Corsicana, Texas

Everything Corsicana is known for

17 songs mention this city 10 artists from here

Corsicana, Texas, located about 50 miles southeast of Dallas, has a notable connection to the world of music, particularly country and jazz. While known for being the "Birthplace of the Texas Oil Industry" and home to the famous Collin Street Bakery fruitcakes, the city has also fostered musical talent.

Among the artists who call Corsicana home are country music legend Billy Joe Shaver and jazz musician David "Fathead" Newman. The city is also mentioned in songs like "Probably Corsicana" by Max Stalling and "Corsicana Lemonade" by White Denim. The Corsicana Opry, housed in a historic building, hosts live country music shows.

Music in Corsicana

Songs About Corsicana

Probably Corsicana
Max Stalling
81%
"Probably Corsicana"
Corsicana Lemonade
White Denim
80%
"Corsicana Lemonade"
Baccstreet
Yung Hood
75%
"ARTIST_ORIGIN"
K.A.N.D.; Corsicana; Texas
Billy Joe Shaver
70%
Corsicana Daily Sun
Billy Joe Shaver
60%
"The Corsicana Daily Sun shining on my new straw hat"
Big Sky
Parker McCollum
53%
"I stole a car in Corsicana again"
Wacko From Waco
Billy Joe Shaver
51%
"I was born in Corsicana"
Goodbye Lefty
Merle Haggard
50%
"Goodbye Lefty"
wacko for waco
billy joe shaver
45%
Rivertown
Hayes Carll
23%
"Yeah I am from Corsican', wayward on the storm"
If You've Got The Money I've Got The Time
Willie Nelson
5%
"If you've got the money I've got the time"
Always Late (With Your Kisses)
Willie Nelson
5%
"Always late with your kisses"
I Never Go Around Mirrors
Cody Jinks
5%
"I never go around mirrors"
Lefty’s Gone
George Strait
4%
"It's not right, but Lefty's gone"
Handmics Killed Country Music
Sam Bush
3%
"[?] Johnny Cash, and Lefty too"
Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes
George Jones
3%
"Old Marty, Hank and Lefty"
Oh No! Not Another One
Doug Sahm
3%
"Hell, I'd bet he never even heard of Lefty Frizzell"

Artists From Corsicana

B
Billy Joe Shaver
country Pop: 62
Y
Yung Hood
hip-hop Pop: 62
S
Shaver & Billy Joe Shaver
country Pop: 55
B
Bobby Sparks
jazz Pop: 19
D
David "Fathead" Newman
jazz Pop: 18
B
Buck Griffin
rock Pop: 13
M
Marquis of Vaudeville
rock Pop: 12
A
Awkward AF
rock Pop: 8
N
Noe Sanchez
latin Pop: 8
C
Chaser Crouch
country Pop: 6

Rivers & Roads in Song near Corsicana

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Corsicana.

Interstate 45 2 songs Trinity River 8 songs Interstate 35 27 songs Interstate 20 10 songs

History of Corsicana

Wolf Brand Chili: A Nickel Bowl, a Pet Wolf, and the Birth of a Texas Icon RoadyGoat

1895

You're at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Beaton Street in downtown Corsicana, the birthplace of Wolf Brand Chili. In 1895 a Texas ranch cook named Lyman T. Davis (born 1879, not the boy of the brand's marketing legend) parked a chili lunch wagon right here in front of the old Blue Front Saloon and sold bowls for five cents apiece, served with crackers. His early product was 'Lyman's Famous Home Made Chili,' sold in brick form. Around 1921 he started canning it with basic machinery and gave it the name that stuck: Wolf Brand, after his pet gray wolf, Kaiser Bill, whose likeness went on the label. By 1923 he was turning out about two thousand cans a day, but a year later oil came in on his land and he lost interest in chili, selling out in 1924 to two Corsicana businessmen, J. C. West and Fred Slauson. The new owners leaned into showmanship, promoting the brand with trucks built to look like giant chili cans and a live wolf that traveled to the fairs. Quaker Oats bought Wolf Brand in 1957 and carried it nationwide; the Corsicana plant closed in 1985, and ConAgra acquired the brand in 1995. Chili itself became the official State Dish of Texas on May 11, 1977, by House Concurrent Resolution No. 18 under Governor Dolph Briscoe, honoring the 'bowl of red.' In 2018, a bronze statue of Kaiser Bill was unveiled on this very corner, on the footprint of the original wagon; visitors rub his paw for luck. (Sources: Texas State Historical Association Handbook; Corsicana Daily Sun; Visit Corsicana.)

