[Texas]. [Oil]

South Half Rusk Co. Texas. Scale ~ 1" = 1000 Vrs. [caption title]

[N.p., likely Fort Worth: n.d., ca. 1932]. Blueprint map printed on linen, 40 x 60 inches. Original folds, minor edge wear. Very good. Item #2203

A seemingly-unrecorded, large-scale annotated Texas oil map featuring the breadth of the southern portion of Rusk County, located below Henderson, and just north of Nacogdoches in the eastern part of the Lone Star State. Several hundred plats of land are represented and labeled by owner, with numerous manuscript annotations in pencil across the map, and with dozens of plats colored in either red or yellow pencil. The map seems to date from the midst of the Rusk County oil boom in the early 1930s. Several of the colored plots as well as many of the notations relate to "The Texas Company," i.e., Texaco, one of the major players in the Texas oil industry since its inception at Spindletop at the turn of the 20th century.

"At the end of the [1920s], Rusk County remained chiefly agricultural, with cotton still the leading crop. But in October of [1930] Columbus M. (Dad) Joiner discovered oil on the Daisy Bradford lease. Attempts to locate oil in the county had started as early as 1911, when O. P. Boynton drilled a well near Millville. Boynton, however, failed to reach oil, and the search was taken up by Dad Joiner, who defied the 'expert' opinion that there was little or no oil in the area and drilled his first well, Daisy Bradford No. 1, in 1927. On his third attempt, three years later, his discovery opened the East Texas oilfield, which proved to be one of the richest oil finds in the United States. The promise of quick riches immediately set off an oil frenzy. Farmers neglected to harvest their cotton crops, too busy trying to negotiate better leases or high royalties, and men and equipment poured into the county to look for new gushers.... Between 1930 and 1936 Rusk County's population mushroomed from 32,000 to 65,000, as oilfield workers, wildcatters, speculators, lawyers, and other opportunists arrived to take advantage of the find. The discovery of oil not only changed the composition of the population but altered the very appearance of the area. New towns such as Joinerville, Carlisle, New London, and Turnertown sprang up; established settlements changed from rural communities to bustling boomtowns. Numerous new hotels, offices, and oil-related businesses were built in and around Henderson. Oil derricks and pumps soon dotted the countryside. Henderson, formerly a sleepy county seat, was transformed into a busy center of activity. Between 1930 and 1940 the town's population grew from 2,932 to 6,437. Though once something of an agricultural backwater, Rusk County overnight became a scene of conspicuous wealth, where the average household income far exceeded the statewide average" – Handbook of Texas online.

No copies of this informative, useful, and enormous Texas oil map in OCLC.

Price: $2,500.00