DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Northwest Extension Oilfield up in Wichita County. Now, oil exploration out this way had been pretty quiet — minimal, the record calls it — right up until a particular Thursday in April. April 17th, 1919, to be exact.
That was the day the Bob Waggoner Well No. 1 blew in. And when it blew in, it did not whisper. Four thousand eight hundred barrels per day came roaring up out of that ground.
That's not a well. That's a statement. It was the first well in what would come to be known as the Northwest Extension Oilfield — roughly 27 square miles sitting on what had been the S.
Burk Burnett Wild Horse Ranch. Let that sink in for a second. Wild Horse Ranch.
One day you're grazin' land; the next, R.M. "Bob" Waggoner's well has touched off a boom and the horizon is filling up with oil derricks faster than you can count them. And where there's a boom, there are people — and people need somewhere to be. Six tent cities rose up out of that scrubland in a hurry.
Thrift, Springtown, Morgan City, Waggoner City, Bridgetown, Bradley's Corner. Hastily organized, the marker says, which is probably doing some real work there as a description. Canvas walls and big ambitions, all of it woven around the business of pulling oil out of the earth.
Today, if you drive out through those 27 square miles, you'll still find pump jacks out there, working away in the quiet. But they're sparsely sited now, and what they're drawing up is far smaller in quantity than what the early wells of Wichita County once produced. The boom is long gone.
The derricks have come down. But the ground underneath you still remembers April 17th, 1919 — and so does this marker.
What the marker says
Oil exploration and production in this area was minimal until April 17, 1919, when the Bob Waggoner Well No. 1 blew in at 4,800 barrels per day. It was the first well in what became known as the Northwest Extension Oilfield, comprised of approximately 27 square miles on the former S. Burk Burnett Wild Horse Ranch. R.M. "Bob" Waggoner's well led to a boom, and the area was suddenly thick with oil derricks. The hastily organized tent cities of Thrift, Springtown, Morgan City, Waggoner City, Bridgetown and Bradley's Corner supported the industry. Today, sparsely sited pump jacks continue to draw oil, but in far smaller quantities than the early wells of Wichita County. (2006)