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Grandfield
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Well...yeah, and then there was this...
OIL!
Oil!
Oil!
The Oil Boom
There were two oil fields discovered in the Grandfield area: the Northwest Oil Field; and the Red River Oil Field. The influence of the oil industry on Grandfield cannot be overstated. The closing of the Bell Oil and Refinery Company refinery in the 1960s arguably started the population decline. "What has been is what will be, and what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9). The Plan, OUR plan is to rebuild a refinery on the same site as was the Phillips/Bell Oil & Gas Refinery of yore, this time allowing Farmers to Grow their own fuel, REAL farm aid. Read more about the Grandfield Green Power Initiative and the Grandfield Biofuel Refinery Cooperative Project, but first, a little history! Youprobably won't believe this!
Where it all began...
In the 16th and half of the 17th centuries, whale oil was the chief source for lamplight in homes worldwide. Gaslights didn't emerge until the late 18th century, soon to be replaced by an new invention from Thomas Alva Edison, Nicola Tesla and George Westinghouse, electricity. More on THAT later. With the advent of electricity, natural gas producers were left holding the proverbial bag, so to speak.
Were their other vehicles, other fuel options, we cannot say. What remains certain is John D. became one of the more wealthy men who ever lived. Benz didn't do too badly either.
To the right, a "blank check", signed by John D. from Standard Oil Company
Perhaps it is luck, possibly hard work and determination, but whatever mystical force it is that governs the universe, John D. Rockefeller had a 20% override in perpetuity. There are guys as fortuitous...please allow us to elucidate...
Okay, where were we...oh yeah...lucky guys! So...
In The Beginning...
Imagine with us an ocean voyage taken without steerage by a young entrepreneur armed with a handful of cash, a young man (the guy on the left) seeking to salvage his investments of over a half-a-billion dollars in 1887 money. His quest, Karl Friedrich Benz (the guy on the right) with a diabolical plot, one we endure to this day. Karl Friedrich Benz (25 November 1844 – 4 April 1929) was a German engine designer and automobile engineer. His Benz Patent Motorcar from 1885 is considered the first practical automobile. He received a patent for the motorcar on 29 January 1886. Little is known about how Benz funded the radically rapid expansion of his invention (John D. knew!).
We all simply take what is handed to us, heuristic acceptance of what we drive. Even though there was other methodology, this guy...the one on the left, made this other guy, the one on the right, an offer he could not, and did not refuse. The offer...to fund the development/sale/and worldwide distribution of his new invention, one that, coincidentally enough, ran on the products of a substance John D. had in abundance, OIL!
The plan, to replace these guys...on the left...who harvested the oil from these (below, not so easily done, referrence Moby Dick, Melville, well you know!) with these guys...the ones on the right.
Karl F. Benz
John D. Rockefeller
...oil broke out, like peace in Europe, and oil center (there is actually a town in Oklahoma called "Oil Center!") was on the Waggoner Ranch, and six-miles southwest across the river from Grandfield, near a a town named after W.T. Waggoner's Daughter, Electra!
Oil on the Waggoner Ranch...
The ranch was originally established in 1852 near Vernon, Texas, by Daniel Waggoner under the name of Dan Waggoner & Son; his son being William Thomas Waggoner, who was an infant at the time. Ranching operations began with 230 head of longhorn cattle and some horses (Anderson, H. Allen (2010, June 15). Waggoner Ranch. Handbook of Texas (online ed.). Texas State Historical Association). From 1889 to 1903, they acquired land in Wichita County, Wilbarger County as well as Foard County, Knox County, Baylor County and Archer County (Ibid). The ranch spanned more than a million acres of land. To put that in perspective (See map below) the Waggoner was larger than the cities of Las Angles and New York City combined, only slightly smaller than the entire State of Rhode Island!
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The discovery of oil at Electra, six miles southeast f Grandfield as the crow flies, in 1911 caused the Waggoners to combine oil production and refining with ranching activities; the refinery cars and tanks bore the image of the Waggoner cattle brand. For years the area around the Sachueista headquarters contained one of the major shallow oilfields of the world, which was developed by the Texas Company (later Texaco). The surrounding area, Burkburnett and Grandfield exploded, both figuratively and literally.
The Resounding BOOM
A Blowout
Just two miles south of Grandfield...
Images to the right, and below are from Grandfield's Red River and Northwest Field (Watson, L. from Goehler, History of Tillman County, ibid) the Goehler homes in the background of the image below are still there! (Goehler's home place on the left).
Oil and the talk of it spread from coast-to-coast like wildfire on the open prairie. Men came in droves to work the boom. History shows a populaton in the now relatively small Cotton County Oklahoma town of Devol, in the 1920 US Census of 104,087 persons, most of them men living in the "tent city" the oil bbom had wrought, all eager to cash in on the fortune oil had promised (see the image below).
The table talk was pervasive but ebbed adn flowed like the tides, each resurgence in elation brought with it hope of good fortune, followed by times when a hollow portent was felt of what was to really come. Phillips Oil opened a refinery ini Grandfield in
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