Corsicana Oilfield

1894

Corsicana field is an elliptical-shaped oil and gas producing area located in and around Corsicana in central Navarro County. It is significant because it was the first Texas field to produce oil and gas in important quantities. American Well and Prospecting Company, a water-well contractor, discovered it accidentally on June 9, 1894, while seeking a new water source for the city of Corsicana. The field produces from a pinch-out trap in an Upper Cretaceous sandstone reservoir at an average depth of 1,050 feet. The source of its primary recovery was a combined gas-cap and water drive. Its secondary recovery is the result of a number of saltwater flood projects initiated in the 1950s. Between 1896 and January 1, 1993, the field produced nearly 44 million barrels of oil. From 1900 through 1909 gas from the early field supplied fuel for domestic and industrial uses in Corsicana and other Texas cities. In 1893 civic leaders of Corsicana needed a dependable water supply to promote commercial development. They contracted with American Well and Prospecting Company, operated by H. G. Johnston, Elmer Akins, and Charles Rittersbacher, to drill three water wells for the city. On June 9, 1894, the drillers took the first well to a depth of 1,027 feet, where they encountered oil. Although the producing formation was cased off, oil continued to rise to the surface outside the casing. When residents learned of the oil in the water well, interest in prospecting for oil in the area grew. On September 6, Ralph Beaton and H. G. Damon, local citizens, joined with an experienced Pennsylvania oilman, John Davidson, to organize the Corsicana Oil Development Company. The company took a twelve-year mineral lease from A. and Bertha Bunert and entered an agreement with John H. Galey of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, on September 14, 1894. Galey agreed to drill five wells for the company at his own expense in exchange for an undivided one-half interest in all oil and gas leases owned by Corsicana Oil Development. The first well was staked 200 feet south of the water well drilled by American Well and Prospecting and was completed on October 15, 1895. It had an initial flow of 2½ barrels of oil a day. The second well was a dry hole. The third well was staked at Fourth and Collins streets in town and was completed in May 1896 with an initial yield of twenty-two barrels of oil a day. Three additional wells were producing by the end of 1896, when annual production of 1,450 barrels of oil was reported. By 1897 it was evident that commercial quantities of oil could be produced in the area, and development of the field moved to the east, northeast, and southeast of the original site. Although the early wells were small producers, prospectors sank so many wells that Corsicana oil flooded an already-limited Texas market, where the demand was only for use in local field development and for shipment to Austin and Dallas for making gas. With the only refinery in Texas located at Sour Lake, Corsicana operators at times found no market for their crude. At those times, they poured surplus oil on the ground. Waste in the field resulted in the passage on March 29, 1899, of the first Texas statutory regulation of the drilling, casing, plugging, and abandoning of oil and gas wells to end irresponsible producing and dumping. By the time dumping of crude was outlawed in Texas, Corsicana had found a dependable outlet for its oil. In 1897 Mayor James E. Whitesell and town leaders invited Joseph S. Cullinan , a successful Pennsylvania oilman, to come to Corsicana to advise in the development of the field. Cullinan was so interested in the oil potential of the area that he became a participant in its development. He contracted with several operators to buy 150,000 barrels of oil for fifty cents a barrel. He agreed to lay gathering lines, construct storage tanks, build a refinery, and find a market for Corsicana oil. He began the process of fulfilling his agreement, but those who

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Corsicana - Fruitcakes and First Oil

1894

Home of Collin Street Bakery, shipping DeLuxe Fruitcakes worldwide since 1896. Also the site of the first significant oil discovery in Texas in 1894.

