Fondren Science Series
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to present a brief historical summary of the discovery and development of the Woodbine oil fields of East Texas. A simple listing, or tabulation of the Woodbine oil fields, with discovery dates, would be dry reading, indeed, so I will try to review the history of this important oil producing formation and area as a story - a story of lines or trends of geological thought, of lease plays and exploratory operations resulting from these lines or trends of thought; and of the changes in geological thought resulting from some of the more important developments. From a strictly historical viewpoint, two dates stand out through the perspective of the years as of primary significance. The first of these is October, 1920, when the first Woodbine oil was brought to the surface of the ground, at Mexia. The second is March, 1927, the completion date of the discovery well of the Boggy Creek field. Mexia, of course, rates as a major discovery by any standard; of the Woodbine oil fields, only Powell, Van, East Texas and Hawkins have produced, or seem likely to produce more oil. Boggy Creek, on the other hand, ranks low in any statistical evaluation, but as I hope to demonstrate later, is second only to Mexia in historical importance.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Recommended Citation
Alexander, C. I.
(1951)
"History of Discovery and Development of Woodbine Oil Fields in East Texas,"
Fondren Science Series: Vol. 1:
No.
4, Article 4.
Available at:
https://scholar.smu.edu/fondrenscienceseries/vol1/iss4/4
