Discovery of Oil in the Kishi Colony
Kishi became “an oil millionaire overnight” after stumbling upon oil in a portion of his farm near Orangefield around 1920 (see Kishi-Lang wells 1 & 2). The first thing he did was pay back the investors who helped kickstart his rice colony in 1907 “threefold.” He then purchased more land so that the total owned property under the farm spanned 9,000 acres. After discovering oil, Count Kojiro Matsukata, the president of the Kawasaki Dock Company (now Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd.) gave a large investment to Kishi, who established the Orange Petroleum Company as president with Shunkichi Nomura as vice president. With the new available funds, the newly established company bought 4,079.5 acres of land for $100,745 and leased it to the following oil companies: Gulf Production Company, the Sun Company, and the Humble Oil and Refining Company.
From the record left behind on Kishi’s facilities and machines from 1923, it is estimated that the peak oil production was 400 barrels a day. Eventually, in 1925 no additional oil was found on the Kishi farm and the Orange Petroleum Company soon decided to dissolve on February 10, 1925. (Orii, 1983) [2]. Eventually the company was sold for $1.00 after Pearl Harbor. (Walls,1987) [1].
References
1. Walls, Thomas K. (1987) The Japanese Texans, San Antonio: University of Texas, Institute of Texan Cultures at San Antonio, 1996.
2. Orii, K. (1983) Kichimatsu Kishi’s Japanese Colony at Terry, Texas, Department of History, University of Pennsylvania.
3. Wingate, G. (1974) “The Kishi Colony,” in The Folklore of Texan Cultures, Abernethy, F. E., ed. The Encino Press, Austin.