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Subject: [TXGREGG] Kilgore's boomtown roots
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 14:59:30 EDT
Museum recalls Kilgore's boomtown roots
By LES TRACEY/Of the Gazette Staff
(Texarkana Gazette, July 25, 2000)
KILGORE, Texas-In the fall of 1930, two oil derricks near Kilgore began
gushing oil, leading geologists to one of the largest oilfields in the
country.
Within a few weeks, Kilgore's population grew from 500 to about 10,000, all
hoping to strike it rich during the days of the Great Depression.
The East Texas Oil Museum, located on the campus of Kilgore College, lays out
the history of the oil boom in detail, including a section that re-creates
those days, when the streets were filled with mud, horses and cars.
In the main part of the museum, photographs and artifacts show what life was
like during the late 1920s and early 1930s, including photographs of the town
before and after the boom.
The boom started when a a drill on the Daisy Bradford farm, then another on
the Lou Della Crim farm, struck oil within two months of each other.
Roughnecks, wildcatters, independent oilmen, speculators and businessmen all
converged on the town and began drilling.
Derricks sprang up, and by 1931, the town had 1,200 oil derricks in and
around it, including 24 wells on a half-block in the downtown area that
produced 2.5 million barrels of oil per day.
The main attraction at the East Texas Oil Museum is, however, "Boomtown USA,"
a section of the museum that has been recreated to look like a section of a
main street through Kilgore during the days of the boom.
The middle of the "street" is filled with mud, horse-drawn wagons and cars
all stuck in a never-ending traffic jam.
Surrounding the street is a wooden sidewalk and shops, including a barber
shop, theater, post office and general store.
Visitors can roam in and out of the buildings, and in each, the scene is
similar to what it would have been during the boom.
In one shop, an "elevator" is actually an exhibit narrated by two puppets in
which a small group of visitors can "journey" to the center of the earth and
see in painstaking detail how oil is formed and where in the earth it is
found.
At the theater, a short film on the oil boom is shown at regular intervals,
finishing with a re-creation of an oil gusher, which is accomplished by
vibrating the entire room.
Among the shops, realistic mannequins explain what role their characters
played during the boom and relate some of the history.
The museum is located at the corner of U.S. Highway 259 and Ross Street;
hours of operation are from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m Tuesday through Saturday (through
Sept. 30, at which time it will close at 4 p.m. through April 1), 2 p.m. to 5
p.m. Sunday.
Admission is $4 for adults and $2 for children ages 3 to 11.
For information call, (903) 983-8295.
For information and other attractions in Kilgore, call the Kilgore Chamber of
Commerce at (903) 984-5022, or visit the Web site at
http://www.ci.kilgore.tx.us/hom
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