Natural Gas Pipelines

1902

First public use of natural gas began in Texas in 1902, from transmission lines on this street, serving local homes and businesses. These early lines were forerunners of mains that now transport Texas gas to three-fourths of the United States and Mexico. Other natural gas industry pioneer achievements in Navarro County were the first use of meters, in 1905 at Chatfield (12 mi. NE), and first use of gas in pumping oil wells in the Corsicana field, 1906. Developers of Navarro fields expanded to Clay County, and in 1907 were supplying natural gas to Henrietta and Wichita Falls; Fort Worth and Dallas were furnished service in 1909-1910. By 1918 new fields supplied Laredo, San Antonio, Waco. Today Texas is spanned by over 83,000 miles of gas pipelines. A 1918 discovery opened the Amarillo field, soon recognized as the world's foremost gas field -- and point of beginning, during the 1920s, of the first interstate natural gas pipelines. Texas now has 27 pipeline companies exporting gas. Annual production rate is nearly eight trillion cubic feet. A number of wells deliver more than 20 million cubic feet per day. Texas has 42.3 per cent of proven United States natural gas reserves. Incise in base: Early Travel, Communication and Transportation Series, erected by The Moody Foundation

Historical Marker →

Petroleum Industry

1894

West of the Mississippi River. In this well, drilled by H. G. Johnston, E. H. Akin, and Charles Rittersbacher under contract for a water well for the city of Corsicana in 1894, the first oil in commercial quantities in the mid-continent area was discovered at 1035 feet.

Historical Marker →

American Well and Prospecting Company

1894

In Kansas in 1890 Charles Rittersbacher and Horace Greeley Johnston organized a water-well-drilling business that they named the American Well and Prospecting Company. In 1894 they contracted with the Corsicana Water Development Company for three water wells in Corsicana, Texas. Work began on the first well in June at a site on South Twelfth Street, a few blocks from the business district. At a depth of 1,035 feet they struck oil and thus opened the state's first commercial oilfield. By 1900 the Corsicana oilfield was producing more than 800,000 barrels of crude annually and had the first refinery west of the Mississippi River. Although they continued drilling some wells, Rittersbacher and Johnston soon concentrated primarily on repairing drilling rigs and other equipment. They had opened a small shop in Corsicana to repair their own equipment, but meeting demands for repairs from other drillers became a full-time endeavor. About 1900 Rittersbacher and Johnston purchased patent rights for hydraulic rotary drilling equipment from M. C. and C. E. Baker, brothers who had pioneered in that field. From that time the American Well and Prospecting Company began manufacturing and distributing oilfield equipment under the trade name Gumbo Buster. A rig manufactured by American Well and Prospecting and operated by the Hamill brothers of Corsicana was used to drill the A. F. Lucas well at Spindletop in 1901, thus ushering in the petroleum industry on the Texas Gulf Coast ( see SPINDLETOP OILFIELD ). Eventually Gumbo Buster equipment was used in every major oilfield in the world. With the outbreak of World War II , American Well and Prospecting, like many other industries, converted its operations to the production of war-related materials. Among the items manufactured by the company were 1,000-pound semi-armor-piercing bombs and 240-millimeter shells. The plant operated around the clock and employed 1,000 people during peak wartime production. American Well and Prospecting was a family-controlled operation for the first several decades of its existence. Johnston served as president until his death in 1930. Rittersbacher died in 1919, but his sons, Elmer and Edgar, held management positions in the company, as did Eliot Johnston and Lowell Estes, son and son-in-law of Johnston. On June 30, 1944, Bethlehem Steel of Pennsylvania purchased all the outstanding stock and assets of American Well and Prospecting Company. At the conclusion of the war Bethlehem resumed production of oilfield equipment at the Corsicana plant. Increased competition in the business of manufacturing oilfield equipment and hard times in the petroleum industry forced Bethlehem to close the plant in 1959.

