Freestone County, Texas
1920s History


The Burk-Tex Oil Company was a joint stock association based in Burkburnett, 
Texas.

El Paso, Texas brokers first offered Burk-Tex Production Company stock for $1 
per share in 1919.  By May of 1921, company advertisements in the Oil and Gas 
News magazine proclaimed that the stock was earning “Three Per Cent Cash Dividends 
Monthly” and its companion, Burk-Tex Producing Company, was earning ten percent.  
Such misleading “Blue Sky” advertising claims were part of the securities 
marketplace of the time.

Just two months later, the two Burk-Tex companies merged into a new organization, 
headed by W. W. Hunt, and took the name of Burk-Tex Producing Company.  At that 
time, Hunt had two producing wells south of Burkburnett, Texas in the Texhoma 
field.  But the newly created company’s first well (No. 1 Bonner in Freestone 
County) was shut down at 3,250 feet without success.

Many such under-capitalized ventures worked on a “poor boy” basis and were 
desperately dependent upon new investors monies to continue drilling.  Because 
Burk-Tex Producing Company disappears after the expensive dry hole, bankruptcy 
was its likely fate, taking its predecessor companies with it.