The History of Kilgore, Texas

Kilgore was established in 1872, when the International–Great Northern Railroad chose to build its line through a new townsite rather than the neighboring community of New Danville. Local landowner Constantine Buckley Kilgore sold 174 acres to the railroad and gave the town his name. For its first six decades, Kilgore was a small, ordinary farming and railroad town of a few hundred to about a thousand people in the East Texas Piney Woods.

Nothing about it suggested that it sat atop one of the greatest oil fields ever discovered — until 1930, when everything changed almost overnight.

The East Texas Oil Field was opened by 'Dad' Joiner's Daisy Bradford discovery well in October 1930, to the south near Henderson. When the Lou Della Crim well came in near Kilgore that December, it proved the East Texas field was a major one — and Kilgore exploded. The population rocketed from a few hundred to some 12,000 by 1936 as drillers, speculators, and fortune-seekers flooded in.

The boom turned Kilgore into one of the most astonishing sights in the oil world. At the height of the boom, more than 1,000 wooden derricks crowded the city, packed so tightly downtown that one small block — the famous 'World's Richest Acre' — held dozens of wells producing a staggering amount of oil. It was the most concentrated cluster of oil derricks on Earth. Kilgore commemorates that history today with dozens of steel derrick replicas, each topped with a lighted star, that give the city its motto: the City of Stars.

Kilgore's fame isn't limited to oil. In 1940, at the young Kilgore College (founded in 1935), a physical-education teacher named Gussie Nell Davis created the Kilgore College Rangerettes — the world's first precision dance-and-drill team. With their signature high kicks and dazzling routines, the Rangerettes helped pioneer the halftime spectacle and became internationally famous, performing at bowl games, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and events around the world. They remain a beloved Kilgore institution and a Texas icon.

The town also shaped one of the 20th century's great musicians. Pianist Van Cliburn grew up in Kilgore, studying with his mother, who had begun teaching him at age three. In 1958, at the height of the Cold War, Cliburn stunned the world by winning the inaugural International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow — a cultural triumph that made him a national hero. The small oil town had produced a global star.

Today Kilgore is a city of about 13,000, part of the Longview metropolitan area, and still tied to the energy industry. Oilfield services, manufacturing, and Kilgore College anchor the economy, and the city has continued to attract new industrial investment. Sitting at the junction of Interstate 20 and US 259, about a dozen miles southwest of Longview, it benefits from both highway access and its place in a larger metro.

Kilgore has leaned into its heritage and culture in a way few small towns can match. The East Texas Oil Museum at Kilgore College brings the boom era vividly to life, the Rangerette Showcase celebrates the famous team, and the city even hosts the professional Texas Shakespeare Festival each summer. Between the lighted derricks, the Rangerettes, the oil museum, and the legacy of Van Cliburn, Kilgore is a small city with an outsized story.