During the election-year frenzy of criticism and big promises coming from all levels of politicians, the subject of oil and gas production is often in the news. Everybody wants to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Maybe it's time we had some news about it here on LakeTexoma.com because we are located in an oil and gas producing area. There are no longer drilling rigs or pump jacks stationed out in the lake as there used to be, but the vast reservoir of natural resources under the lake is still being tapped by wells nearby. In fact, at the present time there are more than 150 active wells on the Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge alone. Let's get a little more historical perspective on oil and gas production in the area of Lake Texoma by recalling that the Army Corps of Engineers purchased land along the Red River to create a man-made lake in the 1930s, and the Denison Dam was built in 1941. But the Corps did not purchase the mineral rights to natural resources under the land. Those rights were already owned privately, and that is still the case today. The Army Corps of Engineers and the US Fish and Wildlife Service do not profit from the oil and gas production on Lake Texoma. At the time the Corps was accumulating land for the lake, it was reported that there were forty-four abandoned wells on the Oklahoma side, on land that would be flooded. The first oil well drilled on the Texas side was reported to have been in Pottsboro in 1929. Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1946, and then a few years later in 1951 the Big Mineral Creek Oil Field was discovered. So, access roads, drilling rigs, pump jacks, tanks and pipelines were installed, as required by law, to allow the private owners access to their natural resources. The following statements about the Big Mineral Creek Oil Field were made in a paper presented to the National Society of Petroleum Engineers in 1954: "Exploitation of the Big Mineral field, located in North Central Texas, has been and continues to be a challenge to the engineer. The field is partially inundated by the waters of Lake Texoma. Multizone oil production ranging in depth from 3,600 to 10,200 ft is found in steeply dipping Pennsylvanian and Ordovician sediments." "Based on comprehensive data gathered on early development wells, it was determined that the drilling of separate wells to each of six production horizons was justifiable. To accommodate wells drilled in the lake bed 32 earthen drilling platforms with earthen access roadways were planned and constructed. Each platform was of sufficient size to allow the drilling of from one to three wells." The photos accompanying this article show the platform wells located in Lake Texoma in the 1950s, and the wells currently located in the Hagerman refuge.