Discovery Oil Well - Marathon Oil Company
Posted by: 
BruceS
N 41° 15.616 W 102° 58.440
13T E 669723 N 4569628
Historical marker located on roadside pullout along US 385 between Sidney and Gurley
Waymark Code: WM21N0
Location: Nebraska, United States
Date Posted: 08/20/2007
Views: 80
DISCOVERY OIL WELL
MARATHON OIL COMPANY
On August 9, 1949, the first successful oil well in western Nebraska came in
for 225 barrels of oil per day at a total depth of 4,429 feet. Marathon Oil Co.
completed the discovery well, Mary Egging #1, located four miles east and two
miles north of this marker, and five miles southeast of the town of Gurley.
The oil discovery ended 60 years of unsuccessful searching in western
Nebraska. The first reported interest for oil occurred in 1889, near Crawford,
in the northwest corner of the Panhandle. The first recorded drilling operation
took place in 1903 near Chadron, also in the northern part of the Panhandle. In
1917, the first exploratory well to drill in the southwest Panhandle, near
Harrisburg, failed. Oil searchers sunk many other dry test wells in western
Nebraska until success came in 1949. Wells in the Nebraska Panhandle through
1966 had produced more than 216 million barrels of oil. Nebraska's first
successful oil well was completed in 1940 in the southeastern corner of the
state. ~ text of marker