The Road to Riches Virtual Cache
Hidden : 11/23/2002
Difficulty:
1 out of 5
Terrain:
1 out of 5

Size: Size: virtual (virtual)

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Geocache Description:


Even though I haven’t lived in Wichita Falls for many years, I do come back often to visit. The city has changed considerably over the past few years and there are a number of older buildings and sites that are now receiving the recognition due them in the history of the city. This is the first of several caches that I plan to create.

Parking for this cache is located at: N 33 55.272 W 098 29.724

This is an important site that was instrumental to the citizens of Wichita Falls during the heady oil boom days. The area directly to the south is the original “downtown” area (see the “Littlest Skyscraper” geocache) where thousands of dollars were made and lost in the space of minutes on oil speculation. Oil production had started in 1904 in three distinct areas to the north of town (Electra, Burkburnett and KMA) but the daily yield was only three to forty barrels per day, hardly anything to get excited about in comparison to the vast fields opening up along the Gulf Coast. In fact, local ranchers in need of water for their livestock often complained of drilling water wells and finding only oil.

In January of 1911 the first of the big “blows” came in. By the spring, there had been several major gushers and the boom was in full swing. Overnight, Wichita Falls went from being a small farming community to a thriving oil center. While there was never a producing oil field within the city limits, the city prospered as a headquarters for the various oil operations. One drawback was the lack of access from the downtown business and banking centers to the fields north of town. This site provided a solution to that problem. Notice the original stonework section to your right and compare it to the concrete section that was built in later years.

Excerpts from “Wichita Falls: A Century in Photographs” by Michael Duty, 1982

From the historical marker, answer the following questions.
1 – What was the name of the company and where were they from that built this structure?
2 – In what year was it formally dedicated?
3 – In what year was the 2nd span completed?

Once you have visited the site, feel free to enjoy a leisurely stroll along the recently constructed river walk.

Once you have the answers, contact the cache owner with this information. Here are the steps for contacting a geocache owner (from (visit link)

1.On the geocache page under the geocache title, you will see "a cache by (username)". Click on the username. You will be lead to the profile page for the user.

2.From the cache owner's profile page, you can choose either:
•"Send Message" - uses the online Message Center
•"Send Email"- uses email

Contact through the geocaching Message Center and through email sent via Geocaching.com are both legitimate ways for geocache finders to send required answers to a geocache owner. A cache owner cannot require that this information be sent through one particular tool.

As with all virtual caches, you are expected to PHYSICALLY visit the site to log a find. Internet searches, second hand info and other "remote" methods of locating the information DO NOT qualify. "Retroactive" finds based on prior visits before the cache was created are also not allowed. The cache owner reserves the right to delete a log if the correct information is not received. Thanks for visiting!

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