Gusher Drowns Cash-Strapped University In Oil

A West Texas well named after the Catholic saint of the impossible came in a gusher on May 28, 1923, drowning the cash-strapped university in oil.

Although the far-sighted founders of the Lone Star Republic endowed the future institution of higher learning with an enormous portion of the public domain, the original grant was sold soon after statehood. Legislators replaced the 221,000 acres in 1858 and vowed in the future to add a full section for every nine given to the railroads.

That generous pledge was broken long before the University of Texas finally opened its doors in the fall of 1883. The practically destitute school had to be content with 2.1 million acres of virtually worthless western land deemed fit for raising cattle and little else.

The modest income from grazing leases went straight into a “permanent fund” that was constitutionally off-limits to the UT regents. Prohibited by law from lobbying the legislature, their sole source of construction cash was the “available fund,” the meager return on the investment of the “permanent account.” With no money for new buildings, the Austin campus became an embarrassing eyesore of “miserable shacks.”

Taking a cue from the published opinion of a UT geologist, a Reagan County rancher applied for drilling permits on 430,000 university-owned acres. But a flat wallet forced him to sell out to an old army buddy before sinking a single well.

After forming the Texon Oil and Land Company with an El Paso merchant, Frank T. Pickrell began beating the bushes for backers. Since no oil-savvy Texan was willing to risk a cent in West Texas, he let a bunch of New Yorkers in on the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

To humor a Yankee investor, Pickrell christened his first rig “Santa Rita.” The isolated site near Big Lake lacked the barest necessities, even drinking water had to be trucked in from San Angelo 75 miles away, and hardly a day passed without a roughneck walking off the job.

Pickrell had to depend upon a cowboy crew to complete the historic chore. Within a year of the Santa Rita gusher, the Big Lake boom produced 75 pumping wells on university property.

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