Kurz Number One , When Carl Kurz Struck Oil And Began the Somerset Oil Field

Kurz Number One , When Carl Kurz Struck Oil And Began the Somerset Oil Field
Bernard Pyron

The New Encyclopedia of Texas, edited by Ellis A. Davis and Edwin H. Grobe, 1929, says in the article on Aurelius Milton Pyron that " In 1909, Mr. Kurtz, whose land adjoined that owned by Mr. Pyron, was drilling for artesian water and struck oil instead.  Following this Mr. Pyron and Mr Kurtz organized the Somerset Oil and Gas Company and began active operations in what is now the Somerset Oil Field.  They brought their first well at eleven hundred feet, but this well was discarded soon after being put on pump."

The date of 1909 is too early for the discovery of oil by Carl Kurz when he was drilling for artesian water. 

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerset,_Texas

"In 1913, while drilling for artesian water, Kurz discovered oil. A boom followed. The Somerset oilfield extended from Somerset to below Pleasanton and was the largest known shallow field in the world at that time. Two oil refineries in the field and a pipeline into San Antonio handled the high-gravity crude."

In several articles the date of the discovery of oil by Carl Kurz is reported to have been in 1913.

But 1913 is a year later than sources indicate for the discovery of oil when Carl Kurz drilled for deep water.

http://books.google.com/books?id=7pgtAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA114...

The Oil Weekly, January 21, 1922

"The Somerset, Texas shallow oil pool completed its tenth year with the close of 1921 without a single dry hole in proven territory since the discovery of the field........the field had only eight or ten very small wells and development did not really start until three years ago...the older wells finished around 900 feet with from one to four barrels production."

If ten years went by up to the end of 1921, then the beginning of the Somerset Oil Field would have been in 1912, so the date in the above wikipedia article saying Carl Kurz hit oil in 1913 is too late a date.

This Oil Weekly information on the ten years at the end of 1921 from the start of the Somerset Oil Field supports the earlier date of the discovery of oil by Carl Kurz according to the oil leases that A.M. Pyron contracted in 1912 for the Somerset Oil & Gas Co, seen in online Bexar county land transaction records.
A San Antonio Light February 23, 1913 article on the Kurz oil well discovery  says "When Mr Kurz began boring about 12 months ago he was in search of artesian water."  So, the first Kurz oil well came in early in 1912.  Billy Kenney in his 1988 interview was right that it was a gusher, smaller than Spindle Top but like it.   Spindletop was a super gusher oil well which came in on January 10, 1901 near Beaumont, Texas.

So, the February 23, 1913 newspaper article clearly says that Carl Kurz was drilling for artesian water 12 months before the date of this article, which was early 1913. It was the well Kurz drilled for deep water thaty became Kurz Number One , and brought in the Somerset shallow oil field.

Then there is another San Antonio Light article found by Peggy Weyel, Director of the Somerset Historical Society, on the Carl Kurz discovery of oil on his land southeast of Somerset.  This article was in the San Antonio  Light newspaper or June 8, 1913, with the headlines saying, "A GUSHER OIL IS BROUGHT IN NEAR CITY,  Located On Land Near New Somerset, and Spouts To Height of Nearly 150 Feet When Uncapped."

The article begins in saying that "A gusher oil well, the first in this territory, and spouting a five inch stream of water to a height of 230 and 240 feet, has been brought in by the Somerset Oil and Gas Company on a tract of land owned by C. Kurz , about one mile southeast of the town of New Somerset, eighteen miles from San Antonio."

In 1912-1913 the Carl Kurz land was across a dirt road from the A.M. Pyron land which was to the west.  Carl Kurz and A.M. Pyron were both cattlemen and used the same creek for water, Mudd Creek, or Mudd Holler, as it was often called, when it had water in it.  The Creek once flowed out of the Pyron land into the Kurz place under a small wooden bridge over that dirt road which is  now paved Payne Road.  The two cattlemen in Mudd Creek became oil men also after 1912-1913.  In 1909 they had formed the First Town Site Company which sold lots for what became the town of Somerset, or as it was first called New Somerset.

The San Antonio Light article also says "Papers were taken out in November and December of last year.   A.M. Pyron became trustee for the company and yesterday the papers were filed. "  

I went to the Bexar County Clerk's on-line land transaction records, then to search by name and typed in "Somerset Oil & Gas Co and near the first of many documents a  four page 4-page, February 25, 1913 document is sown:

"AGREEMENT

Somerset Oil and Gas company et al   A.M. Pyron, Trustee
Whereas at various dates during the months of November and

December, A.D. 1912, the following named persons executed what was termed an OIL LEASE

with A.M. Pyron, of Bexar County, Texas, Trustee, on certain land owned by said persons as follows:



Billie Kurz McCord in a phone call of December of 2012 said that the original well was near the Carl Kurz house, which became the Gus Kurz house on Payne Road. Billie said there was a small house over the oil well. Again in a phone call of July 2, 2015 she sad that the first Kurz oil well, which brought in the Somerset Oil Field was behind the Carl Kurz house, that is, north of it, toward the Refinery.  Billie lived on that land and in the house from 1945 to 1949 and afterwards was there many times.

Billy Kenney On the First Carl Kurz Oil Well In His Interview For the Oral History Collection, Institute For Texan Cultures in 1988: Billy Kenney was born in February of 1904, so in about 1912 he would have been only about eight.

HC: "At one time Somerset was the largest shallow well in
the country, wasn't it?
K: Largest shallow oil field in the world.
HC: In the world? Now, Kurtz, wasn't Carl Kurtz diggin'
for water?
KENNEY 10
K: That's right. The way I understand it, he and my
grandfather, of course, - there was just a road separatin'
them.
HC: That's grandfather Pyron.
K: Grandfather put in with him to dig a thousand foot
well.
SC: Water well.
K: See if they could get some water. That would be good
for irrigating, see?
HC: Yeah.
K: And they got that oil and they was the maddest ole men.
I remember that day they were really put out. They didn't
want no damned oil, they wanted a water well. (laughter)."