Chapter 3

One of the potential farmers pulled me aside and asked if I would consider joining in on shares to buy into a large section of land. While I had some money, it was not near enough to buy more than a few acres outright. We all realized that the land we would be buying would be unimproved scrubland. While the fields in production looked great neither of us could afford to buy any of it.

It might be a risky investment, but I’d heard some talk of the Texas coastal plains being a potential source of Oil and Natural Gas. There was even some talk of petroleum drilling going on around Beaumont and New Orleans, further up the coast of the Gulf. There were no wells in evidence around here, but I figured that buying land ought to include more than just the surface and water rights.

All the current developments around here were within a few miles of the railway right of way. The further away we looked, the cheaper the land seemed to become. But roads being as primitive as they were, a few miles were a long way away. Going south towards the river sounded good until you realized that the Rio Grande River flooded each spring, so I lobbied for going the other way. I figured that with the land being as flat as it appeared, pumping water into the tower guarantees that it flowed outward smoothly and evenly. A few canals in the area carried surface water away from the river by gravity, under no pressure. It was the quantity that mattered anyhow. It took a lot of water to cover an acre of ground, when you consider how fast it soaks into the soil.