Burkburnett's Oil Pool on Lidar

"Oil a Mile Long in Block 96" in the Burkburnett oil field, 1920 (Permian Basin Petroleum Museum, Portal to Texas History).

"Block 74 Burkburnett, Tex" from a picture postcard in 1925 (Permian Basin Oil Museum, Portal to Texas History).

Enjoying the history of Burkburnett's "Oil Pool" using Lidar!

Here are two real-photo postcard views of Burkburnett (Wichita County, Texas) during its oil boom days of the 1920s. Real-photo postcards, by the way, were the Instagram of their day: a person took a picture with a Brownie camera and printed the photograph onto pre-printed postcard paper. they were real snapshots in time!

Burkburnett's oil fields, which lay west of the town and just south of the Red River, were managed/operated by investors who incorporated to spread the risk in the hope of hitting a gusher. The fields were divided into square blocks, which I believe was done to keep track of the derrick locations. The block numbering extended into Oklahoma. Block 96 was part of the Congressional Oil Corporation, which incorporated by 1920.

But the REALLY interesting part of Burkburnett's "oil pool" isn't the companies -- it's the topography. Devastated and left barren by the incredible oil rush a mere century ago, the scrub land west of Burkburnett sports the scars of civilization better than most places do, especially when viewed on Lidar (Caltopo.com).

The oldest settlement within the Burkburnett Oil Pool is Clara, which began in the 1880s as a German settlement. The town's only visible remains today are its impressive Lutheran church and the cemetery, but Lidar reveals the foundations of other homes and a two schools. Stringtown, to the southeast of Burkburnett, was just a collection of workman homes or, as the Burkburnett newspaper put it, was one of the first "oil well settlements" as it was built around 1915. Thrift, to Burkburnett's northeast, was one of the oil boom towns that were established in the late 1910s. Lidar hints at a fairly large settlement that is now completely gone save for a brick ruin along Bohner Road.

Other settlements in the far northern part of Wichita County disintegrated once the boom ceased (and the Great Depression began): Bridgetown, Morgan City, Newtown, and Bradley's Corner (which may have been known as Boomtown, once).

I recommend spending some very enjoyable time on Lidar and honing in on some ghost towns along the western Red River to see what used to be. I can't wait until it becomes even more detailed.

Heydrick's Map of Burkburnett Oil Pool in 1919 indicates the blocks in the field. I circled the blocks that the real picture postcards mentioned in red - 96 at the Red River and 74 just below it (UT Arlington, Portal to Texas History).

In the USGS map from 1918, Stringtown runs along the road just southwest of Burkburnett. It was a collection of wooden homes inhabited by oil patch workers. The modern roads are visible in the super-imposed image (USGS).

Stringtown is no more, but the settlement is still visible on Lidar. The modern roads are added as a layer (Caltopo).

Clara was one of the older settlements in northern Wichita County. Its founding in the 1880s had nothing to do with the oil fields. Clara's only remnants are its sturdy Lutheran Church and its historic cemetery. Lidar reveals a a little bit more of its former self (Caltopo).

This brick building, which may have been a bank, indicates that the town of Thrift, west of Burkburnett, was once here. Founded in 1919 during the oil boom, much of the town can still be discerned on Lidar, including streets (Caltopo).