{"nrhp_refnum":"80004126","name":"Ada Belle Oil Well","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"N of Batson","address_restricted":false,"city":"Batson","county":"Hardin County","state":"TX","lat":30.263865509000027,"lon":-94.61610219899995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1980-01-20","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Art","Engineering"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A shallow oil well complex about half a mile north of Batson in Hardin County, Texas, in the Batson Oil Field, with a discovery dating to October 1903. It includes rocking-jenny wells, cypress separating tanks, a round-house, a blacksmith shop and an office.","why_significant":"The nomination holds that the Ada Belle rig is the only remaining shallow oil well operation of its kind in the East Texas fields. It stands for the 1903-1904 Batson oil boom and its rough frontier life. The round-house design allows over 50 shallow wells to be pumped at once, and the well still produces.","narrative":"Half a mile north of Batson, in the Big Thicket of Hardin County, Texas, a small oil operation still pumps crude much as it did in the early twentieth century. The complex includes rocking-jenny wells linked by sucker rods to a central round-house, wooden cypress separating tanks, a blacksmith shop, an office and a leveed mud pit. The Batson field was opened in October 1903 with a discovery well that initially produced 600 barrels a day, and it quickly became a boom town of about 10,000 people. Fire, disease, violence and mud shaped life in the camps. Production fell as wells turned to salt water, and most crews left by 1908. The Ada Belle rig is described as the only remaining shallow oil well operation of its kind in the East Texas fields. Its round-house design lets more than 50 shallow wells be pumped together, and the well still earns a profit.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"Still in operation; the form says the rig yields about seven barrels of crude a day and remains profitable. Condition is marked good.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:54:18.776046-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/43/9722/40972243/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_TX/80004126.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/40972243","wikipedia":null,"wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q110000052"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/texas/hardin-county/ada-belle-oil-well-80004126/"}