Abandoned Oil Trucks and Oil Field Equipment in Electra, Texas

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Last week I was able to get out for a short road to West Texas with a photographer friend I haven’t gone out on a explore with in over a year. Our target was about an hour north of Wichita Falls, Texas. On our way to our destination, we found a small collection of abandoned oil trucks and oil field equipment in Electra, Texas. Today I wanted to share with some early edits from that stop.

Electra, Texas

You might be asking why would someone dump a bunch of old abandoned oil trucks and oil field equipment in Electra, Texas. I can answer that for you by giving you a little bit about the history of the town.

Electra is a small town and is in Wichita county, Texas. According to the 2001 census, the town has  about 3,168 people . The population numbers steadily dropped by the 2010 census. The town was named in honor of Electra Waggoner, heiress to the Waggoner Ranch.

The Waggoner Ranch was started  in present-day Electra in 1852. The Waggoner family lobbied the Fort Worth and Denver City Railway to add a stop at the ranch. During this time the Waggoner Ranch covered a half-million acres and the town that supported the ranched was called Waggoner. But after the station and the post office were built in 1889 the town was renamed Beaver. (They named the town after Beaver Creek). The post office received the designation of Beaver Switch and the depot was called Waggoner.

Then 56,000 acres of land became available north of the railway station. With the new land it brought in more farmers and ranchers to the area. By 1907 the town was renamed Electra.

Electra claims the title of Pump Jack Capital of Texas and the name was made official in 2001. The city even has an annual Pump Jack Festival every year since 2002.

In 1911 oil was discovered and the town grew from there. This area is referred to as the North Texas Oil Fields. The wealth that was received from those early oil wells helped built the city’s infrastructure, schools, churches and civic pride.

For a more detailed history of the town check out the Wiki Page and the City of Electra Web Page. Both have great collection of history about the town.

Abandoned Oil Trucks and Oil Field Equipment in Electra, Texas – Why

As to the why, I think it has to do with the what made Electra what it is. The town became important because of the North Texas Oil Fields. This type of equipment was important to the town (some of the vehicles have city of Electra in faded out paint on them) and someone or the city has saved them even thought they are abandoned oil trucks and oil field equipment. Its part of their history and I hope these pieces will be saved and properly displayed.

Abandoned Oil Trucks and Oil Field Equipment in Electra, Texas – About the Images

The vehicles and equipment wasn’t placed in good positions to be photographed. They were dragged to their spots and forgotten about. Many of the equipment has been their for years.

We arrived on location around 4 pm and it was bright with some cloud clover over head. A lot of the equipment had parts of it in shadows and making it hard to photograph.

On our way home around midnight we decided to stop by and try some night work. It was plenty dark in the background but sodium vapor street lamps that were in the distance were casting weird shadows on the equipment and I found it hard to avoid having my shadows in the pictures. I plan to go back in the future and shoot again.

Some of the day pictures were shot with my Sony a6000 and the Sony E 55-210mm F4.5-6.3 Lens and the rest of the day shots at this location were shot with the Sony a6000 and the Sony 16-50mm f3.5-5.6 OSS lens

The night images were shot with Sony a6000 and the Sony SEL16F28 16mm Wide-Angle Lens.

All images were edited with Adobe Lightroom to crop, straighten and clean up the images. I used Google NIK Collection (and sometimes  Topaz Labs Clarity to help give some of the images that bit of extra details) to add detail, add contrast, and sharpen/remove noise.

As always my images are for sale with or without the watermark in digital and prints. Please contact me via the contact page for more information.