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Kilgore marks anniversary of East Texas oil field
By MELISSA TRESNER
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
KILGORE – It's not the largest in the world anymore, but that didn't stop 1,000 East Texans and local and state politicians from celebrating the discovery of the East Texas Oil Field on Monday.
"(This field) has a significant past, and in my view a great and bright future," Byron Dunn, president and CEO of Lone Star Steel, said during the Diamond Jubilee ceremony held on the Kilgore College campus.
The ceremony was the culmination of two dozen events this summer and fall in East Texas' five "oil patch" counties.
Monday marked the 75th anniversary of Columbus "Dad" Joiner's oil discovery on Daisy Bradford's farm in Rusk County. It also was the 25th birthday of the East Texas Oil Museum in Kilgore.
The Daisy Bradford No. 3 was the first producing well in the 42-mile long field that stretched through Rusk, Gregg, Upshur, Cherokee and Smith counties. It was not until after subsequent discoveries in Kilgore and Longview that geologists realized the wells were part of one giant oil field.
In addition to the ceremony, day-long activities included a barbecue lunch, with food provided by oil-related businesses, an oil-field workers reunion sponsored by Chevron, a garden show, an oil boom art show and free admission to the oil museum. And it wouldn't be a celebration without the famous Kilgore Rangerettes performing.
Dignitaries at Monday's ceremony had various ties to the oil industry in East Texas.
World-renowned classical pianist Van Cliburn, called "Kilgore's favorite son," by Kilgore College President Bill Holda, responded to a new petroleum scholarship to honor his father.
The senior Cliburn, Harvey, worked for Magnolia Petroleum, a subsidiary of Mobil Oil (now ExxonMobil). He moved to Kilgore in 1940, working for Magnolia's field office there.
Van Cliburn, who at the age of 23 won the 1958 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow at the height of the Cold War, said his life revolved around music and oil.
"When I was a child, I had to know who Chopin was as equally as I had to know who Daisy Bradford was," Cliburn said.
In addition to the announcement of the Cliburn scholarship, which will be awarded to students seeking a career in the oil and gas industry, Dunn announced that a Chief Roughneck Hall of Fame has been erected at the oil museum.
Since 1955, Lone Star Steel has sponsored the Chief Roughneck Award, with honorees including H.L. Hunt, of Hunt Oil Co., Arch Rowan, of Rowan Drilling Co. and J. Larry Nichols of Devon Energy.
Several former honorees helped Dunn unveil a replica of the hall of fame plaque now hanging in the H.L. Hunt Room at the museum, which has been visited by more than one million people from all 50 states and 122 countries.
Former U.S. Rep. Kent Hance, who also served on the railroad commission in 1989 and 1990, was the keynote speaker at the ceremony.
U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler, and Ralph Hall, R-Rockwall, made remarks as well, about the East Texas Oil Field's ups and downs.
Joe White, the museum director, was recognized by Holda for his assistance in organizing jubilee events and for his role in creating the tribute to the "Black Giant" in 1980.
"For over 25 years, Joe White has been the one and only director of the East Texas Oil Museum," Holda said. "Like Gussie Nell Davis birthed the Rangerettes, Joe White birthed the East Texas Oil Museum."
White said he can't take credit for the museum's birth. It was actually the idea of Al Hill, son-in-law of H.L. Hunt.
"I was just one of the midwives," White said.
Elizabeth Ames Jones, chairwoman of the Railroad Commission of Texas, spoke of her family's legacy in oil.
Her father, Gene Ames, was given the Chief Roughneck Award in 1995.
"I am the granddaughter and the great-granddaughter of wildcatters in East Texas," Jones said.
Joiner, 70-years-old and broke at the time his well blew in, was one of the most famous East Texas wildcatters. Geologists scoffed at Joiner, saying it was unlikely that East Texas had significant amounts of oil.
One geologist told Joiner, "I'll drink every barrel of oil you get out of that hole."
Since 1930, the field has produced more than 5 billion barrels of oil.
Craig Beasley, president of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, said the field's production is declining, but future technology could rejuvenate it.
"It may very well come back one day," Beasley said.
Reprinted from the Longview News-Journal, Oct. 4, 2005. Used with permission.
Contact Information
For more information, contact the Kilgore chamber
of Commerce at (903) 984-5022 or Bill Gibbs, Kilgore College director
of marketing, at (903) 983-8218 or bgibbs@kilgore.edu
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