Name: Cut and Shoot, Texas
Address: Cut and Shoot, TX

The Eight-Year-Old Who Named the Town RoadyGoat

The town you're driving through got its name from a near-gunfight at a country church. Back in July 1912, the Missionary Baptists, Hardshell Baptists, and Methodists here shared a single building they called the Community House, on the understanding that any denomination could preach there except Mormons and Apostolics. Then some locals invited an Apostolic, Preacher Stamps, to hold a meeting, and the community split into two armed camps. One faction sent a boy to fetch the school key and lock the doors; the other vowed to break them down. On the morning of July 21, both sides rolled up in wagons with guns and knives rolled in quilts. As two families screamed accusations, an eight-year-old named Walter E. "Jack" King got scared and blurted, "I'm going to cut around the corner and shoot through the bushes in a minute!" The line broke the tension. No one fired a shot. But the next day both sides indicted each other in Conroe, and a trustee on the witness stand, asked where the trouble happened, called it the place of the cutting and shooting scrape. The name stuck. (Source: A History of Montgomery County, Texas, William Harley Gandy thesis, University of Houston, 1952.)

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The Fight that Named a Town RoadyGoat

The name on the sign, Cut and Shoot, comes from a story that feels like folklore, but it’s rooted in a real community conflict. The year was 1912. The town, which didn't have a name yet, was trying to build a community church. But the residents couldn't agree on anything. Some legends say the fight was over what denomination the preacher should be. Others, more famously, claim it was about the design of the church steeple. As the argument grew more heated, people started choosing sides, and it seemed a real fight was about to break out. A young boy watching the adults, perhaps his own father, grew frightened by the tension and shouted, 'I'm going to cut around the corner and shoot through the bushes!' No shots were ever fired, but the boy's declaration perfectly captured the tense mood. The phrase became a local joke, then a nickname, and eventually, the official name of the town you’re in right now.

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Cut and Shoot, TX RoadyGoat

Cut and Shoot, a city with an unusual name, has a fascinating origin story. According to local legend, the name originated from a 1912 community confrontation that almost led to violence. The dispute was over the design of a new steeple for the town's only church, who should be allowed to preach there, or conflicting land claims among church members. A small boy at the scene reportedly said he was scared and declared, 'I'm going to cut around the corner and shoot through the bushes in a minute!' This statement stayed in the residents' minds and was eventually adopted as the town's name.

Cut and Shoot - Named for a Sentence

1912

Town in Montgomery County east of Conroe named after a 1912 church dispute that nearly turned violent; a boy at the meeting reportedly said he was going to cut around the corner and shoot through the bushes. Incorporated 1969. Hometown of heavyweight boxer Roy Harris.

Conroe Oil Field

1931

One of the great petroleum areas of the Texas coastal region. Opened December 13, 1931, by the discovery well of George Strake (No. 1 South Texas Development Company), about 1.4 miles west of here. Initial daily flow: 15,000,000 cubic feet of gas, along with white gasoline. Strake's second well, a 900-barrel-a-day producer, and the Heep Oil Corp. No. 1 Freeman (both coming in during June 1932) proved existence of a large field. Fast-paced drilling ensued. In January 1933 Madeley No. 1, of Kansas Standard, came in as a wild well and on fire. TNT charges and tons of earth did not smother the fire; it burned about three months. Cratering spread to Harrison and Abercrombie well nearby, and that gushed out of control. In January 1934 a driller for Humble "killed the blowout," by using directional drilling for first time in coastal Texas. This saved the field. (The crater is 600 feet deep.) The Conroe field was the first in Texas to adopt 20-acre spacing, before this was mandatory under conservation rules. It has yielded over 400,000,000 barrels of oil; now produces at the yearly rate of 5,300,000 barrels. After the dramatic discovery here, Montgomery County developed eleven other oil fields, and has reserves for continuing production. (1967)

Historical Marker → · 3.3 mi away

Crater Hill

1933

Oil wells known as Madeley No. 1 and No. 2, drilled in 1933 by Standard Oil Company of Kansas, came in on fire and threatened the entire Conroe oil field. The flames reached as high as 150 feet as firefighters struggled for three months to control the inferno with water, mud, and explosives. Finally Humble Oil Company, using a method never before tested on the Texas Gulf Coast, drilled a directional well, pumped mud into the crater caused by the blowouts, and extinguished the fires. Crater Lake, created by the explosions, remains on the site. (1967, 1995)

