In June 2014, a life-sized bronze sculpture called West Edmond Field was placed in Mitch Park. The sculpture depicts an oil rig with two oilfield workers. It highlights the drilling of the West Edmond Field in the mid-1940s, which ranked among the largest oil discoveries in the world.
On the back side of this sculpture, is a large masonry panel on which is described the details of the discovery and drilling of this field. The story the marker tells is shown below:
West Edmond Field
Discovered April 28, 1943
The West Edmond Field was discovered during America’s involvement in WWII when the need for domestic oil supplies was imperative to Allied victory.
The field was the most important oil discovery of the 1940’s and Oklahoma’s first major strategic find. Looking west toward the field, one would have seen a vast prairie dotted with innumerable rigs; pumping an eventual 117,000,000 barrel of oil from the Hunton Limestone formation.
The field was found through the persistence of “wild-catter” Assaph “Ace” Gutowsky. Ace was convinced that oil was located to the west of the Edmond, Britton and Oklahoma City fields.
Farmer J.M. Young was convinced that oil lay beneath his property. Young claimed to be able to find the location of potential oil fields by using a so-called “Doodlebug.” This was a metal cylinder filled with some kind of fluid, hanging from a chain… a device similar to finding water with a devining rod. The two men worked together to identify a location to drill. Many reputable petroleum geologists dismissed their claims due to a lack of adequate geological and geophysical evidence.
Gutowsky found a backer for his project in D.D. Bourland of San Antonio, Texas. The Number One Wagner was spudded in on January 2, 1943, in the NW 1/4 of the NW 1/4 of the SW 1/4 of Section 32, T14N-R4W, Oklahoma County, a few miles west of Edmond.
The well came in on April 28 at a depth of 6,950 feet for a twenty-four hour flow of 522 barrels of oil. This first well brought a swarm of oilmen to develop an area of 37,000 acres and to operate almost 900 productive wells.
By the end of 1943, the field was crowded with drilling rigs and eleven large producing wells. Almost immediately, pipeline service was established with the bulk of the production going to the Champlain Oil Refinery at Enid.
During 1944, there was unchecked development. Time magazine called the West Edmond Field, “the greatest concentration of rotary drilling rigs in the world.” The field produced 7,752,000 barrels of oil; temporarily increasing the state’s sagging oil production to 1,500,000 barrels more than the previous year. The area produced an average 39,000 barrels a day and employed hundreds of WWII veterans returning from war.
A Montreal Gazette article dated December 10, 1945 stated: “On September 1, 1945, the field had produced a total of 24,827,023 barrels of oil.”
The West Edmond Field Gutowsky is credited with discovering proved to be one of the most productive oil fields in the nation and the second largest in Oklahoma, next to the Glen Pool of Tulsa.