After full immersion in a visit to the cotton patch in late August, we needed a coffee break. Wanting to try a new spot in Lockhart we went south on Highway 86 in the direction of Luling looking for an alternative. We’ve found that some gasoline stations have gone to higher grade coffee and so we stopped at a Chevron station to check it out.
When we walked into the station, we spotted the coffee bar and also noted that there were two small tables, each with two chairs.
One of the two tables was occupied by a man about 55 years old. He seemed talkative and when we mentioned that Exxon was part of our life for many years, he said “oh, from the oil patch”. Had we not gone to that station at that time and struck up this conversation, we would not have heard the old timey phrase “oil patch”.
One never knows where the next interesting bit of information will show up. We talked with this fellow, Bud, for what seemed like two hours and covered many topics of mutual interest. Bud is a self-employed contractor in the business of oil well reworking. He rehabilitates old oil wells that decline in production rate and can be made to produce a few more barrels per day and he has done a lot of that kind of work. It turns out that his wife Kathy is the manager at this convenience store so we met her too. We learned that Bud does a lot more with his oilfield skills than just rework old wells. They told of a three-month job he once had designing and building the smokestack gas scrubbing equipment for a Black’s Barbeque restaurant in Austin. It happened that Black’s built their BBQ joint in a populated area of Austin. This was not appreciated by the folks downwind of the smokestack. So, he was hired to take care of it.
Bud and his wife once lived in Wimberley where his family had roots that went back a hundred years. He knew all the old timers that we were able to recall to him. They decided about ten years ago to move to Lockhart where they would be closer to his work.
The term oil patch once was a common, heavily used term for defining the local oil industry; more specifically the exploration and production of petroleum. The term was first used in about 1952 and became popular among those who worked the drilling rigs. The year 1952 was long before the sophistication of drilling techniques such as horizontal drilling, fracking, and deep well production. Fracking, by the way sounds new from all the controversy surrounding it but has been around since the 1970s. Eagle Ford drilling made it more newsworthy. From a folklore standpoint, the term oil patch generates a mental image in our minds of oil production areas that have low producing wells, probably shallow, drilled close together. The pump jacks are small for the shallow wells and increase in size as the wells run deeper. Having just finished cotton production, we recalled the term cotton patch as symbolizing hard working people harvesting cotton. Perhaps that might have some connection to the origin of the term oil patch here in Texas. There is also the term watermelon patch, so the assumption is that the term originates from agriculturally based people now working in the oil field. In fact, a search on the web corroborates that the term oil patch is local to Texas and Oklahoma and is derived from an association with the oil fields that sprung up in the farming country.
One never knows where the next interesting bit of information will show up. We talked with this fellow, Bud, for what seemed like two hours and covered many topics of mutual interest. Bud is a self-employed contractor in the business of oil well reworking. He rehabilitates old oil wells that decline in production rate and can be made to produce a few more barrels per day and he has done a lot of that kind of work. It turns out that his wife Kathy is the manager at this convenience store so we met her too. We learned that Bud does a lot more with his oilfield skills than just rework old wells. They told of a three-month job he once had designing and building the smokestack gas scrubbing equipment for a Black’s Barbeque restaurant in Austin. It happened that Black’s built their BBQ joint in a populated area of Austin. This was not appreciated by the folks downwind of the smokestack. So, he was hired to take care of it.
Bud and his wife once lived in Wimberley where his family had roots that went back a hundred years. He knew all the old timers that we were able to recall to him. They decided about ten years ago to move to Lockhart where they would be closer to his work.
