The year was 1930, and discoveries at Santa Rita No.1 in the scrubby West Texas desert and elsewhere had helped to boost the state to the top spot as the nation’s leading producer of oil. Residents of the Piney Woods of East Texas had yet to experience the thrill of seeing gusher wells fling oil high into the sky.

They’d heard tales of the chaos that wells like the one drilled at Spindletop in 1901 could deliver. It is why when the Daisy Bradford No. 3 rattled its way into memories on Oct. 5, 1930, it did so before a crowd of thousands. That well would go on to become the first of more than 30,000 wells drilled within the 140,000-acre spread that would become known as the East Texas Oil Field.

The field is sourced by oil from a stratigraphic trap in the Eagle Ford-Woodbine group of the Cretaceous, according to a Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) article. Due to the large size of the field geographically, the first wells were located several kilometers apart. However, over time the determination was made that all the wells produced oil from the same Woodbine sands.

The discovery
In 1927, a 67-year-old wildcatter named Columbus Marion Joiner and crew spudded the Bradford No. 1 well on an 80-acre tract belonging to a Mrs. Daisy Bradford, according to the TSHA article.

After six months of drilling and no sign of oil, the hole was lost to a stuck pipe and the well abandoned. In 1928, after securing funding through the sale of certificates of interest though a mail promotion, a second well was spudded at a site 30 m (100 ft) northwest of the original well, the TSHA article noted. The Bradford No. 2 reached a depth of 767 m (2,518 ft) before drillpipe twisted off and blocked the hole. As with the first well, there was no show of production, leading the well to be abandoned.

To drill Bradford No. 3, Joiner again sold certificates of interest to secure funding. According to the TSHA, on May 8, 1929, the well was at a new location 114 m (375 ft) from the second site. Drilling proceeded off and on over the months. Progress was slow as funds to pay the crew and keep the rig running were low. Tires were burned to keep the boilers going, and the team worked on Sundays so visitors and possible investors could see a well in operation, Thomas Smith noted in his GeoExPro article, “The Great Black Giant.” On Sept. 5, 1930, after the well reached a depth of 1,094 m (3,592 ft) in the Woodbine sand, it flowed live oil and gas on a drillstem test, leading to the decision to upgrade the rig and run casing.

According to Smith, once word was out about the cement plug being drilled out, an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 people made the trip to the well site to “see something happen.” It took several days, but finally, on Oct. 3, “oil spirited from the casing and over the crown block, and those gathered there gave vent to their emotions with a loud cheer,” Smith said.

IP from the Daisy Bradford No. 3 was 300 bbl/d, according to the TSHA. In the 86 years since discovery, more than 5 Bbbl of oil have been produced from the thousands of wells that comprise the East Texas Oil Field.

The boom that followed the discovery of oil at the Daisy Bradford No. 3 brought thousands of wildcatters and drillers into East Texas, turning once quiet little communities like Kilgore, Texas, into bustling cities. With more than 1,000 wooden oil derricks lining its streets, the city became home to ‘The World’s Richest Acre,’ where more than 1 MMbbl of oil was produced. Steel replicas of the old derricks stand in memory of those raucous days. (Source: Lori Martin, Shutterstock.com)

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