The Plainview Commercial Club, led by President J. O. Wyckoff, recognized the potential of irrigation during a 1910 visit to wells in New Mexico. Local banker and farmer J. H. Slaton agreed to bear the cost of a test well sunk on his land if it succeeded. G. E. Green and J. N. McNaughton completed the well in Jan. 1911. At 130 feet, using a nine-inch centrifugal pump, it yielded 1,700 gallons of water a minute. The success of the Slaton Well led to extensive irrigation and transformed this semiarid area of West Texas into one of the most productive food crop regions in the world.