09/27/2025
M. L. Baker No. 1 – the discovery well that gave McCamey its name 100 years ago today!
By the early 1920s, Upton County was still just a patchwork of quiet ranching communities. The cattle drives of Goodnight and Loving through Castle Gap were long past, the Butterfield stage had been replaced by the Orient Railroad, and folks had settled into a steady rhythm of ranch life under the wide West Texas sky. But change was rumbling beneath their feet.
That change came to the surface on Sunday, September 27, 1925. Fort Worth wildcatter George B McCamey and his partner John Porter Johnston had struck a deal with Marland Oil Company to drill a test well on the Baker ranch in the southwest corner of Upton County. George McCamey had picked the spot himself after geologists suggested the land held promise. With a cable-tool rig set up in August and supply boxcars parked nearby on a railroad siding, the men went to work on drilling what they called the M. L. Baker No. 1 oil well.
On the afternoon of September 27th, George McCamey was making his way back from Best in neighboring Regan county, when he noticed a long line of cars filled with geologists and scouts heading in the other direction. He thought little of it until he got closer and realized the truth: his wildcat well had come in. The Baker No. 1 was flowing—192 barrels a day, eight barrels an hour when put on pump. Those scouts were scrambling to reach the closest telephone to advertise that oil had been found in Upton County.
The timing was almost too perfect to believe. That very same day, back in Fort Worth, George McCamey’s wife gave birth to their son Robert. George heard the good news over the telephone in San Angelo—he had struck oil and fatherhood all within a matter of hours.
Within a week, Republic Production Company purchased the well and surrounding acreage for half a million dollars, a fortune for two independent drillers who “just wanted to drill a well.” And almost overnight, the quiet ranch country changed. Oil derricks rose where windmills once stood, ranch roads turned into bustling highways, and a rough-and-tumble boomtown sprang up. When the oil boom brought workers and supplies rushing into the scrubland, a lone boxcar sat on the railway siding with the name “McCamey” stenciled across its side. It became the landmark everyone looked for, the place where freight wagons stopped and mail sacks were dropped. Before long, folks stopped saying they were headed out to the oil camp and simply said they were going to “McCamey” and that boxcar’s painted name gave the town its own.
By 1926, more than 10,000 people had poured into the town of McCamey. In 1931, Boy Scout Troop 31 erected a monument at the site, where it still stands today, 2.3 miles north of McCamey.
It’s remarkable to think that a century later, so many of us live and work in the community of McCamey because of that single stroke of fortune—the day George B McCamey and John Porter Johnston hit black gold in the West Texas desert.