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Corsicana, TX

1894

Corsicana, county seat and largest city of Navarro County, is in the central portion of the county fifty-eight miles southeast of Dallas at the junction of Interstate 45, U.S. highways 75 and 287, and State highways 22 and 31. It was established in 1848 to serve as the county seat of newly-established Navarro County. José Antonio Navarro , a hero of the Texas Revolution after whom the county was named, was given the honor of naming the new town; he suggested Corsicana after the island of Corsica, the birthplace of his parents. David R. Mitchell, an early area settler, donated 100 acres for a townsite, and with the assistance of Thomas I. Smith, platted the land and began selling lots. The new town was centered near a log tavern built in 1847 and owned and operated by Rev. Hampton McKinney. The first courthouse, a two-room log structure, was constructed in 1849, and served as a church, meeting hall and civic center until a new frame building was constructed in 1853. The first school, taught by Mack Elliot and a man named Lafoon, opened in the old courthouse in 1847, and a short time later the Corsicana Female Literary Institute began operating. Within a few years of the town's founding, a large number of mercantile establishments opened on and around the courthouse square, and new brick courthouse-a symbol of the town's growing prosperity-was erected in 1858. The first newspaper, the Prairie Blade , was founded in 1855; it was replaced by the Express in 1857, which in turn was replaced by the Observer on the eve of the Civil War . By 1850 Corsicana's population had already grown to some 1,200, 300 of whom were reportedly Black enslaved people. Not surprisingly given the town's large number of slaveholders, Corsicanans supported Breckinridge over the Fusionist slate of candidates in the presidential election of 1860; and in February 1861, when had the election was held on the secession issue, the vote was almost unanimous, 213 in favor and only three opposed. At outbreak of the war in April 1861 townspeople held a mass demonstration on the courthouse square in favor of the Confederacy, and appeals were made for volunteers to serve in the Confederate Army in Virginia. The first company, the "Navarro Rifles" commanded by Capt. Clinton M. Winkler , was organized in August 1861; four additional companies were organized in the town by 1863. After the war Union soldiers, commanded by Capt. R. A. Chaffee, occupied the town. Corsicana, however, witnessed little of the bitter strife experienced by many Texas towns during Reconstruction : Chaffee enlisted a number of former slaves as policeman, but avoided provoking the townspeople, and at one juncture even came out in support of former Confederate officer C. M. Winkler who had caned a Union soldier after the man had insulted him. The town's economy suffered a serious setback during the war and the early Reconstruction years, but by the beginning of 1870s business had begun to recover. In 1871 the town's first bank opened, operated by two men named Adams and Leonard, and in 1874 Union troops finally were withdrawn. The greatest spur to the town's development, however, came in November 1871 with the completion of the Houston and Texas Central Railroad. The coming of the railroad brought numerous settlers and new merchants, among them the Sanger Brothers , the Padgitts and others, who established stores near the new depot on East Collin Street. The construction of the Texas and St. Louis Railway (later the Cotton Belt) in 1880 prompted further commercial development, and by the mid-eighties Corsicana had become the leading trading and shipping center for a large area of the northern blacklands. In 1872 the town was incorporated with a mayoral form of government, and in 1880 a public school system was organized. The decade of the eighties also saw the establishment of a city fire department, a municipal water works, the installation of the first telephone system, and the construction of the

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Things to Do in Corsicana

food 0.4 mi away
Collin Street Bakery

August Weidmann arrived in Corsicana from Bavaria in 1896 and opened a little bakery on Collin Street. His DeLuxe Fruitcake packed with pecans cherries and…
food 0.3 mi away
Wolf Brand Chili Origin Corner

Lyman T. Davis parked his lunch wagon at this corner of Beaton Street and 5th Avenue in 1895, ladling out five-cent bowls of chili in front of the Blue Front…

Everything Near Corsicana

208 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

Explore Corsicana on the Map
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