Freer, TX

Freer is a Duval County city that went from ranch wells to one of Texas’s biggest oil stories. Paul and Joe White were drilling water wells near Rosita Creek around 1900; a 1928 wildcat well on the W. P. Norton property hit a huge oil reserve, and the Heller-Suttle No. 1 well kicked off an even bigger boom in 1932. By 1933 Freer had dozens of businesses and had become the second-largest oilfield in the country. U.S. 59 and State Highways 16 and 44 still cross at the town center. Freer is South Texas with oil under the origin story and mud on the old one.