On January 10th, 1921, shortly after 4:00 P.M. on a cold January day, a deafening roar from a drilling rig one mile west of El Dorado announced the discovery of oil in Arkansas. Dr. Samuel Busey brought in the Armstrong #1 as an earthshaking, roaring oil well, and its plume could be seen from downtown El Dorado, a small farming and lumbering village of 3800. Church bells rang, the sawmill whistle sounded, and people streamed out of town to watch oil spewing through the 75-foot wooden derrick. The next day a special five coach train chartered from Shreveport arrived, and the following day five charter trains came from Little Rock; within a year, twenty-two trains daily were arriving and departing from El Dorado's two stations. Rumors spread of poor farmers becoming millionaires overnight as oilmen, promoters, and landmen rushed in from Texas and Louisiana with drilling equipment, scoured the countryside for leases, and made the Garrett Hotel lobby the center of oil lease trading. Although the Busey well lasted only forty-five days, it launched the oil boom, and within six months more than 275 wells had been drilled in South Arkansas, with only 26 dry holes.