NACOGDOCHES COUNTY. 271 



the building of a pavilion and a wall of masonry around the spring to form 

 a catch basin. It has been a place of resort by persons of the vicinity. Vis- 

 itors formerly came in wagons with their families and camped out for several 

 days. There is quite a little settlement (Oil City) located on the property, 

 the houses having been built for the accommodation of the work people em- 

 ployed by the Petroleum Prospecting Company. The peculiarity of this 

 spring is that when the sediment is stirred bubbles of red-brown oil will 

 rise, spread on the surface of the water, and flow off at the spout of the 

 spring. This fact it is believed led to the discovery of the oil of this region. 



MINERAL OIL. 



The oil bearing sulphur water spring above described is located on one of 

 the two tracts of land owned and operated by the Petroleum Prospecting 

 Company. The water with traces of oil flows into the little stream adjacent 

 known as Oil Spring Branch, a tributary of Bayou Visitador. In the valley 

 of the stream are the present oil bearing wells, some thirty in number. 



From Mr. B. F. Hitchcock, the manager in charge, the following particu- 

 lars were obtained : "The Petroleum Prospecting Company was organized 

 in 1887. Since then forty wells have been drilled, about thirty of which are 

 oil bearing. In drilling they get oil between seventy and one hundred feet. 

 The wells have been drilled generally to a depth of one hundred feet. The 

 plant consists of the office in the spring lot; a storage house containing four 

 wooden tanks of two hundred and fifty barrels capacity each, set up; four 

 wooden tanks of the same capacity not set up ; two iron tanks of a capacity of 

 one thousand barrels each, now full of oil; one engine house, with stationary 

 engine; one pipe line three inches in diameter, fourteen and one-half miles 

 long, leading to an iron shipping tank having a capacity of two thousand 

 barrels, located on Aaron's Hill, on the west side of the town of Nacog- 

 doches; several large well derricks, and portable engines for drilling." 



The object of the stationary engine was to heat the oil by means of coils in 

 the iron tanks, with the view of rendering it temporarily lighter and more 

 fluid, in order that the heavier siliceous matter mechanically suspended might 

 be deposited in the bottoms of the tanks. Another object in view in locating 

 the stationary engine was the pumping of the oil through the pipe line to the 

 shipping point at Nacogdoches, but up to this date no oil has been pumped 

 through the line, and no oil has been shipped from the wells for the past two 

 years. The company at present is only bailing out the wells semi-weekly and 

 storing the oil. 



In the valley of Bayou Visitador, about three or four miles northeast of 

 the oil spring property, is the plant and property of the Lubricating Oil 



