The state historic marker for the town of Texon along US 67, where there are no signs of the town of Texon, just the derrick of the Santa Rita No. 1 towering in the distance.
The marker is located along the US 67 at its intersection with FM 1675, about 14 miles west of Big Lake. The marker reads as follows:
"TOWN OF TEXON
Early travelers along many historic trails in this area found the region arid and inhospitable. Given (1876) to the University of Texas, the lands around this marker were leased to cattlemen. The Kansas City, Mexico & Orient Railroad built its line here in 1911, but did little local hauling. Development came after Frank Pickrell and Haymon Krupp of Texon Oil and Land Company drilled for oil. Their driller, Carl Cromwell, brought in Santa Rita No. 1, the first gusher in the Permian Basin, on May 28, 1923.
Texon, first company town in the Permian Basin, was founded in 1924 by Big Lake Oil Company. Levi Smith, president of the firm, planned and supervised building of the town, and Ted Williams served as city manager for the company. Texon had stores, shops, a school, a physician, a dentist, a hospital, a theater, a park, a well-known baseball team, and many facilities for recreation. The post office opened in 1926. As many as 2,000 people lived here -- boosters claimed up to 10,000 -- manning the drilling, a gasoline plant, an oil treating plant, and other operations. Plymouth Oil Company absorbed Big Lake Oil Company, then sold out to Marathon Oil Company. The company town was closed in 1962. (1977)"
From the Handbook of Texas: (
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"TEXON, TEXAS. Texon, in southwestern Reagan County eighty-five miles west of San Angelo, was named for the Texon Oil and Land Company, which drilled the Santa Rita oil well in 1923. Shortly thereafter Pittsburgh wildcatters M. L. Benedum and Joe Trees purchased some of the Texon Company's leases and formed the Big Lake Oil Company to develop the field. From 1924 to 1926 the BLOC president, Levi Smith, planned and built Texon for employees and their families south of the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway tracks.
At a time when oil towns denoted wildness, Texon was considered a model oil community. In addition to houses, BLOC provided a grade school, a church, a hospital, a theater, a golf course, tennis courts, and a swimming pool for its residents, who numbered 1,200 in 1933. Smith, an avid baseball fan, sponsored the Texon Oilers, a semiprofessional team composed of company employees. Privately owned businesses housed in company buildings included a drug store, a cafe, a boarding house, a tailor-shop, dry-goods and grocery stores, barber and beauty shops, a service station, a dairy, an ice house, and a bowling alley.
By World War II oil production was declining, and with no new wells, fewer employees were needed. By 1952 the population had fallen to 480. In 1956 Plymouth Oil Company, another Benedum-Trees property, took over BLOC, and in 1962 ownership passed to Ohio Oil, now Marathon Oil, which chose not to maintain the town of less than 100 residents. In 1986 the post office was closed, and in 1996 less than ten people lived in Texon. The population was twelve in 2000.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Sam T. Mallison, The Great Wildcatter (Charleston, West Virginia: Education Foundation of West Virginia, 1953). Samuel D. Myres, The Permian Basin: Petroleum Empire of the Southwest (2 vols., El Paso: Permian, 1973, 1977). Martin W. Schwettmann, The Discovery and Early Development of the Big Lake Oil Field (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1941).
by Jane Spraggins Wilson"