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City History

MEXIA - A FAMILY NAME

The capital of Limestone County honors a learned family(they were
especially versatile as linguists) who still lived in Mexia in the
1890's.  The first of these to appear in Texas was heroic general,
Jose Antonio Mexia, who carried on a lifetime feud with the
Mexican president/dictator, Lopez de Santa Anna.

Mexia was born in 1800 in Jalapa, and his rather short life was
ended in 1839 by a Mexican firing squad.  He was a close friend of
Sam Houston, Stephen F. Austin and other Texas revolutionists.  In
the Mexia historical papers(now stored in the Bancroft Library at
the University of California at Berkeley) there is an affectionate
letter from William B. Travis, the Alamo Commander, to Mexia. 
They shared a common hatred for Santa Anna.

Mexia and his American wife, the former Carlotta Walker, owned a
big land grant in Limestone County that included the future town
of Mexia.  Before the general's last unsuccessful revolt against
the Mexican despots, he and Carlotta had transferred the title of
the Texas lands to their children, Matilda and Enrique and Enrique
had been given more land near Mexia by his godfather, Marianno
Riva Palacios of Palacios, Texas.

Enrique seems to have lived part of each year in Limestone County
and part on his great estates in Mexico.  He was at times a
Mexican general and member of congress.  He built the first
electric light installations in Mexico City.

When the Texas and Central Railroad reached Limestone County in
1871, Mexia became a town.

THE MEXIA FAULT

Although the emergence of Mexia as a vital oil field dates from
November, 1920, for eight years the area had served as a major gas
field, thereby giving some indication of what might develop. 
Blake Smith, a local businessman, organized the Mexia Oil and Gas
Company in 1912 to explore for gas in the area.  In forming the
company he had persuaded one hundred Mexia businessmen, about all
there were in the town of some four thousand, to pledge $1,000
each to drill ten wells.  When the first nine produced only traces
of gas, Smith appealed to the drilling contractor's gambling
instincts and got him to drill another two for the price of what
had been intended as the tenth and last.  The tenth well was also
a failure, but the eleventh justified Smith's faith.  It became
the cornerstone of the Mexia gas industry, supplying all Mexia's
fuel needs, plus those of Waco, Corsicana, Mart, Groesbeck, and
Teague, all within a forty-mile radius.

But like other gas fields before it, such as Corsicana and
Petrolia, it began to slump, finally playing out at the height of
Mexia's oil boom and creating an acute fuel shortage for the
40,000 who had swarmed into the town.  Smith and his associates in
the Mexia Oil and Gas Company were not distraught over the failure
of their field, for they firmly believed that it also contained
oil.  They offered half interest in their 2,000-acre lease to any
operator who would drill for oil.

Smith first approaced Colonel Albert E. Humphreys, successful head
of the Homaokla Oil Company, but he was uninterested.  His
consulting engineer J. Julius Fohs, however, thought Mexia worth
investigating and got W. A. Reiter and John A. Shepard to join him
in the enterprise, the latter contracting for the drilling.  They
selected the L. W. Rogers farm, three miles west of Mexia, as the
site of the well and spudded during September, 1919.  Colonel
Humphreys had kept his eye on the operations and decided it was
worth a gamble.  When Rogers No. 1 was finally completed at 3,100
feet on November 19, 1920, Humphreys' faith was justified-but not
emphatically.

Humphreys had gambled not only on the Rogers well but on the
entire area.  His daring showed how the audacious wild-catter
could make a quick fortune in Texas oil.  Humphreys began building
a 1,600 barrel tank and negotiated with the Texas Company to lay a
pipeline to the field and to build a loading rack at the railroad
in town.  Then he and Fohs formed two new outfits and proceeded to
lease 12,000 acres lying along the Mexia fault, where the Rogers
farm was situated.  With the completion of Rogers No. 1, Fohs
advertised that the companies would "prove up the field", making
an effort to "conserve as much of the oil as possible".  Operators
had come to realize that the spectacle of gushing, however
exciting, ultimately reduced productivity, hence profits, and
should therefore be curbed.

The Humphreys companies set about systematically to fulfill their
goals.  They drilled eight wells between Mexia and Groesbeck,
bought a 352-acre plot two miles south of Mexia for a refinery,
and contracted for a dam to create a 135-acre lake whose water the
refinery would use.  Humphreys' second well, Berthelson No. 1,
substained his optimism in the field.  When it began flowing 4,000
barrels daily in the summer of 1921, the Mexia boom began in
earnest.

A number of companies came into the field and many good wells
developed, including Blake Smith No. 1, Lile No. 1, and Henry No.
1.  The real sensation came on August 21, 1921.  The Western Oil
Corporation's Desenberg No. 1, from a depth of 3,059 feet, began
spewing forth 18,000 barrels daily, and the Adamson No. 1
surpassed that with 24,000 barrels per day.  The latter continued
to be the premier well along the Mexia fault.  Little wonder that
all roads led to Mexia and that they were jammed.

The area of heaviest production was called the Golden Lane, which
was about one-half mile wide and ran right along the fault.  In
1921 the field yielded 5 million barrels, with the number
increasing in 1922 to 35.12 million.  The peak day's production of
176,000 barrels came on February 12, 1922.

Anticipating the inevitable tapering off in the Mexia field,
Humphreys and Fohs extended their explorations along the fault. 
Between Mexia and Corsicana, they brought in the Currie field on
November 14, 1921.  Its best yield was 13,000 barrels a day from
twenty-two wells.  The partners also tested around Kosse,
twenty-eight miles south of Mexia.  Their discovery well flowed
handsomely for two days and stopped.  While that Kosse venture
proved costly, later drilling was profitable.  Just north of the
Currie field, the Boyd Oil Company struck oil at Wortham on
November 22, 1924.  The next year Wortham produced 16,838,150
barrels from three hundred wells.

We hope you have enjoyed this brief History of Mexia.  Our name is
as unique as the circumstances that added to the flavor of this
area!

Back 

Newsflash

Notice of Adopted 2009 Tax Rate

CITY OF MEXIA ADOPTED A TAX RATE THAT WILL RAISE MORE TAXES
FOR MAINTENANCE AND OPERATIONS THAN LAST YEAR'S TAX RATE.

THE TAX RATE WILL EFFECTIVELY BE RAISED BY 8.06 PERCENT AND
WILL RAISE TAXES FOR MAINTENANCE AND OPERATIONS ON A $100,000
HOME BY APPROXIMATELY $70.50.

City of Mexia Budget 2009-2010 

Budget

Amended Budget 2008-2009

Amended

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