Duane's take

Here's how the marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way out in Lamb County, there's a well that started something. Not a fancy well, not a drilled well, not a well with any kind of machinery behind it.

A hand-dug well. Somebody put a shovel in that West Texas caliche and just kept going. The year was 1902, and the man behind it was Ewing Halsell, born in 1877, son of W.

E. Halsell, land promoter and settler of this region. Now when they finally stopped digging, that hole was six feet across and thirty feet deep.

Six feet wide. Thirty feet down. All by hand.

You take a moment and let that settle. The well was dug to serve crops, cattle, and the household, which is about as complete a list of needs as a man on the Texas plains could name. But here's the part that really stretches the imagination.

Once they had that water, they had to move it. And they moved it by ditch, half a mile of ditch, all the way out to the headquarters of Halsell's ranch. The ranch went by the name the Mashed O, which is a name that sounds like it was earned somewhere along the way.

Half a mile of open ditch carrying water across flat Lamb County ground to keep a ranch alive. That's not just irrigation. That's a declaration.

Ewing Halsell lived from 1877 all the way to 1965, long enough to see that scrappy hand-dug hole become a piece of history. The well itself is no longer in operation. But it's still there, six feet wide and thirty feet deep, quiet now, holding its story the way good West Texas ground tends to do.

What the marker says

Dug by hand in 1902 for crops, cattle, and household use of Ewing Halsell (1877-1965), son of land promoter and settler W. E. Halsell. An irrigation ditch carried water half a mile to headquarters of Halsell's "Mashed O" Ranch. Six feet in diameter but only 30 feet deep, well is no longer in operation. (1972)