The pine-covered, red-earth hills of East Texas are covered with creaking old pumpjacks, still sucking up the crude oil that has kept the region economically afloat since the 1930s. The oil business here has gone through numerous booms and busts since it gushed into existence in December 1930 at a well outside Kilgore (pop. 11,301), on the south side of I-20, ten miles southwest of Longview via US-259. This comparatively small and quiet oil town has street lamps disguised as oil rigs and a set of 100-foot-tall derricks standing along the railroad tracks in memory of the “World’s Richest Acre,” a plot of downtown land that produced over 2.5 million barrels of oil through the 1960s. The site was so productive and so valuable that one of the wells was drilled through the terrazzo floor of a local bank, and over a thousand derricks once loomed over the downtown area.
The history of the local petroleum industry is recounted in entertaining detail at the East Texas Oil Museum (closed Mon.; $5; 903/983-8295) on the campus of Kilgore College, on Ross Street off US-259. The museum includes displays of drilling equipment and old gas stations, plus a simulated “elevator ride” a mile deep into the earth to show off the oil-bearing geology. Also on the Kilgore College campus is a small free museum devoted to the Kilgore Rangerettes, a trained precision drill and dance team that performs at college and professional football games.
Kilgore is decidedly not a typical tourist destination, but it does have a number of handsome if timeworn buildings, and a couple of good food stops, such as Lupe’s (903/983-1457), serving up traditional Tex-Mex food at 2607 N. US-259, north of downtown. Back on US-80, another good place to eat is Creole-spiced Johnny Cace’s Seafood (903/753-7691), east of downtown Longview at 1501 E. Marshall Road.
