A complete owner’s guide to mineral rights in Eastland County, Texas — home to the historic 1917-1918 Ranger oil boom, the Strawn Group type locality, and a fragmented modern operator landscape of small private waterflood operators.
Get Your Free Mineral ValuationCounty seat: Eastland, TX
Region: North Central Texas (Bend Arch / Eastern Shelf)
RRC District: 7B
Primary formations: Marble Falls, Strawn, Duffer, Ranger, Caddo
Operator landscape: Fragmented (no dominant operator)
Top operators: BRAKA Operating, Ronning Gas & Oil, Pardue Oil, Ames Oil, Lowrance, Pearson Lee Roy III
Boom era: 1917-1918 Ranger oil boom
Modern production: Ultra-stripper economics; ~6 bbl/well/month average
Eastland County’s oil history begins with the Ranger oil boom of 1917-1918. The Ranger Field discovery briefly made Ranger, TX the largest oil town in the world. Drilling rigs covered the landscape; the town’s population exploded from ~1,000 to over 30,000 within months. Wagonloads of crude moved daily through the Ranger train depot to refineries across north Texas.
The boom didn’t last. Reservoir pressure declined within five years; primary production rates fell from hundreds of barrels per day to tens, then to single-digit barrels per day. By 1925 most of the easy oil had been produced. But the wells stayed productive — and over the following century, secondary recovery (waterflood) extended field life by many decades.
Today’s Eastland County production is a long-tail descendant of that 1917-1918 boom: thousands of low-rate stripper wells producing 0.1-2 BOPD each, organized into small named units, operated by a fragmented mix of small private operators. Per-well rates average about 6 barrels per month — true ultra-stripper economics.
For broader regional context, see our Bend Arch Region Guide.
Unlike neighboring Stephens County (where BASA Resources operates 17 of the top 25 units), Eastland County has no dominant operator. The top units are spread across many small private operators:
BRAKA Operating — North Pioneer Unit (#1 by production), Farmer, Danley R.H., Pogue-Eastland Unit
Ronning Gas & Oil — Miller Conrad & Cecil, Sneed Ernest, Hodge Paul, multiple Conrad & Cecil leases
Pardue Oil — Radford J. M. (3 separate wells in the top 11)
Pearson Lee Roy III — Watson J. T., Watson J. T. -A-
Lowrance — Sneed E. J., Walker Monroe
Ames Oil — Gooch J. N. /Tracts #1 & #3/
Byrne Oil Company — Duffer "A" (home of the #1 individual well in Eastland County)
DFG Energy, Hanvey Don H Oil Interests, Interstate Explorations, J D Operating, Moylan Jimmie C, Eastland Operating, SB Street, Hilllake Gas Storage, Keating Energy — smaller positions on individual leases
For mineral owners, the implication: operator-side stability is variable across Eastland County. A mineral interest operated by a long-tenured firm like BRAKA or Ronning is typically a clean valuation case; an interest under a smaller single-lease operator may carry higher abandonment risk and warrants more conservative discounting. See the full operators directory.
The top 5 producing units in Eastland County by Feb 2026 monthly oil:
1. North Pioneer Unit — BRAKA Operating, 69 wells, 449 bbl Feb 2026
2. Duffer "A" — Byrne Oil Company, 7 wells, 383 bbl (home of the #1 individual well)
3. Miller, Conrad & Cecil — Ronning Gas & Oil, 4 wells, 380 bbl
4. Radford, J. M. — Pardue Oil, 3 wells, 344 bbl
5. Gooch, J. N. /Tracts #1 & #3/ — Ames Oil, 5 wells, 326 bbl
Unlike Stephens County (which is ~95% Caddo formation), Eastland County has notable formation diversity. The top 20 individual wells produce from:
Marble Falls (Pennsylvanian carbonate) — 7 of top 20 wells
Strawn (Pennsylvanian; Eastland is the type locality) — 2 of top 20, including the only modern (2017) directional well
Duffer (specific named member of Pennsylvanian sequence) — 3 of top 20
Ranger / Lower Ranger (the historic 1917 Ranger field) — 2 of top 20
Caddo — 1 of top 20
Black Lime West, Mississippian, Lake Storage — minor
Buckhead Energy buys mineral rights and royalty interests in Eastland County, Texas — including the Ranger oil field area. Many interests are inherited 3-5 generations deep from the 1917-1925 boom era; we handle out-of-state owners remotely with free written offers within 48 hours.
Eastland County Definitive Guide 2026
Ranger Oil Boom 1917-1918 (Historical)
Free written offers. No obligation. No fees.
Start Your Free ValuationJoin thousands of satisfied mineral rights owners who chose the best company to sell mineral rights to.
Get My Offer Now