Friday's Internet Edition, July 04, 2008.
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| Getting ready for Frontier Days.... Started with the brunch at the Clark Hotel Historical Museum. (Photo by Patricia Golden) |
I don’t know if you remember what happened some 30 years ago when the oil companies were making money because the price shot up to $40 or $50 per barrel. All the oil companies, large or small, started spending a lot of money into exploration and technology. Then came the politicians who said “wow,” those companies are making way to much money, so they passed the famous Windfall Profits Tax along with other regulatory provisions that basically killed the domestic oil industry here.
Now, I am hearing a lot of noise from Washington, DC that the political leadership, and I use that term loosely, is thinking about repeating the same folly they did 30 years ago. Culberson County, along with adjacent counties, has not been of interest in all this time. Now, since the price of oil and gas has risen again, the oil companies have become interested in searching our counties for oil and gas.
Can you imagine what will happen to this exploration if the political leadership were to impose taxes and regulations on the oil companies?
I know that the price of gasoline and energy to the consumer has become expensive, but the future economic benefit to our county can only come as long as these prices remain high enough that the oil companies can show profitability. Then, and only then, their exploration here will continue!
Culberson County:
Chesapeake Operating, Inc. has amended it’s original permit on the DF Ranch State 63-2 lease. Their original permit was for a 14,000 foot vertical hole, but now they are going to drill directional.
Samson Lone Star has filed a permit to drill a new 15,000 foot well on the OMC Ranch lease.
Range Production Company has filed a permit to drill a new 13,750 foot vertical well in the Josephine 38 lease.
Hudspeth County:
Trail Mountain has filed a permit to re-enter the vertical well they have on the University Felina “D27” lease. It was a 6,000 foot well that they will be looking for pay at 1,920 feet.
They have also filed a permit to drill a new 1,750 foot vertical well in the University Texas Red D33 lease.
And, they also filed a permit to drill a new 2,700 foot vertical well in the University Devil Woman L5 lease.
Jeff Davis County:
There is no new activity in the county.
Presidio County:
There is no new activity in the county.
Column One
By Dawn Simpson
What a pleasure it was to visit shortly with Daniel Reyes this week. He is a Tech Sgt. in the Air Force and is home on leave. He has spent the last 2 1/2 years in Oman, in the middle east. He will be returning there following his time on leave and is fortunate in that his family can now go with him. He has a 5 year old and a 6 month old, so it will be good for him not to have to be away from them any longer.
The Reyes family has several others serving in the middle east I understand. We are grateful for the service of this family to our nation. On behalf of your hometown, I say thank you, and God go with you and protect you.
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Some of you have gotten to know the Hodges in the past year. They own the Mountain View RV Park and come and go here as their schedule permits. They also own a business and home in Fresno, CA. More and more they are enjoying their time spent in Van Horn, and those who have gotten to know them as friends always look forward to the times they are here. While here week before last Doug became very ill and has been in ICU in a hospital in Fresno since.
A prayer vigil has been planned for this evening (Thursday) at 7:30 out at the Mountain View RV Park. We’ll be praying for Doug and Rita and expecting a miracle. Join us if you would like.
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Some Local History (cont’d from last week)
According to Jim Gillett, then a Ranger sergeant at San Elizario, this band of 12 warriors was in the vicinity of the present Van Horn in October, 1880.
In Bass Canyon, 12 miles northwest of Van Horne’s Wells, Maggie Graham, her husband and a small party of emigrants with whom they were traveling were attacked by the 12 Apaches.
Mrs. Graham had been walking beside the wagon and was shot through the head as she attempted to get in the wagon to reach her rifle. Her husband was shot in the thigh and groin, but eventually recovered.
Another member of the party, a Mr. Grant, also was killed.
Gillett, in his book “Six Years in the Texas Rangers” under Captain George Baylor and Lt. Neville surprised this band of Indians in the Diablo Mountians the following January and killed all the braves.
Mrs. R.B. Durrill, historian of Van Horn and Culberson County says the Graham party consisted of a three-wagon train which was organized in Friotown, Texas.
Van Horne Wells were old when Maggie Graham was buried there. Indians probably had used the dependable seep-water found there for centuries and Anglo-Americans had preceded the Graham party at least 31 years. Mrs. Durrill says the first Americans to pass the wells were Maj. Jefferson Van Horne’s troops en route to establish the first military post at El Paso in 1849.
Mrs. Durrill believes the wells got their name in connection with Maj. Van Horne’s stop there. The State of Texas in 1936, erected a marker in the center of the old stage stand calling the spot “Van Horn Wells” and pointing out that Capt. J.J. Van Horn was stationed there with Company F, 8th infantry in 1859. But according to records, Maj. Van Horne visited the site 10 years earlier, and there is a predominance of the spelling “Van Horne’s” on the old maps.
Directly on the Southern Military Road from San Antonio to El Paso, the wells were a stop of great importance.
“This watering place was regarded by early travelers as the most dependable on the route between the Limpia (in the Davis Mountains) and the Rio Grande,” wrote Roscoe P. and Margaret B. Conkling in “The Butterfield Overland Mail.”
Mrs. Durrill has found references to the wells in various emigrants’ journals and Army reports in 1854, 1856, 1857 and 1959.
The San Antonio and San Diego Mail (Jackass Express), which was established in 1857, included Van Horne’s Wells in its itinerary and the San Antonio and Santa Fe Mail (via El Paso), established in 1854 almost certainly did likewise.
When the Butterfield Overland Mail was switched from the Guadalupe Pass-Cornudas-Hueco Tanks route to the Ft. Stockton-Ft. Davis-Ft. Quitman route in 1859, the company built a stage stand at the wells.
A post-Civil War mail contractor on the San Antonio-El Paso route also used the wells, as did virtually all wagon trains from South Texas.
The Texas and Pacific Railroad built through Culberson County (then part of El Paso County) in 1881 and the town of Van Horn grew up along the tracks.
The following year the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio (Southern Pacific) built from Sierra Blanca southeast and passed within a mile or so of the old wells.
In the valley below Maggie Graham’s rocky hillside grave plentiful well water has been found and a great irrigated farming district is growing up.
And it is said the mountains and valleys of Culberson County have not sheltered an Apache on the warpath since the death of Maggie Graham was avenged.
COMMUNITY CALENDAR
June 21st - Members of the Van Horn Volunteer Fire Department are slated to meet this evening at 7 p.m. at the firehouse.
June 22nd - A.J.R.A. Rodeo begins at 7 p.m. at the Rodeo Arena.
June 23rd - A.J.R.A. Rodeo tonight at 6:30 p.m. at the Rodeo Arena.
June 24th - Attend the church of your choice.
June 25th - Members of the Van Horn Lions Club are slated to meet tonight at 7 p.m. at the Sands Restaurant.
June 26th - Members of the Van Horn Rotary Club are scheduled to meet today at noon at Chuy’s.
June 27th - Nothing scheduled at press time.