Historical Marker → · 3.8 mi away

Conroe Oilfield

1931

Conroe field is an elliptical-shaped oil-producing area in south central Montgomery County. It was discovered by a young wildcatter, George W. Strake , but its development was the quick work of Humble Oil and Refining Company (now Exxon ), the Texas Company ( Texaco ), and a number of independents. The original field drew production from an average depth of 5,050 feet in the Upper Cockfield and Main Conroe sands, which overlie a deep-seated, faulted salt dome of Eocene age. The source of primary recovery was a strong water drive and gas-cap expansion. Reservoir pressure has been closely observed since April 1933 and has been maintained by gas and water injections, obviating the need for secondary recovery. Between its discovery on December 13, 1931, and January 1, 1993, the field produced more than 717 million barrels of oil. Although the field held large volumes of gas, many early operators regarded gas as a nuisance and a danger and wasted it through venting or flaring until 1935, when the practice became illegal. The field is significant because its flush production reestablished the Texas Gulf Coast as a major oil-producing province after thirty years of intensive prospecting. Conroe field was named for the county seat, situated five miles to the southeast. Several early exploration attempts in the area of Conroe field proved unsuccessful before and during the 1920s. Gas seeps on the Rhodes farm in Montgomery County captured the interest of a number of local amateur oilmen as early as 1919. They formed Crystal Creek Oil Company and consolidated a block of 5,000 acres in and around the Ransom house survey. Although the acreage later proved to be a part of Conroe field, the company could not finance the drilling of a test and dropped the leases. In 1924 El Saline Petroleum Company No. 1 Outlaw was staked in the G. W. Wagers survey and drilled to 1,961 feet. Finding only gas, the operators abandoned it. The Kelly-Barker No. 1 Juergens was staked in the D. James survey two miles west of Conroe in 1929. Drilling to a depth of 3,662 feet encountered no oil. In January 1930 the No. 1 Juergens was junked. Although amateurs and independents had found no production in the area, several major oil companies took leases and began geophysical studies there. After refraction seismography and torsion balance were used, no oil-bearing structure was found and most of the leases were allowed to expire. Although seismography was important to Gulf Coast exploration by the late 1920s, it offered no evidence of the deep-seated domal structure. That evidence came from a wildcat well drilled by George W. Strake, who became interested in the area. He put together a block of 9,300 acres and spudded a poor-boy well, the Strake No. 1 South Texas Development Company, in the Theo Slade survey on August 30, 1931. He drilled the well to a depth of 5,033 feet, where it began to spray fifteen million cubic feet of gas and 200 barrels of condensate a day. The discovery was given little attention because it produced only gas and condensate and because oilmen regarded the Cockfield sands as unproductive. At the end of 1931, Conroe field reported annual production of 1,000 barrels of oil from one well. Although Strake had found oil, he still had no money to develop the field. In March 1932 his company, Strake Oil Corporation, contracted with Humble Oil and Refining Company. Strake Oil assigned six leases to the major company for $100,000 and agreed to drill four wells for Humble to a depth of 5,500 feet at a maximum cost of $50,000 each. Strake Oil brought in the No. 2 South Texas Development Company, staked 2,400 feet south of the No. 1, at a depth of 5,026 feet on June 5, 1932. It flowed 900 barrels of oil a day and was considered the discovery well in the Conroe field because it sank into the Main Conroe sand and produced large quantities of oil. Although there were other operators in the field, Strake and Humble delayed the drilling of additional wells for

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Strake, George William

1931

George William Strake, pioneer oilman and philanthropist, was born on November 9, 1894, in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of William George and Anna (Casper) Strake. He was educated in the public schools of St. Louis and received a B.S. degree from St. Louis University in 1917. He served in the United States Army Air Corps in World War I , then worked in the oil industry in Mexico from 1919 to 1925. Afterwards, he went to Havana, Cuba, where he lost almost all of the $250,000 he had made in Mexico. In 1927 Strake moved to the Houston area and, as an independent oilman, leased land near Conroe. His 8,500 acres of South Texas Development Company land was the largest block of land leased up to that time for oil exploration. Geologists claimed that no oil was to be found there, however, and Strake could not get outside financial backing; nevertheless, after drilling many dry wells, he struck oil in December 1931. Other successful wells followed in the Conroe oilfield , which proved to be the third largest oilfield in the United States. Strake's discovery proved that the Cockfield sand was an oil-producing formation and opened wildcatting in an area fifty miles wide and 500 miles long, from Texas into Louisiana and Mississippi. His oil operations eventually spread into coastal and West Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, the southern states, and as far north as Michigan and Nebraska. His oil fortune was estimated to be between $100 million and $200 million. In addition to his oil interests, Strake was a director of the Mercantile-Commerce Bank and Trust Company in St. Louis, chairman of the board and president of the Aluminum Products Company in Houston, an original stockholder and founder of the Houston Tribune , and an officer in many other companies. In 1937 he represented the governor and the state of Texas at the United States presidential inauguration, and during World War II he served on the citizens' committee for Houston-Harris County civil defense and as Texas representative for Belgian war relief. Strake, a devout Catholic, gave much of his oil fortune to educational institutions, civic organizations, and charities. He served on the national executive board of the Boy Scouts of America and donated several thousand acres near Conroe to the scouts; the land, named Camp Strake, was the third largest scout camp in the United States. Strake donated $500,000 to the St. Joseph's Hospital Foundation in Houston and thus became a founding benefactor of that institution. He was also a generous contributor to the University of St. Thomas and a member of its board of trustees, and to Strake Jesuit College Preparatory School in Houston, which was named in his honor. He was on the board of the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, served Our Lady of the Lake College (now Our Lady of the Lake University) in San Antonio in an advisory capacity, and was a trustee of the Institute of Chinese Culture in Washington. He was also on the board of governors of the American National Red Cross and the Southwest Research Institute and was a trustee of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. Strake was cited as the most generous contributor to the Houston-Harris County United Fund charities. He was a member of numerous professional and civic organizations. In recognition of his gifts and support, Strake received several honorary degrees and four papal honors between 1937 and 1950, including two of the Vatican's highest honors for a layman-the Order of St. Sylvester and the Order of Malta. The National Conference of Christians and Jews, in which he served as a member of the national board, honored him in 1950 for outstanding contributions to business, civic, and religious affairs. On June 5, 1957, the citizens of Conroe honored Strake on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the discovery of oil in Montgomery County by dedicating a monument to him on the city hall lawn; Governor Price Daniel read a proclamation designating the day George W. Stra

