At this spot in Colfax, a driller named L. B. Hart completed an artesian well in 1899 at 1,103 feet. Its water was salty and bubbled with gas, and when Hart struck a match near the flow, the bubbles ignited and singed his beard. Over its lifetime, the well ebbed and flowed with the levels of the nearby Red River, and with each new eruption someone would light this unusual sight. Thousands of tourists remembered Colfax for the famous well, which Ripley featured in "Believe It or Not" as a well that spewed both fire and water. During WWII, visiting soldiers wrote home about it, but in 1959 a new courthouse displaced the old attraction. An artificial fountain with a gas flame was erected, though it could not match the awe inspired by the original well.