Santa Rita – 100th Anniversary

This reprint of Santa Rita is best appreciated through the lens of those who hold such books in a place of special esteem, the Texana book collector. Their most revered pursuits are for rarities distinguished by age, subject matter, or scarcity, or a combination of any of these factors. There are a few contemporary publications that earn such credentials, frequently because of the elevated reputation of the author, illustrator, or book designer, the enhancement of being part of a limited edition, or, most importantly, the importance of their historical subject matter. Santa Rita is a brilliant display of these characteristics of collectible importance

This book was touched by five fingers of exceptional talent, and historically by one of the most important events in the history of Texas education, the successful drilling of the Santa Rita well, which has propelled the University of Texas’s endowment into the largest in the United States. The Santa Rita was named after the Patron Saint of the Impossible, being named before it was even drilled, which makes its history and its success against all odds even more captivating. George Gibbons of Texas Midcontinent Oil & Gas Corporation said that his organization considered Martin W. Schwettmann’s Santa Rita to be one of the greatest tributes ever paid to the oil industry.

An interesting final outcome of the book’s publication was the desire of the author and his mentor to get something more tangible than the book as a lasting testimony to the significance of the Santa Rita well to the University of Texas. The Texas State Historical Association, prompted by Walter Prescott Webb and Martin W. Schwettmann, moved the entire wooden drilling derrick to the campus of the University as a permanent monument to its importance in the future of the University’s educational effort. The derrick was never erected, but the Santa Rita pump-jack standing at the entry to the campus is a substantial memorial to the seminal occurrence. The same can be said for the book Santa Rita and the revered position it holds in the libraries of many Texana collectors. There are few small books in Texas history that have benefited from such a monumental array of contributors.

MARTIN W. SCHWETTMANN was a graduate student of Walter Prescott Webb at the University of Texas at Austin.  He was from Texon in the Permian Basin of West Texas, close to the Big Lake field whose great potential was revealed by the Santa Rita well.