For some, the name “Woodbine” represents a flowering vine, for others a racetrack, still others, a cigarette brand in Great Britain or a town in Texas, Georgia, New Jersey, Iowa or Kansas. For Woodbine Development Corporation, the name represents our long history and successful relationship with Hunt Oil Company.

The Hunt Oil Connection

H.L. Hunt was trading oil and gas leases in El Dorado, Arkansas, when he heard reports of a wildcat well being drilled in East Texas, a region not considered to be a prospective oil area. Curious, he traveled to Rusk County, Texas, where he met Columbus Marion “Dad” Joiner, the renowned wildcatter. Joiner was then drilling the Daisy Bradford No. 3, the rank wildcat well that discovered the giant East Texas oil field. The No. 3 struck oil on October 3, 1930, in the prolific Woodbine Sand at 3,592 feet.

Recognizing the significance of the East Texas discovery before the rest of the oil industry, H.L. Hunt moved quickly and on November 26 took a significant risk by purchasing the Daisy Bradford No. 3 and nearby leases from Joiner.

The Daisy Bradford No. 3 was the first of nearly 29,000 wells completed in the first 25 years of the field’s history. In that time frame, the 43-mile-long stratigraphic trap produced 3 billion barrels of oil. With an estimated recovery of 6 billion barrels of oil, the East Texas oil field became the largest oil field in the world at that time.

This Woodbine Sand in the East Texas oil field provided the financial base for the founding of Hunt Oil Company in 1934. Almost 40 years later, it provided the naming inspiration for a real estate subsidiary formed by H.L. Hunt’s son Ray L. Hunt and John Scovell, who researched the characteristics of the geological formation.

The Oil and Water Combination

The Woodbine formation occurs about 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) below the earth’s surface in the East Texas Basin and is a good reservoir for oil because large, rounded sand grains (primarily mineral quartz) create pore traps between the grains. In East Texas, the pore spaces are filled with oil, but in North Texas, the Woodbine sand is waterbearing, and outcrops can be seen in areas around Lake Grapevine. Because this portion of the Woodbine formation stays wet, it supports tree growth even during dry spells. A band of trees crossing the prairie and growing on the Woodbine is called the Eastern Cross Timbers. The formation extends from northeast of Dallas toward the city of Austin, paralleling the Balcones Fault Zone.

The existence of surface water made portions of otherwise uninviting land inhabitable for early Texas settlers, and the invention of the windmill made it possible to pump water from beneath the ground, opening up vast areas of the American West for development. Today windmills still dot the landscape from Texas to Arizona, standing and working as dependable partners to farmers, ranchers and other residents of the Southwest.

With that history as inspiration, Woodbine Development Corporation was incorporated in 1973, and the windmill was selected as its logo, symbolizing entrepreneurial spirit, exploration, resourcefulness and endurance.