Fowlerton and Los Angeles Eagle Ford Shale Leasing Issues

Eagle Ford shale oil and gas drilling is coming to the sleepy little communities of Fowlerton and Los Angeles Texas. Along with it  will come a host of problems for  both oil and gas companies and land owners. Fowlerton Texas sits along the border between the “gas and condensate”  and  the “oil window” of the Eagle Ford shale and represents a tiny hole in EOG Resources’ massive half million acre lease area.

Below, The first Eagle Ford shale well near Fowlerton in the old Naylor and Jones Survey.

The Naylor and Jones Unit 86, #1H is the first permitted Eagle Ford shale well within 10 miles of Fowlerton Texas..

A Brief History Of Fowlerton Texas.

At the turn of the twentieth century a couple of shrewd businessmen, the Fowler brothers, decided to form a land company and promote the dry, cactus and mesquite covered country along the Frio river in LaSalle and McMullen counties as the “Wintergarden”. They attracted well over two thousand buyers, many of whom migrated from the East Coast for the chance to own a plot of fertile farmland for a few dollars. A farm could be had for as little as twenty five dollars down and ten dollars a month. Many have called the brothers “swindlers” but some historians maintain that they did have a vision of the area as a farming utopia. The Fowler Brothers happened to tour the  country just prior to their development plans, during one of the “wet” cycles, when almost any crop could grow there.

Below is an advertisement that appeared in a 1913 edition of the “Fowlerton Reporter” for the First State Bank Of Fowlerton Texas. Like most of the buildings in the town of Fowlerton, nothing remains today.

Photo Of The First State Bank Of Fowlerton Texas

History of Fowlerton Texas And The Naylor And Jones Land Company

Two brothers with the surname of Dull, who had made their fortunes in Pittsburgh, PA, once owned the vast 400,000 acre Dull Ranch. The Dull brothers later sold 240,000 acres to B.L. Naylor and Judge A.H. Jones.  Naylor died in 1910 and Jones in 1912. Jones had contracted with the Fowler Brothers to develop 100,000 acres around what would eventually become the town of Fowlerton, Texas. Growth of the town really took off in the years between 1913-1915.

The Fowler Brothers, in conjunction with Naylor and Jones Land Company, laid out the town  they named after themselves on a grid system and over two hundred miles of roads were built. Lots were divided up, some as small as a sixteenth of an acre in the town-site,  as well as numerous farm plots of anywhere from an acre to a hundred acres or more. When someone bought a ten to 160  acre tract of farm land, they automatically were given a lot in the townsite of Fowlerton.

A cotton gin, large rail depot, hotel, two banks, department stores and schools were all built. There was even a seafood restaurant featuring fresh oysters and shrimp that were brought in on ice from the coast by rail car.  Fowlerton Texas featured several paved streets, sidewalks, fire hydrants and free flowing artesian water wells, (which unfortunately contained some salt.)  The “Artesian Route” as described on the SaU&G railroad advertisement, referred to the areas numerous flowing wells.

The San Antonio, Uvalde & Gulf Railroad Company, nicknamed the “Sausage” connected the new farming center with faraway markets for produce such as onions, cabbage, spinach and other vegetables that were grown by the farmers. The following flyer is from Fowlerton’s newspaper, the Fowlerton Reporter. You will notice many town names, such as Prince and New California that exist in no form today.

old flyer from SAU&G railroad in South Texas

At the height of Fowlerton’s heyday, somewhere between 2000 to 4000 people called the town and immediate vicinity home. Over the years a series of droughts, combined with the negative effect of watering the farms with saline artesian well water, forced almost all the farmers to leave the country. A few remained and switched to ranching but by the 1960′s the town of Fowlerton Texas was down to about two hundred residents. Now census figures show that only about a hundred hardy souls remain.

What does remain in great number are hundreds of small lots, many of which have dubious ownership. Because of the “buy ten acres, get a town lot” system, many farmers never used or even claimed ownership of their town lots from the very beginning of the subdivision, starting in the 1900′s. Over the years many of these lots were sold for back taxes or claimed under the “quit claim deed” law, that enables one to claim ownership simply by occupying the land and paying taxes. Other owners kept up their taxes, though those parcels have no  road access and have been used for generations by local ranchers as their own. Another issue is that the town was incorporated, with official roads and streets, which still  may be legally opened up and which run right through tracts of land, next to (and even through) existing houses and barns, etc. There is no city government so who get any oil and gas royalties from the land occupied by the dozens of active and abandoned streets?

All of this is an attorney or landman’s nightmare  and when it comes to tracking down the owners of these lots it won’t be easy especially since the records are many, are kept in two different county courthouses (LaSalle County and McMullen County). For this reason the township of Fowlerton, as well as a similar Wintergarden community, Los Angeles, will likely be the last acreage to be leased by major oil companies.

Below is a recent photo of Fowlerton as it appears today.  Of all the buildings that were built in the once prosperous town only a handful of non-residences remain standing. The old Red Store, (rear left), which was once owned by Mr. O.W. Herman and sons, now serves as the post office.  (Ironically and sadly,  as the biggest economic boom in Fowlerton’s history arrives, the government is considering closing down the post office there.) The Baptist church is located two blocks off of highway 97 and the old Catholic church, now boarded up, sits surround by cactus and mesquite just off of Texas street.

Fowlerton Texas U.S. Post Office

One thing is for certain, and that is the little community is about to experience the biggest “land rush” since the days of the Fowler Brothers. Most of the interest will be in mineral rights of property outside of the town.  The vast number of owners of the town site lots may make drilling in the Fowlerton town site prohibitive since it may be difficult to get all of the thousands of owners  to lease enough land for wells to be drilled.  Whether this oil boom will lead to any real population growth for Fowlerton remains to be seen.  For those with fond memories of  towns like Fowlerton and Los Angeles Texas, there is hope that these historic towns may be revived from “ghost town” status.

Update: 09/02/2011

Reliable sources have indicated  that EOG Resources has assembled a team at the Cotulla, TX office to begin tracking down the owners of mineral rights in the old Fowlerton Texas townsite. Initially the company, which has leased up most of the land around the 2000 acre townsite, had decided to avoid the area, due to the difficulties involved.  As production figures began to come in from new wells on either side of Fowlerton over the past few weeks, things apparently changed. The fact that EOG Resources already has contact information for many of the townsite lot mineral rights owners, (due to the fact that they have already leased many of the associated 10 acre+ parcels in the old Fowler Brothers development), is a plus.  Still, the process of tracking down all of the remaining owners may take months, but may be worthwhile for EOG in the long run. Fowlerton is apparently is situated at a “sweet spot” in the Eagle Ford shale play, which could potentially contain millions of dollars worth of oil and natural gas.  Currently EOG Resources is in the process of either drilling or planning to drill several new wells in the River Lowe Ranch lease, located about 2.6 miles northeast of  Fowlerton, and  in the Naylor and Jones Unit 43, about 3 miles to the southeast of town. See map below:

Article by Nolan Hart.