Part of the East Texas oil field discovered in 1930, this 1.195-acre tract first produced oil on June 17, 1937, when the Mrs. Bess Johnson-Adams & Hale No. 1 well was brought in. Developed before well-spacing rules, it became the most densely drilled tract in the world, with 24 wells on 10 lots owned by six different operators. This acre produced over two and a half million barrels of crude oil and, at prices from $1.10 to $3.25 a barrel, brought more than five and a half million dollars. For many years, a forest of steel derricks stood over the more than 1,000 wells in downtown Kilgore, marking the greatest concentration of oil wells in the history of the world, and dozens of these derricks still dot the city's internationally famous skyline. Since 1930, the East Texas oil field has produced nearly four billion barrels of oil, has more than 17,000 producing wells, and has attracted many diversified industries and a progressive citizenship with a high degree of civic pride.