Masterson, Texas

Panhandle Field geologic map (left) and stratigraphic column (right)[14]

Panhandle Field cross section (left) and helium concentration (right)[15]

The Panhandle Field is a structural trap, characterized by the Amarillo-Wichita Uplift or sometimes referred to as the buried "Amarillo mountains", which is bounded by three sedimentary basins: the Anadarko Basin to the north, the Dalhart Basin to the west, and the Palo Duro Basin to the south.[16][17] This tectonic uplift occurred in the Late Mississippian to Early Pennsylvanian time and was sufficient to expose and erode the Precambrian granitic and rhyolitic basement complex forming a granitic wash, which was subsequently submerged and buried by marine sediments in the Permian (specifically, the Wolfcampian carbonates).[18][17] The granitic wash and these marine sediments form the pay zones but the "gas, oil and water cut across formational boundaries".[19] The Wolfcampian marine sediments include an arkosic lime, an arkosic dolomite, the Moore County Limestone, the White Dolomite, and the Brown Dolomite.[19] The Leonardian Panhandle Lime, or Wichita, and Red Cave overlay these Wolfcampian sediments, with the anhydrite and dense-dolomite nature of the Wichita forming the reservoir seal.[14][20] The source for the oil, gas and helium accumulations are the sedimentary rocks of Pennsylvanian age in the Palo Duro and Anadarko Basins.[21][22] The helium would have been derived from uraniferous rocks and radiogenic in origin.[23] The Panhandle Field has a pressure which is about 400 psi lower than the surrounding basins, which allows gases to migrate into it.[24] Although low, the pressure is at normal hydrostatic pressure relative to the water table.[25] Charles N. Gould mapped the John Ray Dome, which was drilled by the Amarillo Oil Company in 1918 resulting in the Panhandle Field discovery.[21] Drilled to a depth of 2,395 feet, the well, No. 1 Masterson C, produced 5 million cubic feet of gas per day at a pressure of 420 psi.[26] Oil in the Panhandle Field was discovered in 1921 with Gulf Producing Company's No. 2 Burnett well, producing 200 barrels per day.[27]

After founding the geology department at the University of Oklahoma in 1900, Charles N. Gould worked summers doing field work for Frederick Haynes Newell, first director of the United States Reclamation Service (later known as the United States Bureau of Reclamation), investigating "the underground water resources of a portion of the southern part of the Great Plains."[28] His first summer trip through the Panhandle in 1903 resulted in Water Supply Paper 154 of the United States Geological Survey, Geology and Water Resources of the Eastern Portion of the Panhandle of Texas, and a similar trip in 1905 resulted in Water Supply Paper 191, Geology and Water Resources of the Western Portion of the Panhandle of Texas.[29] It was during this second trip Gould "explored and prepared a geological map of Palo Duro Canyon...giving names to the formations" and "studied the anticlines along the Canadian River, indications of which he saw in 1903.[30]

In 1908, Gould became director of the Oklahoma Geological Survey and in 1916 was asked by "M.C. Nobles, a wholesale grocer of Amarillo" if he knew of "any oil and gas prospects..in the Panhandle" to which Gould replied "there appeared to be several big anticlines or domes in that region" but it "would probably be necessary to send a Plane table party into the field and prepare a detailed contour map of the area."[31] Nobles organized the Amarillo Oil Company on 24 April 1917, from ten businessmen investing one thousand dollars each, and hired Gould to survey an area that included Lee Bivins' ranch south of the Canadian River, and R.B. Masterson's ranch north of the river.[32] The resultant map showed a large dome fifteen miles in diameter with four hundred feet of relief, which Gould named the John Ray Dome after a nearby butte.[32][33][3]

The company bought oil and gas leases on 64,000 acres around this "typical oil-and-gas structure" and Gould received one-sixteenth of the acreage, plus one thousand dollars, and paid expenses for his services.[34] The nearest oil or gas was 225 miles away at the time which prompted the following speech by Gould before C.M. Hapgood drilled the company's first well, "No one knows whether or not the Lord has put any gas or oil in the Panhandle of Texas, but if there should be any oil or gas in this part of the world, this would appear to be the best place to find it. And, because this seems to be a very large dome, it is my judgement that one is more likely to find gas, rather than oil, in the first well drilled on the apex, or high point, of the dome."[35] The well, Masterson Number 1, encountered several gas-bearing sands over its 2,200 feet depth in Dec. 1918, and flowed eleven million cubic feet a day.[36][33][3]

Gould later discovered the Cliffside Dome, near the station Cliffside northwest of Amarillo, a large deposit of helium gas, the 666 dome, the north slope of which is where the Borger Oil Field was located, and named the buried granite ridge in the Panhandle the "Amarillo Mountains".[37] Gould's philosophy, "we always told our clients, the business of prospecting for oil or gas was first, last, and all the time a gamble. No one knows in advance of drilling what will be found at any particular place. There is always risk in drilling for oil and all the geologist can do is to minimize that risk."[38]

• 
  Typical CIG company house at Bivins Station, 1966. This one was on 4th street. Phone number 36F4 (four rings on the party line).
• 
  View of the Bivins School main entrance in 1965.
• 
  Exell Helium Plant, circa 1945, courtesy BLM.
• 
  CIG Bivins Compressor Station and Masterson, Texas, circa early 1960s
• 
  Bivins Station, 2013

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Masterson, Texas.

• George, Louise (1994). No City Limits, The Story of Masterson, Texas. Gateway Press. ASIN B004SZU2DI.
• Gould, Charles Newton (2003). Covered Wagon Geologist. Textbook Publishers. ISBN 978-0-7581-1706-9.
• Pierce, A.P.; Gott, G.B.; Mytton, J.W. (1964). Uranium and Helium in the Panhandle Gas Field Texas, and Adjacent Areas (PDF) (Report). Geological Survey Professional Paper 454-G. Washington, DC: U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
• Pippin, L. (1970). Panhandle-Hugoton Field, Texas-Oklahoma-Kansas-the First Fifty Years. pp. 204–222. ISBN 978-0-8918-1288-3. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)

• National Helium Reserve
• Hugoton Gas Field

• "Bivins, Lee". Handbook of Texas (online ed.). Texas State Historical Association.
• "Exell Helium Plant". Handbook of Texas (online ed.). Texas State Historical Association.
• Historical drawings of the Exell Helium Plant, Bureau of Land Management
• "Gould, Charles Newton". Handbook of Texas (online ed.). Texas State Historical Association.
• "Masterson, Robert Benjamin". Handbook of Texas (online ed.). Texas State Historical Association.
• Masterson article by Louise George, Texas Escapes Online Magazine
• "Panhandle Field". Handbook of Texas (online ed.). Texas State Historical Association.