DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Slaton Well out in Hale County. Now, some stories start with a spark — this one started with a trip. The year was 1910, and the Plainview Commercial Club, led by their president, a man named J.
O. Wyckoff, made their way out to New Mexico to have a look at some irrigation wells. And something clicked.
You could almost hear it. These men looked at what water pulled up from the earth could do to dry land, and they came home to West Texas with an idea burning in their chests. The trouble, as it always is, was money and risk.
Who was going to bet on a hole in the ground? Well, a local banker and farmer by the name of J. H.
Slaton made a particular kind of offer — he'd bear the cost of a test well himself, sunk right there on his own land, but only if it succeeded. Now that's a man who understood the weight of a wager. Two men, G.
E. Green and J. N.
McNaughton, took on the work, and in January of 1911, they finished it. What they found sitting at a hundred and thirty feet down, pulled up through a nine-inch centrifugal pump, was one thousand seven hundred gallons of water a minute. Per minute.
In semiarid West Texas. The Slaton Well didn't just work — it opened a door that couldn't be closed again. The success of that well led to extensive irrigation across the region, and what had been dry, stubborn West Texas land was transformed into one of the most productive food crop regions in the entire world.
One trip to New Mexico, one man willing to carry the risk, one well at a hundred and thirty feet — and West Texas was never the same.
What the marker says
The Plainview Commercial Club, led by President J. O. Wyckoff, saw the potential of irrigation during a 1910 visit to wells in New Mexico. Local banker and farmer J. H. Slaton agreed to bear cost of a test well sunk on his land if it succeeded. G. E. Green and J. N. McNaughton completed the well in Jan. 1911. At 130 feet, using a nine-inch centrifugal pump, it yielded 1,700 gallons of water a minute. The success of the Slaton Well led to extensive irrigation. It transformed this semiarid area of West Texas into one of the most productive food crop regions in the world. (1976)