Oil in Arkansas — The Discovery

Oil in Arkansas — The Discovery. . On January 10th, 1921, shortly after 4:00 P.M., on a cold January day, a deafening roar from a drilling rig one mile west of El Dorado announced the discovery of oil in Arkansas. Dr. Samuel Busey brought in the Armstrong #1 as an earthshaking, roaring oil well. The plume of oil could be seen from downtown El Dorado, a small farming and lumbering village of 3800. The town would never be the same. Church bells rang, the sawmill whistle sounded, and people streamed out of town to see oil spewing up through the 75-foot wooden derrick, and the next day a special five coach train, chartered from Shreveport, with two white flags flying from the engine, pulled into El Dorado's Rock Island station. The following day five charter trains arrived from Little Rock, and within a year twenty-two trains daily were arriving and departing from the two El Dorado Stations. Excitement surged through the little town as rumors spread of poor farmers being made millionaires overnight. Oilmen and promoters rushed in from Texas and Louisiana with drilling equipment, and within a few weeks rigs were busy drilling offsets to the Busey well. Landmen scoured countryside, buying up leases, and the oil fever spread like wildfire. The Garrett Hotel lobby became the center of oil lease trading, and the influx of people was so great the hotel put up cots in the lobby. The Busey well lasted only forty-five days, but it kicked off the oil boom: within six months over 275 wells had been drilled in South Arkansas and only 26 were dry holes. As soon as these new wells confirmed the presence of additional oil fields, the boom was on and oh what a boom it was.