Yount-Lee Equestrian Day

 

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16
10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
FREE ADMISSION

On November 13, 1925, Spindletop produced its second oil boom when the Yount-Lee Oil Company used new technology to drill on the flanks of Spindletop Hill. As a result of this discovery – and the wealth that followed, Miles Yount and his wife, Pansy, soon became known as some of the best breeders of horses in the United States. Gladys City will celebrate the second Spindletop boom by welcoming some four-legged friends. From therapy horses to award-winning saddlebred horses, families will delight at being able to ride, groom and learn all about the care and breeding of horses. With special guests from Bluebonnet Farm of Bellville, Texas, and Stable Spirit of Rose City, Texas.

(Yes - this is me and Chip from last years event)

 

 

About Gladys City Originally envisioned by Patillo Higgins, treasurer and general manager of the Gladys City Oil, Gas and Manufacturing Company, which was founded in 1892, the town of Gladys City was to be a perfect industrial city, featuring factories, schools, churches, homes, parks and businesses. When the Lucas Gusher blew in on January 10, 1901, there was no more time to be perfect. Quickly, the Gladys City Company began leasing land to businessmen (and some women) who built quick, clapboard buildings to sell goods and services to oilfield workers and their families. By the early 1970s, nothing much remained of the original Gladys City. In 1975, the re-created Gladys City Boomtown was built on lands once owned by the Gladys City Oil, Gas & Manufacturing Company as a Bicentennial project and in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Lucas Gusher. Once completed, the new Gladys City was given to the State of Texas and is governed by Lamar University. Through a self-guided tour, visitors to Gladys City experience 15 replica buildings filled with objects from the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries that depict life during the first Spindletop oil boom. From a saloon and post office to a general store and livery stable, visitors get a glimpse of what it might have been like to work and live in the historic Spindletop oilfield. OUR PURPOSEGladys City complements and enhances the educational, social and cultural missions of Lamar University through stewardship of the Spindletop story, and the acquisition, conservation, interpretation and use of artifacts, representative structures, and other items of social and cultural significance to Spindletop, 1892-1951. OUR VISIONWe aspire to be the educational and cultural leader in the preservation of Spindletop history. OUR MISSIONGladys City kindles the wildcatter spirit in everyone through rich, shared experiences inspired by the history, significance and legacy of Spindletop.

If one had asked a Beaumonter on January 1, 1901, what big news of recent months had most interested him, he would have said the great Galveston hurricane of September 8, or the dawning of a new century. If one had asked him on January 10, he would have said the great gusher at Spindletop - a salt dome about three miles south of Beaumont. Dubbed "The Lucas Gusher," the oil discovery on Spindletop Hill changed the economy of Texas and helped to usher in the petroleum age.