Museum Gushes with East Texas History
Published Dec 15, 2008
The East Texas Oil Museum in Kilgore has pumped some $13.5 million into the region’s economy.
Everything in East Texas changed in the early 1930s, when oil was first discovered. And for the last 28 years, the East Texas Oil Museum has chronicled the industry’s ups and downs from then to now.
“We’ve had 1.35 million visitors from all 50 states and 126 other countries,” says Joe White, director. “And our economic impact on the local community is considerable.”
By the museum’s estimation, some $13.5 million has been spent in Kilgore and the surrounding area over the life of the museum, and with all that’s happening there now the facility will continue to be a revenue generator for the community well into the future.
“We are finishing a short film on drilling in the shale, and that will be very educational for the visitors,” White says. “It will show the technology of drilling into deeper zones, the directional drilling. We’re not getting rid of our early 1930s exhibits, but we’re now looking to add some new exhibits on current and future energy sources.”
The museum, which is at the doorstep of the Kilgore College campus, in 2005 launched the Got Oil Café, an educational outreach program for teachers from fourth to seventh grade. The program provides knowledge and skills required for various state tests, and draws around 10,000 children from a 120-mile radius each year.
But while education and outreach take more of the museum’s time and energy, its core function, that of promoting the region and its history, remains unchanged.
“We promote tourism, we work at that every day,” White says. “We take our 40-odd volunteers once a year to other museums in the area so they can see what they do and become better ambassadors not only for us, but for the region. If we can keep people in the area for a day, then they’ll spend the night, see something else, and we’ll all win.”
Story by Joe Morris
Photo by Staff
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