Trip

I just got back from a few days that started in North Texas, Wichita Falls specifically. This was a trip that was planned to take about a week. It didn’t quite work out that way but that’s okay. The premise of the trip was to photograph “Texana,” things that say Texas, well at least my version of Texas. This trip did not satisfy that premise but I hope that I will still get another chance. Even though it was not entirely successful this time I did get a few photographs that please me. This is one of them.

 

I grew up in a very small town located just a mile south of the Texas/Oklahoma border of Red River. In 1911 oil was discovered in the Burkburnett area. One of the things I have wanted to do is to get back to Burk and do or redo some of the photographs in the oil fields that I took when I was in high school. As you might surmise, what I photographed fifty years ago no longer actually exists, but I thought I might find something that was at least reminiscent. I had nothing specific in mind. I just hoped that I would find something that would bring back some aspect of those times.

 

One of the first wells to come in that started the boom was located on the Riley property located between the town of Burkburnett and the river. As a friend and I were driving around we came across Felty Drilling which has on display a number of pieces of oilfield equipment dating back to the boom days of Burkburnett. I will probably be posting some of those photographs. What was more important, while I was photographing this old equipment I noticed across the road a number of pumps working away. I walked over to this one which is, as the title on the mat says, located on the Riley property. True the pump itself has probably been replaced one or more times but the well itself has probably been there since the early 20^th century, pumping away and still pumping.

 
In the distance there are a number of transmission towers under construction. You can tell because the pulleys used to string the wires between the towers still hangs from the support arms. These towers will carry electricity from one of the many wind farms sprouting up across the landscape of North Texas. I think it is an interesting juxtaposition of the past and the future of energy.