During the late 1920s, geologists from the Pure Oil Company concluded that oil was likely present in the Van area after the company had already leased 17,000 acres for production, and oil was discovered on October 14, 1929, on the farm of W.T. Jarman. Pure Oil held 80 percent of the area’s oil leases and managed field operations for four other companies with smaller leases under the Van joint account. While the Great Depression soon gripped much of the country, Van’s economy prospered as Pure Oil quickly built a 107-acre headquarters complex one mile southwest of the Jarman Well to direct oil field activity and house and support workers. When completed, the camp included an office building, seventeen houses, a geological laboratory, three bunk houses, a mess hall, a dormitory, a machine shop, a warehouse, a filling station, a water tower, and a swimming pool. In July 1930, the Texas Short Line Railway Co. finished a fifteen-mile spur line from Grand Saline to Van, removing the last obstacle to the town’s rapid growth. After Pure Oil merged with and became a division of Union Oil Company of California in 1965, the camp’s residential and related buildings were closed, but the field continues to produce oil.