Denver City, Texas

L. P. and Ruth Bennett moved to Yoakum County in 1916 to take over the ranching operation they had inherited from Ruth's father Dr. J. R. Smith of Munday. In 1927 they leased part of the ranch to the Texas Pacific Coal and Oil Company for the drilling of exploratory oil wells. By the mid-1930s the Bennett's cattle business was declining as a result of the economic depression and a severe area drought. They were in danger of losing their property through foreclosure when oil was discovered on the ranch. The find was made on October 10, 1935 at the Ruth Bennett No. 1-678 (6 mi. NE), a well supervised by Fort Worth wildcatter Red Davidson and crews of the Honolulu Oil Company. With the discovery, the Bennetts were able to pay all claims against their land. Increased drilling activity in the area created a "boom town" atmosphere and led to the founding of Denver City (6 mi. S) in 1939. Petroleum remains the major industry in Yoakum County, a national leader in the production of crude oil. In 1964 Gene H. Bennett, the youngest son of L. P. and Ruth Bennett, donated this portion of the Bennett Ranch to the county for use as a park. (1981)

Yoakum County was organized in 1907. By the 1920s the area around this site was rural farm and ranch land without electricity, paved roads or a railroad. Building lumber was brought by freight wagon. Several local men erected a one-room frame building near this site in 1924 to serve as a school for the widely-scattered rural families. The structure also was used for Sunday school, monthly services and Methodist and Baptist revivals. Designated as Center Point School District No. 8, it served an area of 64 square miles. Classes ranged in size from four to more than twenty students over the years. Some walked a mile or more across open prairie to reach the school. Others rode horses, which they kept tethered behind the building. Students participated in Yoakum County Interscholastic League events in addition to their usual studies. Teachers earned $80-$100 a month to teach all grades, do janitorial work and in some cases even provide daily transportation for the students. Teachers usually boarded with local families. Enrollment increased slightly when oil camps opened in the county in 1935. In the spring of 1939, voters opted to merge Center Point School District No. 8 with others to form Plains Rural School District. The one-room school was closed and moved to Plains for use as a music building, later becoming part of the American Legion hall. Center Point School served the educational, spiritual and social needs of the surrounding community for fifteen years. Although short-lived, its legacy remains a vital part of the history of this part of Yoakum County. 	(2000)	

The first oil lease in Gaines County was in 1912 and the first drilling occurred in 1925. Ten years later the Landreth Co. brought in the first producing well. In 1936 Amerada Oil Co. opened up the Seminole Pool, a major field that yielded 350 wells within a decade. Less than 50 years after that discovery, Gaines County had produced over one billion barrels of crude oil. With several active fields, Gaines ranks as one of the top oil producing counties in Texas. The petroleum industry accounts for much of this area's prosperity. (1979)

Allred is just north of State Highway 83 and seventy miles southwest of Lubbock in southern Yoakum County. At the site was once the largest undeveloped oilfield in Texas. The town was conceived by Walter E. Young and M. A. Shields in 1937, soon after the first oil discoveries, and probably named for Governor James Allred ; actual building started in January 1938. The Allred water well was dug in January. The first lot of the original forty-acre townsite was sold to Alva Willis on February 12, 1938, and the town's post office opened in May. Later, three additions of forty acres each were added so that the town could handle a population of 3,000. The Graves Grocery, operated by Harold W. Graves, the first business establishment of Allred, opened in March 1938. Young sold his interest in the townsite to Pat Malone in January 1939; Malone enlarged the light plant and provided the town with an adequate telephone system. In 1939 the town's population of 1,200 made it the largest in Yoakum County, and new people were moving in daily. On May 25, 1939, Roy Royal published the first and only issue of the Allred Times . That same year a new school was built on the north side of town. The population declined to 750 by 1940 and to 150 by 1947. In 1956 the Allred school district and the Sligo school district were consolidated. The Allred school building was abandoned and later used as a community building. In 1957 the Yoakum County Gas Company, which had served Allred since 1939, found it unprofitable to serve the five remaining families and discontinued service to the town. Later that year the church, the post office, and the grocery store closed. The population of Allred was fifty in 1964, though a few people still lived there in the 1980s. By 2000 the population grew to ninety.

Wasson field is a triangular-shaped oil and gas producing area in southwestern Yoakum and northwestern Gaines counties on the Llano Estacado of West Texas, five miles east of the New Mexico line. The field, which covers 62,500 acres, is so large that early wells, located several miles from each other, were regarded as discovery wells in separate fields. Bennett was the first of those fields. It developed after the L. P. Bennett No. 1, drilled by Honolulu Oil Corporation and Davidson Drilling Company (later Cascade Petroleum Company), was brought in on April 6, 1936. Wasson field (later South sector) was recognized after Amon G. Carter, Sr. , and Continental Oil Company found oil in their Wasson No. 1 on June 19, 1937. Denver pool was named for its operator, Denver Producing and Refining Company, which made a producer of the Whittenburg No. 1 in September 1937. However, these producing areas, as well as those called Baumgart, Clawater, Dowden, Kendrick, and Roberts, were defined as sectors within the same field on December 1, 1939, when the Railroad Commission determined that all of them produced from the same structure and combined them under the name of Wasson field. The land around Wasson field had attracted oil prospectors first in the late 1920s, but the Great Depression halted their drilling before a discovery was made. By 1935 wildcatters returned to Yoakum County, and on April 4, 1935, Honolulu and Davidson spudded their Bennett No. 1. The location was chosen by surface geology, and the nearest production to the site was in Lea County, New Mexico, thirty-five miles to the southwest. The operators drilled the well with rotary tools to a depth of 5,085 feet, reaching the San Andres formation, where the hole filled with 700 feet of oil. The volume of gas found in the well was estimated at 500,000 cubic feet per day. Seven-inch casing was cemented in the well, and the level of oil rose to 3,700 feet. On April 6, 1936, the discovery well was completed after being deepened to 5,282 feet, where it was shot with nitroglycerine and tested 234 barrels of oil per day. Although the Bennett No. 1 was an indisputable producer, the operators were discouraged from hastily drilling offsetting wells by three obstacles-legal title to their lease, transportation for their production, and low crude prices. The question of legal title to the lease evolved from an overdue mortgage on the Bennett ranch, which was facing foreclosure. The Bennetts cleared their ranch title by selling sufficient royalty interest to repay the outstanding loan. Having secured legal title to their lease, the operators of the Bennett No. 1 still struggled with transportation problems. Moving crude from the isolated field to market was a challenge, since no nearby pipeline or railroad existed. The cost of trucking the production sixty miles to the pipeline terminal in Andrews County threatened to erode profits, since West Texas crude sold on an average for only $.84 per barrel in 1936. Despite the expense, production from all sectors of the field was trucked to Andrews or it was sold locally to stripping plants until November 1937, when Humble Pipe Line Company built a six-inch line to connect the field with its terminal in Hobbs, New Mexico. Even with the cost of trucking crude in 1936, the operators of the Bennett No. 1 produced 9,506 barrels of oil. In 1937 other tests were successful in Yoakum and Gaines counties. In the first week of January the Bennett No. 1 of Texas Pacific Coal and Oil Company came in one-half mile west of the original well and in the same section. After an acid treatment, it flowed 540 barrels of oil and 1 million cubic feet of gas per day. In June 1937 Amon G. Carter and Continental Oil Company brought in their Wasson No. 1. This well was twelve miles southwest of the Bennett No. 1 and was regarded as the discovery well in the South sector. Reaching a depth of 4,959 feet, its potential was set at 333 barrels of oil per day. The completion of