Hidalgo County's First Oil Well

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, you might drive through Hidalgo County today and never think twice about what's underneath all that South Texas soil. But the ground has a memory, and on September 18, 1934, it finally gave something up.

That was the day veteran driller Otto C. Woods brought in the John M. Lawrence No. 1 oil well, right near this very spot.

Otto Woods had been around the business long enough to know what he was doin, and what he did that day was something worth rememberin. The well came in flowin a thousand barrels a day. Or more.

Now, a thousand barrels a day is the kind of number that makes a person stop and just breathe for a second. But here is the part that stays with you. The oil came up so fast, so full, that it didn't wait for a tank or a pipeline or a plan.

It just spread out right there beside the well and formed a lake. An actual lake. Not water.

Oil. Sitting there in Hidalgo County like it had been waitin a long time and wasn't in any particular hurry to be refined. The county has since gone on to produce twenty million barrels of oil in all.

Twenty million. That first lake beside the Lawrence Number One was just the introduction.

What the marker says

John M. Lawrence No. 1 oil well was brought in September 18, 1934, near this site by veteran driller Otto C. Woods. Well flowed 1,000 or more barrels a day. At first the oil formed a lake beside the well. County has produced 20 million barrels of oil. (1968)