DUANE
Duane's take
This one comes straight off an official Texas Historical Commission marker out in Carson County — let me tell it to you the way it deserves to be told. Now, picture the Texas Panhandle in October of 1923. Wide open country, wind that doesn't apologize, and underground somewhere beneath all that hardpan and rock — oil.
The question wasn't whether it was there. The question was whether anybody had the equipment to get to it. Three men thought they did.
W. T. Willis, J.
E. Trigg, and H. D.
Lewis — partners in one of Texas' largest drilling firms — pulled up to the S. B. Burnett 6666 Ranch and broke ground.
And what they brought with them was something this part of Texas had never seen before: the first rotary drilling rig used in the Texas Panhandle. Now, rotary rigs weren't exactly new to Texas. Down on the Gulf Coast, they'd been pushing cable tool rigs aside since around 1900.
But the Panhandle is not the Gulf Coast. Up here, you hit rock. And for years, the rotary method had a problem — nobody had a drill bit that could pierce it.
That delay kept the Panhandle waiting while the rest of the state moved on. So when Willis, Trigg, and Lewis showed up with their outfit, they weren't just drillin' a hole. They were bringing a whole new era with them.
The equipment alone tells you they meant business: a rotary rig valued at twenty-five thousand dollars, a six-inch diameter drill pipe, a derrick, three steam boilers, two mud pumps, and whatever other tools the job demanded. That's not a modest operation. That's a statement.
And the statement landed. The success of this drilling method was, as the record puts it, a major event in this region. Not a footnote.
A major event. The Panhandle had been waiting on the right bit to meet the right rock — and in October of 1923, out on the 6666 Ranch, that wait was over.
What the marker says
In October 1923, W. T. Willis, J. E. Trigg, and H. D. Lewis, partners in one of Texas' largest drilling firms, broke ground at the S. B. Burnett 6666 Ranch with the first rotary drilling rig used in the Texas Panhandle. Success of this drilling method was a major event in this region. Drilling equipment included a $25,000 rotary rig; a 6-inch diameter drill pipe; a derrick; 3 steam boilers; 2 mud pumps; and other tools. Rotary rigs began to replace cable tool rigs on the Texas Gulf Coast about 1900, but the lack of a rotary drill bit capable of piercing rock delayed its use here.