Pure Oil Company Camp

During the late 1920s, geologists from the Pure Oil Company determined that the presence of oil in the Van area was likely. The company had previously leased 17,000 acres in order to harvest the commodity, and oil was discovered on October 14, 1929 on the farm of W.T. Jarman. The Pure Oil Company held 80 percent of the oil leases in the area and administered the oil field operations on behalf of four other companies that had small leases in the area under the Van joint account.

Although the Great Depression would soon grip the rest of the country, Van’s economy thrived. Pure Oil immediately began construction of a headquarters complex to manage the activities of the site and to house and support the many workers needed in the operation of the oil field. The Pure Oil Company camp was located on 107 acres one mile southwest of the Jarman Well, and when completed, the complex consisted of multiple structures, including an office building, seventeen residential houses, a geological laboratory, three bunk houses, a mess hall, a dormitory, a machine shop, a warehouse, a filling station, a water tower and a swimming pool. In July 1930 the Texas Short Line Railway Co. Completed a spur line from Grand Saline to Van (a distance of fifteen miles), erasing the only remaining barrier to Van’s explosive growth.

The Pure Oil Company merged with and became a division of Union Oil Company of California in 1965, and the residential housing and related structures at the Van camp were closed. Although the camp no longer operates, the field is still producing oil today