Pettus, the oil capital of Bee County, began in the 1850's when John Freeman Pettus established a sprawling ranch about 4 miles south of the site. The son of one of Stephen F. Austin's first 300 colonists, he became an extensive cattle and horse breeder, and during the Civil War the town, previously called Dry Medio for a nearby creek, took his name. The community lay near the scene of two important Indian skirmishes in Bee County in 1859 and the 1870's, but it remained quiet until 1886, when the San Antonio & Aransas Pass Railroad reached the site and turned it into the area's cattle shipping center. That same year, pioneer citizen John S. Hodges laid out the townsite and donated land for streets and the S.A. & A.P. right-of-way. For years the railroad stockyards and depot bustled as freight trains were loaded and wood-burning steam engines stopped for water. In 1909, the presidential train of Wm. H. Taft stopped at the Pettus water tank, which was later razed in 1965 as the last monument to steam railroading there. In 1929, the Houston Oil Co. brought in its well No. 1-Maggie Ray McKinney, and from then on Pettus played a continuing useful role in the Texas economy.