Oil in Arkansas - The Discovery
On January 10th, 1921, shortly after 4:00 p.m., on a cold January day, a deafening roar from a drilling rig one mile west of El Dorado announced the discovery of oil in Arkansas. Dr. Samuel Busey brought in the Armstrong #1 as an earthshaking, roaring oil well. The plume of oil could be seen from downtown El Dorado, a small farming and lumbering village of 3800. The town would never be the same. Church bells rang, the sawmill whistle sounded, and people streamed out of town to see oil spewing up through the 75-foot wooden derrick, and the next day a special five coach train, chartered from Shreveport, with two white flags flying from the engine, pulled into El Dorado's Rock Island station. The following day five charter trains arrived from Little Rock, and within a year twenty-two trains daily were arriving and departing from the two El Dorado Stations. Excitement surged through the little town as rumors spread of poor farmers being made millionaires overnight. Oilmen and promoters rushed in from Texas and Louisiana with drilling equipment, and within a few weeks rigs were busy drilling offsets to the Busey well. Landmen scoured countryside, buying up leases, and the oil fever spread like wildfire. The Garrett Hotel lobby became the center of oil lease trading, and the influx of people was so great the hotel put up cots in the lobby. The Busey well lasted only forty-five days, but it kicked off the oil boom: within six months over 275 wells had been drilled in South Arkansas and only 26 were dry holes. As soon as these new wells confirmed the presence of additional oil fields, the boom was on, and oh what a boom it was.

Oil in Arkansas - The Smackover Field
A little over a year after the initial oil discovery by Dr. Busey, the Oil Operators Trust - Murphy #1, a wildcat well staked on a geologic feature called the Norphlet dome, drilled into the gas-cap of what would become the huge Smackover Oil field. The well blew out and made a crater 500 feet across and 150 deep, which swallowed up the rig, the derrick, and all of the drilling equipment. The well caught fire and created a 300 foot high natural gas flare, which made night seem like day in downtown El Dorado ten miles away. This well would lead to the discovery of the giant Smackover Oil Field, and later that summer the first oil well, the Reverend Charlie Richardson #1 was completed. The oil boom accelerated with the discovery of this huge oil field, and the population of towns like Norphlet and Smackover grew to over 10,000 in only a few weeks. Many of the Smackover Field oil wells came in at over 50,000 barrels of oil a day, and one, the #1 Burton, gauged at 74,500 barrels a day. At the peak of the boom Arkansas was one of the leading oil producing states in the nation. During the first five years of the boom more money flowed into El Dorado than the total appraised value of all the property in the state. This influx of wealth gave El Dorado, in the 1920's, the distinction of having one of the largest concentrations of millionaires in the country and allowed the citizens of El Dorado to construct the biggest and most elaborate county courthouse in the state, three magnificent churches, and a downtown full of fine buildings, including what was at that time one of the tallest buildings west of the Mississippi, the Lion Oil Building.

Oil in Arkansas - Chaos
Within a few short months El Dorado's population doubled, and, before the year was out, it doubled again before peaking two years later at over 40,000. With the population explosion came oilmen from Louisiana and Texas, but along with them, on the trains that arrived daily, were thousands of bums, promoters, and crooks. Within weeks of the discovery barrelhouses with prostitutes, gambling, and whisky sprouted up across from the railroad station on Washington Street, which became known as Hamburger Row because of all the hamburger stands on the streets. During the first two years of the oil boom Hamburger Row reverted to the lawlessness of the old West as El Dorado's small police force was unable to handle the chaos. On street corners young boys sold moonshine in six-ounce Coca Cola bottles for $1.25; prostitutes walked the streets, and dope peddlers like Smiling Jack and Weasel tugged at people's sleeves. Hamburger Row was filled with characters like Barrelhouse sue, who had come up from Homer, Louisiana following the boom and sang, danced, and solicited in places like Dago Red's, Pistol Hill, and Shotgun Valley. Two Shot Blondie, another madam, imported prostitutes and made moonshine deliveries and was well known on Hamburger Row and Jake's Place, the biggest and most notorious of the barrelhouses, the one that boasted the prettiest girls in town. Big Ed, a giant of a man, was a gang enforcer for the infamous Silvertop, one of the most feared men in South Arkansas, and Oscar and Joe were two moon shiners who made door-to-door deliveries. Teams of oxen and mules, some as long as 20 pairs, pulled oil field equipment through the streets, and after a heavy rain, the iron-wheeled wagons turned most of the streets in town into quagmires so dangerous some mules actually drowned.

Oil in Arkansas - The Wildcatters

During the oil boom numerous individuals, or wildcatters, made their mark on the South Arkansas scene. H.L. Hunt, at one time the richest man in the world, opened a barrelhouse on Hamburger Row, made his financial stake there, and then started investing in drilling ventures in the Smackover Oil Field as the Hunt Oil Company. C.H. Murphy, the founder of Murphy Oil Corporation, was a successful businessman in El Dorado, and his timber and land holdings allowed him to start Murphy Oil Corporation, now a Fortune 500 company. Pat Marr, a Texas oilman, staked a well near the Smackover Field and offered a money-back guarantee to his investors, promising them he would bring in a gusher, and he did. J.D. Nantz, a Fort Worth, Texas oilman, formed the Smackover Company and predicted his investors would be receiving $75,000 a day in income within a few weeks. Colonel T.H. Barton started with a gas gathering system, and later purchased a small refinery, expanded it into the Lion Oil
Company, which at one time had several thousand gasoline stations across the mid-South. Other South Arkansas businessmen who invested in the oil boom and became successful were Joe Mahoney, Emon Mahoney, Sr., H.C. McKinney, John Trimble, Sid Umstead, Dean McGee, O.G. Murphy, W.E. Corey, J.E. Berry, and Dr. J.S. Rushing. Charles Murphy, Jr., the son of C.H. Murphy, took over Murphy Oil Corporation in 1947 and over several decades built the Corporation into an international oil giant. Chesley Pruet expanded an interest in a single drilling rig into a multi-million dollar oil and gas exploration company. O.C. Bailey and Boyd Alderson, former chairmen of the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission, were responsible for the orderly development of the industry during this formative period.

The Granite was donated and set in place by Great Lakes Chemical Company.

Milam Construction Company moved and mounted the twelve foot band wheel.

Donors To The Oil Heritage Park

Bob and Candi Nolan in memory of William C. Nolan
Lion Oil Company in memory of Thomas H. "Colonel" Barton
Alice-Sidney Oil company in memory of Dr. J.S. Rushing
Shuler Drilling Company in memory of Wilson H. Sewell
Boyd and Jewell Alderson in honor of William E. "Bill" Wright, Director of the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission 1980 - 1999
Edwin B. Alderson Jr. in memory of his father-in-law, Joe Fullar Gunn, who with his dear friend, Joe Berry Lambert electrified the Phillips Petroleum portion of the Smackover Field.
MacFarlane - U.S.A., LLC in memory of J.H. MacFarlane
Robert Reynolds and Paula Sewell Reynolds
Jack and Jerry McNutt
Charles J. Hoke
John D. Milam
Murphy Oil Company