The term oil patch once was a common, heavily used term for defining the local oil industry; more specifically the exploration and production of petroleum. The term was first used in about 1952 and became popular among those who worked the drilling rigs. The year 1952 was long before the sophistication of drilling techniques such as horizontal drilling, fracking, and deep well production. Fracking, by the way sounds new from all the controversy surrounding it but has been around since the 1970s. Eagle Ford drilling made it more newsworthy. From a folklore standpoint, the term oil patch generates a mental image in our minds of oil production areas that have low producing wells, probably shallow, drilled close together. The pump jacks are small for the shallow wells and increase in size as the wells run deeper. Having just finished cotton production, we recalled the term cotton patch as symbolizing hard working people harvesting cotton. Perhaps that might have some connection to the origin of the term oil patch here in Texas. There is also the term watermelon patch, so the assumption is that the term originates from agriculturally based people now working in the oil field. In fact, a search on the web corroborates that the term oil patch is local to Texas and Oklahoma and is derived from an association with the oil fields that sprung up in the farming country.
 |
| Figure 1 Oil Fields in Guadalupe County |
The commercial reality of oil in the area of Luling began in 1922 when wildcatter Edgar Davis was drilling several wells in the area looking for signs of oil. Davis was a very interesting fellow. He was born in Massachusetts in 1873, had only a high school education and by 1905 was making his first million there in the shoe business. Later he added around three million dollars to that with his early investments in foreign rubber plantations and as the largest individual stockholder in the United States Rubber Company. He sold his holdings after thirteen years and gave much of the proceeds away to friends and New York associates. Then in 1919 he fulfilled the request of his brother Oscar to manage his share of the oil leases he had purchased in Caldwell, County, Texas. A very religious man, after assessing the situation, Edgar believed it was his mission to improve the local economy by diversification. He believed he could do that by producing oil. In 1921 he incorporated the United North and South Oil Company and after his brother died purchased Oscar’s oil leases from his estate. He had drilled six dry wells near Stairtown and was heavily in debt when Rafael Rios No. 1 (the seventh well) at a depth of 2400 feet “gushed in on August 9, 1922.”. To this date, the well and its enhancements have produced more than 135 million barrels of oil. Davis sold the properties in the area in 1926 to Magnolia Petroleum Company, which was later bought by Mobil Oil Co.
Davis was a great benefactor to the community of Luling, establishing the Luling Foundation for the teaching of improved agricultural methods. He also provided public improvements such as a golf course, various other facilities and endowments for each. He never married and is buried on the site of one of his former homes in Luling where the Edgar B. Davis Memorial Hospital was built in 1966.
Davis certainly was an entrepreneurial type but he didn’t start drilling in this area out of chance, because there were other oil explorers who had information that there was oil in the area. The archives in Luling have a copy of a map hand drawn by Thomas Wilson indicating oil fields to the immediate east of Luling. Despite the difficulty to read it, here is a copy of the map.
Figure 2 Luling Oil Company map 1903.
The wide band at the top of the map is the railroad, and below that is US90. The city of Luling is to the left. And, of course, the Rios No. 1 well is to the north of all of this up by Hwy 80 at Stairtown. Over the many years since 1925 the whole area from Stairtown to south of Luling was filled in with wells---many wells. The graph below shows more recent information on 305 Leases, 52 Producing Operators and 4,835 Drilled Wells.
 |
| Figure 3 Oil Production Record in Guadalupe County |
Oil production went from 1 M barrels in 1994 to less than 500K barrels in 2019; gas production went from 800K MCF in 1994 to almost nothing in 2019.
There was, and still is in some places, a sulfurous odor in the area. That odor is due to hydrocarbon sulfides leaking from the wells of the area. We were reminded of this odor having come across an archival article in the Luling Library titled ‘Taking the Stink Out’ by Bob Banta. Banta, writing for the Austin American Statesman, was reporting on a TV commercial being made by the Phillips Company’s ad agency starring Ben Rollert, an independent oil operator. A video, made in 1981 on a 320- acre cattle and horse ranch between San Marcos and Luling, animals could be seen grazing peacefully among 80 producing oil wells. The ad touted Phillips’ work in cleaning up the pervasive smell of sulfurous natural gas near Luling. Because of the company’s expertise in gas gathering, they had built a huge gathering plant 5-6 years before that sucked the gas from wells into underground lines that piped it to Houston as fuel. Unfortunately, at this time we could find no pictures or other information on the plant.
On a previous research trip to the Luling Library we had purchased a copy of Vol. 16, No. 2 of the Fall 1998 issue of the Plum Creek Almanac which included a map and article of the Gander Slough Oil Field adjacent to Stairtown. And on October 22 with the following map we headed out to see what we could find.
