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 City of Wortham Posted by:  QuesterMark
N 31° 47.256 W 096° 27.851
14R E 740107 N 3519692
This marker stands next to SH 14 (S 3rd St.) at the edge of Wortham City Park, along with the Wortham Community War Dead memorial and The Wortham Oil Boom TxHM, in Wortham.
Waymark Code: WM11335
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 08/07/2019
Views: 13
Marker erected by the Texas Historical Commission
Texas Historical Commission Atlas data:
Index Entry Wortham
Address
City Wortham
County Freestone
UTM Zone 14
UTM Easting 740170
UTM Northing 3519620
Subject Codes cities and towns
Marker Year 1972
Marker Location on SH 14 near the intersection of Main and SH 14
Marker Size 27" x 42"
Marker Number: 9914
Marker Text:
Situated on grant given 1834 by Mexico to Robert B. Longbotham (1797-1883), a Texas colonist from England who settled here in 1839. Years later, in 1871, when Houston & Texas Central Railway was planned through the area, R. B. Longbotham sold right of way through his land for token sum of $5, and townsite was bought from him by investors. Although town was platted as "Tehuacana", post office was established Nov. 10, 1871, as Long Bottom, for original landowner. In 1874 name again changed, to honor Col. Luther Rice Wortham, a merchant instrumental in securing railway for area.Wortham was incorporated in 1910, but remained a modest market town until the 1920s, when rumors of oil attracted such prospectors as hotel man Conrad Hilton, who soon left when wells yielded salt water. A Thanksgiving Day gusher in 1924 opened the boom. Population leaped from 1,000 to over 30,000 at once. Law enforcement was impossible, housing inadequate, but in time the town met its obligations. Churches and schools prospered. The municipal band was the official band of 1926 United Confederate Veterans' Convention in Birmingham, Ala. Intensive drilling had ended the boom by late 1927. In 1972 a few wells are still pumping, and new horizons are being explored.
(1972)
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