KILGORE, Texas (KLTV) - The Lou Della Crim House is a part of Kilgore‘s rich oil field history, as it was built with proceeds made from oil.
On Tuesday, we spoke with Chip Hale, who is the president of the Kilgore Historical Preservation Foundation. The foundation just recently received the news that the Crim House has been donated to them.
Hale spoke with us about the Crim family history and their long-term goal for the house.
"There are a lot of really interesting facts about this house, but one that I think a lot of people really get a kick out of is Lone Wolf Gonzales stayed here whenever the Texas Rangers had to come to town to kind of regulate and put some law into this lawlessness town because when the boom hit, thousands, I mean, thousands of people descended upon Kilgore, and the infrastructure just was not in place to handle that sort of population," Hale said.
The Kilgore mayor and local financier, Malcolm Crim, owned the property when oil was found in Kilgore.
“All of the oil companies said there was no oil here,” Hale said. “Malcolm Crim truly believed that there was, and he would beg, he would plead. He would ask any geologist or oilfield engineer to come to Kilgore, and the funny story is in 1920, I believe it was Shell Oil, missed. They drilled a hole here, and it was a dry hole. They missed the field by about 200 yards, so in 1920, the East Texas oil field could have been discovered, but it wasn’t until 1930, and Malcolm Crim was the leader, if you will.”
He said Kilgore holds a place in history since the East Texas oil field was the largest known in the world, until another was found in the Middle East.
“From that point, Kilgore became a boomtown,” Hale said. “There is a lot of history that comes from Kilgore, and one of the historic sites, obviously, is the home.”
He said the house was donated to the foundation by Bobby Florence, but it needs a lot of work. Hale said a contractor told them the “bones” of the house are in fairly good shape, but they’re planning an extensive fundraising campaign to polish up the cosmetic aspects.
The long-term goal is to turn it into a museum, where the historic photographs the foundation has in its care can be displayed. Hale said they may create rooms dedicated to certain themes, based on the artifacts they have to work with.
If you’d like to donate to the project, visit their website to learn more.
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