CHAPTER 6
MORE BOOMTOWNS
THE PANHANDLE
M. C. Nobles, who had come to Amarillo in 1892 when the High Plains city was only about five years old, made a living for his family as a grocer. He later invested in the young city's trolley car system. But like many entrepreneurs, he was always looking for another deal.
Having read in the Amarillo Globe about successful oil drilling down state, Nobles took the train to Oklahoma City to talk with University of Oklahoma geologist Charles Newton Gould about oil prospects in the Sooner State. But before he boarded the west-bound train for his return trip to Amarillo, Nobles asked Gould, who from 1903 to 1907 had explored the Panhandle to document underground water sources for the Hydrographic Branch of the U.S. Geological Survey, if he thought the High Plains of Texas had any potential for petroleum. Gould recalled a series of domes along the Canadian River in northeastern Potter County and agreed to show Nobles where they were.
Back in Texas, Nobles organized a prospecting trip to the Canadian with Gould as the guide. Standing on high ground near Alibates Creek, Gould pointed toward the mound-like features he had noted in his earlier survey of the area. Oil and gas had been found in similar structures, he told Nobles and others in the party. Even though no proven production lay within 200 miles of Potter County, Gould believed that the area was worth drilling.
In April 1917, Nobles and other investors, including Gould, organized the Amarillo Oil Company and leased 70,000 acres along the Canadian. As the first World War neared an end in the fall of 1918, the company began drilling. That December, at 2,605 feet, the Masterson No. 1 hit gas.
The discovery of gas at first had no significant impact on Amarillo or the Panhandle even though it soon became available commercially as a cheap fuel for heating and cooking in homes and businesses and a few industries.
Another group of investors put together a group of leases in Carson County, east of Amarillo, and succeeding in getting the Gulf Production Co. interested in drilling a test well. That hole brought only gas, but on May 2, 1921, a second test, the Gulf Oil No. 2 Burnett, struck oil at 3,052 feet. The well produced 200 barrels a day, but it had been proven that the Panhandle might have more to offer than good grazing and farming land. Following the initial discoveries in Carson County, drilling spread across the Panhandle.
In Hutchinson County, the Dixon Creek Oil and Refining Co. No. 1 Smith came in at 400 barrels a day in March 1925. By the summer of 1926, a total of 174 High Plains wells averaged 48,985 gallons a day. The company's No. 2 Smith hit oil in December, the well making 3,000 barrels a day. Based on that, the No. 1 well was reentered and drilled a bit deeper. That proved to have been a pretty good idea because the well blew in as a gusher on January 11, 1926, producing 10,000 barrels a day. Nine months later 813 wells along or near Dixon Creek were producing 165,000 barrels a day.
The northern-most part of the state had been found to be what one writer termed "petroliferous." Oklahoma land promoter A. P. "Ace" Borger and partner John R. Miller, an attorney, bought a 240-acre tract in the southern part of the county and developed a town site. Borger not-so-mod- estly thought the place should be named in his honor, and Borger, Texas, was born. In March 1926, Borger, Texas, shot up from Canadian river-break ranchland to boom-town status like a valve blow- ing off an over-pressured pipe. By the early fall, Borger approached a population of 45,000 and had a rail connection, a post office and a school, not to mention hotels, stores, bars and houses of ill repute. Soon it also had a power plant for electrical generation, telephone service, a hospital and a scrappy newspaper, the Borger Herald.