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Surratt, Fannie Pearl Cochran

1949

Fannie Pearl Cochran Surratt, the first woman to serve as sheriff of Montgomery County, Texas, was born to Terrell McKinney Cochran and Laura (Grogan) Cochran in Jefferson, Marion County, Texas, on February 2, 1902. Her father worked in the logging and lumber industry, so the family moved frequently. In 1910 the Cochrans lived in Taylor County. Ten years later they lived in Cass County, where she completed high school. She attended East Texas State Teachers College (later Texas A&M University-Commerce). On August 28, 1923, at the age of twenty-one, she married Hershel R. Surratt, a truck driver, in Cass County. In the 1920s they moved to Montgomery County, where Hershel eventually became deputy sheriff, then sheriff in 1942. Surratt stayed home to raise the couple's only child, Gloria, who was born on January 29, 1927. During the Great Depression, she served as the Montgomery County supervisor for a school lunch program for underprivileged children under the Work Projects Administration (WPA). She was also an active member of the First Baptist Church of Conroe, the Conroe Garden Club, the Business and Professional Women's Club, and the Daughters of the American Revolution . Forty-seven-year-old Fannie Pearl Surratt became Montgomery County's first woman sheriff after her husband died from a heart attack on July 22, 1949. County officials appointed her to serve the final seventeen months of her husband's second term on August 1, 1949. In a practice commonly referred to as "widow's succession," political leaders sometimes asked a widow to temporarily fill her deceased husband's office for politically expedient reasons. They did so often with the expectation that the widow served in a superficial capacity. She, however, took her new position seriously and was determined to enforce anti-vice laws that others, including her own husband, had ignored. Surratt went on a vigorous campaign to end gambling and prostitution in the county. A petite woman, Sheriff Surratt wore a cowboy hat, an ankle-length skirt, and a western-style collared shirt with a tie. She also carried a small pistol in a hip holster and a large pearl-handled chrome revolver in her waistband. Although known as a "good shot," she gained notoriety in the region for her other weapon of choice-an ax handle. On August 11, 1949, Surratt ordered that pinball machines, punchboards, and marble tables used for games of chance, all of which were considered gambling devices and illegal in Texas, had to be removed from the county within a week. Then, on August 18, she and her officers raided night clubs, cafes, and other establishments with these devices. She used her ax handle to smash and destroy the pinball machines and other gambling equipment, which drew comparisons to Carry Nation by newspapers. Surratt went to court several times for her aggressive tactics. In one instance, the Conroe Amusement Company filed for an injunction to stop the seizure of 200 machines and her ax handle-wielding methods. In response, she filed a cross-action injunction to stop the company from doing business in the county. On the morning of the hearing, local church women, clergy from the Methodist and Baptist churches, and other residents held a prayer vigil in support for Surratt, who attended, then marched, 300 en masse, to the courthouse. Judge Earnest Coker of the Ninth District Court refused to grant either injunction, ruled her seizure of the machines was legal, and warned her against destruction of property. Also during her tenure, Sheriff Surratt and her department helped locate and rescue a U.S. Air Force pilot who had to eject from his jet after radioing Ellington Air Force Base ( see ELLINGTON FIELD ) of his intentions. After Surratt left law enforcement, she became a real estate agent. According to her grandson, she privately helped minorities work through the legal system and fought housing discrimination. She died of lymphoma at the age of eighty on July 18, 1982, at a hospital in H

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Cut and Shoot, Texas

Music in Cut and Shoot

Songs About Cut and Shoot

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Rivers & Roads in Song near Cut and Shoot

History of Cut and Shoot

The Eight-Year-Old Who Named the Town RoadyGoat

The Fight that Named a Town RoadyGoat

Cut and Shoot, TX RoadyGoat

Cut and Shoot - Named for a Sentence

Conroe Oil Field

Crater Hill

Conroe Oilfield

Strake, George William

Surratt, Fannie Pearl Cochran

Things to Do in Cut and Shoot

Everything Near Cut and Shoot