The Illinois #3

The Illinois #3. . The Illinois State #3 was the first commercial oil well drilled in Southeast New Mexico and the first on state-owned lands in New Mexico. , The oil sand, or "pay," was drilled into on April 9, 1924. At some time in late April or May, the well unloaded and the now famous photograph was taken. Later in June 1924, the well-known "shooter," Tex Thornton, set off downhole nitroglycerin explosions to improve the well's performance. The oil business in Southeast New Mexico was here to stay. , The operators of the original well were Flynn, Welch and Yates. Tom Flynn and Van Welch had a partnership called Illinois Producers, and had brought a cable tool rig and crew to New Mexico in search of oil. Several failures had them packing to leave the state when Martin Yates convinced them to stay and try again on New Mexico state leases Yates had obtained. The #1 well was dry, the #2 discovered a large, unwanted volume of natural gas (in a time of no natural gas markets), so the #3 had to be successful, and at 1,947 feet, it was. , The geologist was V. H. McNutt, who, after the #1 and #2 failures, waved in a general direction but wouldn't be more specific as to the #3 site. The decision was passed on to Martin, who, in turn, elected for a woman's intuition, asking his wife, Mary, to pick the site, and she did. The rest is history. , Since 1924, Southeast New Mexico has produced approximately 3.9 billion barrels of oil and 20.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas out of tens of thousands of wells. The state of New Mexico permanent fund, into which its oil and gas royalties flow, with the help of San Juan basin gas in Northwest New Mexico, has grown to over $5 billion. , The "Woman's Intuition" monument was commissioned by descendants of Mary and Martin Yates, created by Robert Summers, and cast by Eagle Bronze Foundry. , April 24, 2004.