DUANE
Duane's take
The way I tell it, I'm drawing straight from the official marker for the North Nocona Oil Field — so let's let the record do the talking. Now, Montague County doesn't look like much at first glance. Flat prairie, cedar breaks, the occasional hawk riding a thermal.
But underneath all that quiet, something was brewing. And it took a Pennsylvania oil man named George Williams — backed by a fellow called Cad McCall — to go looking for it. Williams started drilling out near Eagle Point, four and a half miles southeast of where you're standing right now, and he kept at it intermittently from 1918 all the way to 1922.
Four years of off-and-on drilling. That's not the story of a man who got lucky quick. That's the story of a man who wouldn't quit.
While Williams was at it, the leasing game was already heating up. Individuals and major companies were moving in — Phil Lesh, A.E. Humphrey, the Texas Company among them — keeping rigs turning and derricks busy across the landscape.
Then came the first real signal from the deep. On land belonging to J.W. Maddox and J.E.
Lemons, gas blew in at eight hundred feet. One well alone came up yielding over a hundred million cubic feet of gas daily. Let that number roll around for a second — a hundred million cubic feet.
Every single day. That gas didn't go to waste either; it got piped straight into Nocona and out to rural homes across the area. But the real prize — the oil — came in 1922, right there on the Maddox site, at around a thousand feet down.
Production kept right on going, stretching between a thousand and two thousand feet, there and at other locations across what would become a twelve-thousand, two-hundred-and-ninety-five-acre field. Now here's where the story gets a little strange, and a little dangerous. All that gas underground had opinions of its own.
A capped well started blowing mud up out of prairie dog holes. And a gas well a quarter-mile away from it — a water well, mind you — started venting gas like it had been waiting for permission. The earth itself was speaking, and it wasn't being polite about it.
Then in 1925, a gas well on W.W. Jones's land, two miles west of here, blew out a gigantic crater. The ground just gave way.
And if that weren't enough, another well, three-quarters of a mile to the west, caught fire. It burned its own rig to the ground. That fire wasn't put out by ordinary means, and it wasn't put out by ordinary men.
It took a nationally-famed oil well firefighter by the name of Tex Thornton to finally douse it. Tex Thornton. Nationally famed.
The kind of man you call when the earth is on fire and nothing else is working. When the smoke cleared and the craters settled, what remained was a field with an estimated total of a hundred million barrels on record — and it still produces. Some things buried that deep just don't run out.
What the marker says
Pennsylvania oil man George Williams, backed by Cad McCall, drilled for oil intermittently, 1918-22, beginning at Eagle Point (4.5 mi. SE). Leasing by individuals and major companies--including Phil Lesh, A.E. Humphrey, and the Texas Co.--kept rigs working. Gas blew in at 800-foot depth on J.W. Maddox-J.E. Lemons land, one well yielding over 100,000,000 cubic feet daily. The gas was piped to Nocona and rural homes. Oil was discovered in 1922 on Maddox site, at about 1,000 feet. Production continued at 1,000-2,000 feet, there and elsewhere. The gas caused trouble: a capped well blew mud from prairie dog holes and gas from water well a quarter-mile away. In 1925, a gas well on W.W. Jones land (2 mi. W) blew out a gigantic crater. Another well (.75 mi. W) caught fire, burned its rig, and was finally doused by nationally-famed oil well fire fighter Tex Thornton. With an estimated 100,000,000-barrel total on record, this 12,295-acre field still produces. (1972)