DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Conroe Oil Field, out here in Montgomery County. Now, some fields come in quiet. A little gurgle, a handshake, maybe a photograph.
The Conroe Oil Field was not that kind of field. It started on December 13, 1931 — a Sunday, if that means anything to you — when George Strake punched his discovery well, the No. 1 South Texas Development Company, into the earth about a mile and four-tenths west of where that marker stands. What came roaring up was fifteen million cubic feet of gas per day, along with white gasoline.
Fifteen million. Per day. That is not a quiet handshake.
That is the earth clearing its throat. Strake came back with a second well — a nine-hundred-barrel-a-day producer. Then the Heep Oil Corporation brought in its No. 1 Freeman.
Both of those came in during June of 1932, and together they proved what a lot of people were starting to suspect: this wasn't just a well. This was a large field. Fast-paced drilling ensued.
That's the marker's own phrasing, and I think it earns it. Now here's where the story shifts register on you. January of 1933.
The Madeley No. 1, belonging to Kansas Standard, came in as a wild well — and on fire. They threw TNT charges at it. They hauled in tons of earth trying to smother it.
The fire did not care. It burned for about three months. And while it burned, cratering spread to the Harrison and Abercrombie well nearby, and that one gushed out of control too.
You've got fire, you've got cratering, you've got two wells doing whatever they please, and a crater working its way six hundred feet into the ground. Six hundred feet. That crater is still down there.
It took until January of 1934 for someone to get the upper hand. A driller working for Humble killed the blowout — and the way he did it matters — by using directional drilling for the first time in coastal Texas. First time.
That move saved the field. The marker says so plainly, and it's worth sitting with: without that one driller and that one technique, four hundred million barrels of oil might have stayed in the ground or gone up in smoke. Because that's what this field has yielded — over four hundred million barrels of oil.
And at the time this marker was written, it was still producing at a yearly rate of five million, three hundred thousand barrels. The Conroe field was also the first in Texas to adopt twenty-acre spacing, before conservation rules ever made it mandatory. Ahead of the law.
Fitting, maybe, for a field that had already rewritten a few rules of its own. And the discovery here set something else in motion. Montgomery County went on to develop eleven other oil fields, with reserves for continuing production.
One wild well in December of 1931. Three months of fire. A six-hundred-foot crater.
And a driller who figured out how to aim sideways underground and saved the whole thing. That's the Conroe Oil Field — and it is one for the books.
What the marker says
One of the great petroleum areas of the Texas coastal region. Opened December 13, 1931, by the discovery well of George Strake (No. 1 South Texas Development Company), about 1.4 miles west of here. Initial daily flow: 15,000,000 cubic feet of gas, along with white gasoline. Strake's second well, a 900-barrel-a-day producer, and the Heep Oil Corp. No. 1 Freeman (both coming in during June 1932) proved existence of a large field. Fast-paced drilling ensued. In January 1933 Madeley No. 1, of Kansas Standard, came in as a wild well and on fire. TNT charges and tons of earth did not smother the fire; it burned about three months. Cratering spread to Harrison and Abercrombie well nearby, and that gushed out of control. In January 1934 a driller for Humble "killed the blowout," by using directional drilling for first time in coastal Texas. This saved the field. (The crater is 600 feet deep.) The Conroe field was the first in Texas to adopt 20-acre spacing, before this was mandatory under conservation rules. It has yielded over 400,000,000 barrels of oil; now produces at the yearly rate of 5,300,000 barrels. After the dramatic discovery here, Montgomery County developed eleven other oil fields, and has reserves for continuing production. (1967)