Pioneer Families #3 Traditional Cache
Vertighost: There has been no response from the cache owner, therefore, this cache has been archived. Please note that caches archived by a reviewer or HQ due to maintenance issues and/or non-responsiveness by the cache owner are not eligible to be unarchived.
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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This is #3 in a series of historical or interesting places around "the hill." The street the cache is located on is named in honor of Patillo Higgins - a fortunate man who had a series of unfortunate events in Barbers Hill.
In the early days of petroleum prospecting in Texas most oil finds were the result of digging or drilling near known oil and gas seeps as with George Dullnig's 1886 strike in Bexar County or the discovery of oil in Corsicana in 1894. Because of abundant seeps, guesswork and good luck were sufficient for finding oil. Most prominent salines and salt domes had been recorded by the 1890 Geological Survey of Texas but did not necessarily become the focal point of oil exploration due to numerous unexploited seeps. Amateurs in geology, such as Pattillo Higgins (1863 - 1955), used geological hunches and knowledge of existing seeps to promote drilling for oil at Spindletop in 1901.
Higgins wanted to prove that he was not just a "lucky guesser" at Spindletop. He believed he had found an even larger field at Barbers Hill than the one in Beaumont. But, Barbers Hill would never prove to be the gusher that Spindletop was. He ran into problem after problem and between 1902 and 1906 he had drilled a total of 14 failures spending a great deal of his vast fortune. Oil was found radomly, enough to keep Higgins convinced there was oil there, but no field ever worried Pattillo Higgins more than Barbers Hill did.
In 1951, Higgins leased his remaining land to Sun Oil and since then they have brought in several wells.
(Some information taken from article by James A. Clark, Houston Post, October 7, 1958)
The cache is a small container. Contains log and enough room for small items. Please place cache back exactly the way it was found.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Or fher gb gnxr va gur fjrrg fzryy bs zntabyvn.