Figure 4 Oil field map of Gander Slough
We entered the area from SH 80 turning to the southwest on 671 at Stairtown which was marked Oil Field Rd. You can see that this map has many identifying numbers representing homes, businesses and a church and school back in the 1920s when most of the oil activity was going on in the area. We passed many pumps still working and others that had been idled. When we got to Jones Rd. we turned left and followed the box around back to where we had started. To our right was the part of Gander Slough that had been the main drag with homes, a filling station and store and the Baptist Church. Now the road was gravel with a gate which was open and one current residence was on the right. It wasn’t very welcoming, but we decided to nose in anyway and see if there were any old foundations we could see. There was nothing but short roads leading off to storage tanks in the woods. AND… at one of them was an Enterprise Petroleum truck pulled in filling up. R got out of the car to talk to the driver and I could see that they were having quite an animated conversation about the picture R was showing him in the in the Plum Creel history book of what a busy place the area had been in the old days. Deano, the driver, was so intensely interested in the history of Gander Slough that we left the book with him and picked up another for a dollar at the library later that day. Deano volunteered the information that his was only one of 4 trucks that stopped there daily, and each loaded 162 barrels of oil.
Figure 5 Enterprise truck filling up at the tank farm.
Figure 6 From Parson's book Images of America LULING.
Figure 6 shows what the the Gander Slough oil field looked like when drilling activity was at a peak level.
Figure 7 In the early days of Gander Slough
This photo was taken on the eastern end of the Luling oil field where the rougher element spent their leisure time.
Figure 8 Brass knuckles carried by Robert Carter to keep the peace.
According to the Texas State Historical Association the name Gander Slough shows up also as Gander Slue and Gander Slu; the latter spelling was suggested by an oilfield worker as a take off on the Goose Creek oilfield near Baytown, Texas. This is where Humble, now ExxonMobil, constructed its major oil refinery in 1921 adjacent to the field and named the plant and townsite Baytown. The Dayton-Goose Creek Railroad Co. built in 1918 connected the refinery to the Goose Creek field.
Along with Gander Slough, nearby Sullivan, Texas is another ghost town. Just off highway 90 it was 3 miles west of Luling and 15 miles northeast of Seguin. Its importance began as a railroad switch around 1876 when the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railroad crossed Caldwell and Guadalupe Counties on its way to San Antonio. The town is believed to be named for John Sullivan, the engineer on the first passenger train in 1877. When oil was discovered in Gander Slough in 1922 the railroad switch was already in place for tank cars to be dropped off and loaded. A tank farm was built and the town platted but population never exceeded 100.
Figure 9 The town of Sullivan
The town designation can be seen on this map just above the p in Guadalupe. We have not found this town designation on any newer county map.
Before we leave the Stairtown area, here is another interesting archival picture depicting the delivery of Westinghouse generator blocks. The blocks were, likely, delivered to the railroad switch in Sullivan and placed on the giant wagon to be hauled eight or nine miles to the installation site traveling 1 mile a day. The mule team varied from 37 animals to 8o depending on the curves and slope of the Old Seguin Road (Hwy. 90). The worst part was the steep descent to the San Marcos River and its unknown bridge capability. However, the project was a success and the generators were delivered and installed.
Figure 10 From Plum Creek Almanac Vol No. 1 Spring 2002.
For anyone interested in the local oil story the Luling Oil Museum is worth a visit.
Figure 11 Carbonate domes formed around a well casing
Salty water leaking from the well head over long time forms these carbonate domes. This is an actual one from a local well.
Sightings
We finally received some four inches of rain and local stock tanks contain a good supply of water once again. Our off again, on again rainfall reminds us of the old Brewster County rancher’s rainfall proverb: When it rains, you can’t stock it and when it doesn’t rain, you sure can’t stock it.
We already have had our first frost of the winter, so the mesquite trees are showing the effects.
Also, our Oxblood lilies are blooming. These plants lay dormant all through the summer and in the fall with cooler weather and with a bit of rain, they pop out with some small amaryllis-like flowers.
Figure 12 Oxblood Lilies Rhodophiala Bifida
