DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Penwell, out there in Ector County. Now, every oil boom worth its salt has a false start. And Penwell's story — the birthplace of Ector County's oil boom, as the marker puts it — is no exception.
It begins on December 28, 1926. A driller by the name of Josh Cosden punches into the earth on land belonging to a man named W. E.
Connell, not far from an old farming and cattle station called Judkins. And oil comes up. That's all anybody needed to hear.
By March of 1927, a wide-open town had been platted right there — they called it Derrick City — and the boom crowd flooded in like a West Texas thunderstorm. Only trouble was, that Connell well started pumping. Twenty barrels a day.
Twenty. You can almost hear the air going out of the whole enterprise. The boom crowd, never known for their patience, did what boom crowds do.
They moved away. Derrick City was abandoned. Just like that — platted in March, a ghost town not long after.
But Ector County wasn't finished. While nearby counties off the railroad were striking oil that had to be shipped to refineries by the Texas and Pacific, Ector County found itself in what the marker calls a Truck Drivers Boom in 1927 — a foretaste, the marker says, of the leadership in supply and servicing that was to develop progressively. Not glamorous, maybe.
But a foretaste of something real. Then comes October 14, 1929. Out here on the land of a man named Robert Penn, a well comes in at three hundred and seventy-five barrels per day.
Now that's a different conversation entirely. Exploration picks right back up, and soon after follows the Penn Well — six hundred to seven hundred barrels a day. A gusher.
The name practically wrote itself. What grew up around that strike wasn't a platted townsite dreamed up by speculators. It was a busy, bustling, prosperous tent city.
And on June 30, 1930, the Penwell Post Office was established — which means this place had earned enough permanence to get its own mail. Since then, Penwell has remained a central distributing and shipping point for numerous fields across several Permian Basin counties. The marker doesn't mince words about what that adds up to: an earned reputation as the Crossroads of the Oil Patch.
Derrick City came and went in the time it takes a shallow well to disappoint you. But Penwell — built on a real gusher, on Robert Penn's land, with a post office and a purpose — that one stuck.
What the marker says
Birthplace of Ector County's Oil boom. First civic development here was wide-open town, "Derrick City", platted March 1927, after Dec. 28, 1926, oil discovery by driller Josh Cosden on land of W. E. Connell, near the old farming and cattle station, Judkins. However, when Connell well began pumping only 20 barrels a day, the boom crowd moved away. The city was abandoned. As nearby counties off the railroad struck oil that had to be shipped by the Texas & Pacific to refineries, Ector County in 1927 had a "Truck Drivers Boom" --a foretaste of the leadership in supply and servicing that was to develop progressively. Then on Oct. 14, 1929, on Robert Penn's land here, a 375-barrel per day well came in. With that showing, exploration continued, soon followed by the Penn Well, the 600 to 700-barrel a day gusher. In a busy, bustling and prosperous tent city, the Penwell Post Office was established June 30, 1930. This has remained a central distributing and shipping point for numerous fields in several permian basin counties, thereby establishing and earned reputation as "The Crossroads of the oil patch".