completed in 1913 as a Pennsylvanian oil discovery. It opened up a field that grew to cover about 11,000 acres in two counties. More than 26,000 wells were drilled in the pool, producing over 251 million barrels of oil in its history.

After the discovery in 1913, most of the development took place before 1923. Production reached a peak in 1916 and declined fairly rapidly until 1925.

The first actual Healdton Field discovery came early in the 1890s, when a prospector named Palmer used a spring-pole rig to drill a well near an oil seep on what was then Indian Territory. At 425 feet, oil “oozed and lopped: over the top of the hold. Palmer capped the well, hoping to get the necessary leases before news spread about the field. Because a treaty which prohibited oil development of Indian Lands, the prospector died without profiting from his discovery. A copy of that treaty is displayed at the museum. Several years later, substantial oil shows were found in water wells drilled on the Apple, Franklin and Smith properties.

This, coupled with the oil still oozing from the Palmer well, prompted Roy Johnson, Edward Galt, Wirt Franklin and Lon Apple, none of them oil men, to lease 4,000 acres of land and organize the Plains Development Company and the Red River Oil Company. The latter organization drilled the first commercial well, the No. 1 Franklin, on August 4, 1913. Oil was found at 900 feet, and the initial production was about 80 barrels a day. The well head of that fi rst Discovery Well has been moved to the corner of Main and Fourth Streets in Healdton.

The confirmation well produced about 200 barrels of oil a day. At the end of 1913, a total of 15 wells had been drilled, and the race was on to develop the fi eld.

Low drilling costs and high initial production rates contributed to rapid development. One year after the discovery well, 208 wells on 74 leases were producing more than 50,000 barrels a day, according to the Bureau of Mines. By the beginning of 1935, the field had produced 167 million barrels of oil, and by 1953, more than 211 million barrels of oil had been recovered from the sands underlying the 7.142 oil productive areas in the fi eld.

There seems to be no end to information regarding the history of Wirt, Dundee, Healdton and other areas in the oilfield as we have come to know it. How fortunate the Healdton Oil Museum has been available to preserve this history.