Photo by
Dana Stubbs
Location: 2.9 miles south of Corsicana on US
287, then 3 miles east on FM 637
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Site of Tuckertown
Oil was discovered in Corsicana on June 19, 1894, during the
drilling of a water well, setting off the oil boom in Texas. In the
ensuing years, oil developers, lease hounds, rough-necks, businessmen,
bootleggers, prostitutes, gamblers and other adventurers rushed to
Corsicana and the rich fields to the southeast. A number of small
boomtowns sprang up after oil was discovered in the Powell field around
this site. Tuckertown was the largest of the oil boomtowns in this area.
Percy T. Fullwood (1891-1958) of Corsicana had a small grocery on land
leased from Corsicana attorney William J. McKie, who drafted the charter
for the Texas Company (Texaco) in 1902. Fullwood and Harry L. Tucker, a
town site promoter, formed a partnership in 1923. They sold lots around
the store on both sides of the gravel road to Beaumont (now
Farm-to-Market Road 637.) Within two months, 3,000 people were living in
the tents, houses and shanties of Tuckertown. It exemplified the
freewheeling, often unruly life of the Navarro County oil boomtowns. In
October 1923 a fire burned most of the north side of town, but the
residents rebuilt. In November, the Powell field was completely drilled,
and no new digging could be done. Another fire in February 1924 did
further damage to Tuckertown. The field continued to decline, and by
1931 most structures in Tuckertown had been torn down. The last grocery
store, located in what was once a house, was converted to a barn in
1935. Tuckertown was the center of the earliest and largest oil
production in Powell field, which produced about 186,000,000 barrels of
oil. By the end of the 20th century, its location was obscured by
pasture. (2000) The text of the historical markers
have been posted here with the permission of the Texas Historical Commission |