Andrews County, in the southern High Plains, is bounded on the west by New Mexico, on the north by Gaines County, on the east by Martin County, and on the south by Winkler and Ector counties. Livestock production accounts for roughly two-thirds of the $11 million average agricultural income. Crops of cotton, sorghums, grains, corn and hay account for the rest. Oil and gas production and related services produce most of the county’s income. Some 293,000 acres of valuable county land have been owned by the state university since 1883.

The county was formed from Bexar County on August 21, 1876, a year after the first detailed explorations made by Col. William R. Shafter from his military base at Fort Concho. The county was named for Richard Andrews, a hero of the Texas Revolution who was killed at the battle of Concepción in 1835. For administrative purposes the area was placed within the jurisdiction of Shackelford County in 1876, within the Howard Land District from 1882 to 1887, and within the Martin Land District from 1887 to 1891. The area was placed within the jurisdiction of Martin County from 1891 until 1910, when Andrews County was formally organized with Andrews as its county seat.

The county’s aridity and its lack of surface streams encouraged novel rain-making experiments in 1891 by the United States Department of Agriculture. Sixty mortars charged with blasting powder and thirty kites suspending dynamite loosed their destructive forces at clouds while a number of ten-foot balloons, each holding a thousand cubic feet of oxygen and hydrogen gas were simultaneously discharged. Despite these notable bombardments no rain fell locally, although a copious precipitation to the east and south was, perhaps, a result of the experiment. After the droughts of 1886 and 1887, Nelson Morris introduced windmills to draw ground water until he had seventy-nine of the wind machines spaced on his ranch.

In 1894 the Scharbauers purchased the Wells Ranch, which with Morris’s C-Ranch occupied most of the eastern part of the county. A year later the Texas legislature passed the four-section law, which helped to end open-range ranching in Texas by encouraging the breakup up of great ranches for the benefit of homesteaders and small tract purchasers.

By 1910, the population was 975, principally farmers and ranchers. The terrible drought of 1917-1918, World War I, the great influenza epidemic of 1917-1918, blizzards and a drop in cattle prices reduced county population to 350 in 1920. It was clear by this time that much county land was not suitable for farming. Cattle ranchers bought the abandoned lands of disappointed farmers to extend their ranges.

The 1920s also saw the beginning of oil production in Andrews County. On December 5, 1929, the gusher drilled in the Deep Rock Ogden No. 1 came in. The oil had been tapped at 4,345 feet and flowed in prodigious quantities. While the excitement was general in oil-industry circles and among county residents, who braced for a great boom, prosperity did not come at once. The timing of the new field could not have been worse. East Texas fields were in full production and the 1929 crash had devastated the market.

By 1931 oil was selling for as little as ten cents a barrel. Even at that price the Andrews County oil, of low gravity and heavy in sulfur, would not have sold.

Though five new oilfields drilled during the 1930s continued local petroleum development, the industry did not really boom in Andrews County until the 1940s, when twenty-six new fields were discovered. Thousands of people traveled to the area seeking jobs in the oilfields and service industries. The population of Andrews County rose from 1,277 in 1940 to more than 5,000 in 1950, and with the growth came housing problems and overcrowded conditions in Andrews.

Petroleum production continued to rise in Andrews County during the 1950s, when ninety new fields were discovered. Oil production fell off in the 1960s, when only fifty-three new fields were found, and particularly in the early 1970s, when only thirteen new fields were discovered. Unemployment mounted, and county leaders called for some diversification of industry. Water flooding of old fields and the Arab oil embargo of 1973-74 stimulated oil production again in the 1970s.

(The information above is excerpted from the Handbook of Texas, an encyclopedia published by the Texas State Historical Association. The Handbook can be accessed on-line at http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/ online/index.new.html. Copies of the two-volume set may be obtained by contacting the history organization at 512-232-1513.)