;TEXAS BUSINESS REVIEW A Monthly Summary of Business and Economic Conditions in Texas BUREAU OF BUSINESS RESEARCH THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS VOL. XXXIII, NO. 6 TWENTY CENTS A COPY-TWO DOLLARS A YEAR JU E 1959 The Midland-Odessa-Monahans Area The economy of the Midland-Odessa-Mon­ ahans area (see page 51 is based on the rich oil resources of the Permian Basin. The geology of the Basin is shown in the drawing; black shading represents in­ complete strata identification, and derricks identify major oil producing areas. NEW MEXICO The Business Situation in Texas ByFRANCIS B. MAY The Index of Texas Business Activity in April rose to a new high level of 216% of the 1947---49 average rate of activity, after adjustment for seasonal variation. This value was about one-half of one percent higher than the previous high of 215% established in February. It was 18% above the recession low of 183% in March of 1958 and 7% above March of this year. Since the Index of Texas Business Activity is adjusted for price variation, the improvement in activity measured by the index in April is due to an increase in the real volume of transactions, not to the illusions of prosperity that can be created when prices are rising rapidly but physical volume of goods and services produced and ex­changed are not increasing. Texas has a population of 9.4 million individuals. The rate of increase is 2.4% a year. Slackening or decline in the growth of business activity because of recessions or a decline in the long-term rate of growth cannot long be tolerated. Personal income per capita would begin to de­cline, lowering the standard of living of the population. Loss of population would result as people moved to more prosperous areas, and a general decline would set in. The attraction and encouragement of vigorous basic manu­facturing and extractive industries is necessary in order to assure future growth. Without them prosperity cannot be maintained in the long run. Freight carloadings in April were 2% above March on a seasonally adjusted basis. They were 12% above April of last year. For the first four months of 1959 this index has been above the year-ago level in every month but February. In February it was slightly below February of 1958. Both March and April of this year were well above the year-ago levels. Since freight carloadings are physical volumes of goods shipped, this is further evidence of the strength of the cyclical recovery from the trough of the recession. Crude petroleum production in April was 2% below the March level, after allowing for the seasonal pattern of fluctuation. The drop was caused by a cutback of the number of producing days from 12 in March to 11 in April. At the reduced rate of activity the index was still a healthy 23 % above the April 1958 level with its 8-day production pattern. The May allowable is 12 days, which will result in an improvement of the index. June produc· tion has been cut to 10 days, reducing the daily allowable production 232,738 barrels to an average of 2,904,414 barrels a day. This is a 7.4% reduction in the average daily allowable. It means a loss in revenue to oil producers of approximately $700,000 a day. June revenues to the state from oil production will be reduced $2,750,000. Although the present situation of the petroleum pro· ducing industry is substantially better than it was during the first half of 1958, when production was being slashed in order to work off the enormous inventories accumli· lated as an aftermath of the Suez crisis, the level of pro· duction is not as good as one could wish. Nor is it as good as it was in 1956. During the first quarter of 1956 the index of crude petroleum production averaged 134% of the 1947-49 average level of production. During the first three months of 1959 the index of crude oil production in the state averaged 123 % of the 1947-49 base figure. This Texas Business Activity Index • Adjusted for seasonal variation • 1947-1949=100 '52 '53 '54 '56 '57 '58 ·59 is an average level for the quarter 8% below the 1956 first quarter, and 1956 was tthe last crisis-and recession­free year that the industry has had. It is clear that while the level of operations in April was a welcome improvement over 1958, it does not indicate that the state's largest mining industry has returned to any­think like boom days. Instead it has achieved recovery at a comparatively low level. How can one account for this condition in what is one of the state's largest industries, at a time when news of the national economy proclaims a high level of prosperity and an outlook which promises faster increases---marred per­haps by a slight interruption due to a possible steel strike? Does the fault lie in lack of demand or in oversupply? During the first four months of this year demand was above the recession levels of a year ago. However, the im­provement was not as great as was expected. Cold weather Crude Petroleum Produrch A,.ociaU Tina P iedrahita Research Asaociat41 Ida M. Lambeth Research Associate Arvid A. Anderson Research ABBociat• Marjorie T. Cornwell Administrative Clerk Candler P. Cass Research ABBociate Mildred Anderson Statistical Assistant Roberta Steele Cartographer Marie F letcher Statistical Assistant Eva A. Arias Senior Secretar11 Crescencia M. Stanley Statistical Technician Anna Merle Danz Senior Secretaf"!I J 08ephine J . Knippa LibraTJI A1sista1.t Marilyn Whites Senior Clerk T11pist Barbara Warden Publications A8Bistant Senior Clerk Typiot Robert Dorsett Daniel P. R08as O!!eet Prese Operator O!!set Preis Operator Assistants Wayne Ferg~son. Walter Gray, William D. Jackson, Richard B. McGregor, Mane Payne, and James H. Scott. Published montbl~ by the Bureau of Buelnee1 Reeearch, Collest of Bueiness Administration, The University of Texas Aoatin 11. Ente~ed as second clase matter May 7, 1928 at the P.,.t ofllee 11 Auetm, Texas, und~r the act of Auguat 24, 1912. Content of tbil publi­cation 18 not copyrighted and may be reproduced freely Acknowledst­ment. of source will be appreciated. Subscription , ·u.oo 1 J e&r; Individual copies, 20 r.<>nts. TEXAS BUSINESS REVIEW The Midland-Odessa-Monahans Area By ROBERT H. RYAN* When the 1960 Census count is totaled, West Texas is likely to have a new double-barreled metropolis: Midland­Odessa. If the federal government follows its usual statis­tical guidelines, it will designate Midland and Odessa as the twin central cities of a two-county standard metro­politan area with a total population probably larger than 140,000. The story of how two towns almost unknown until re­cent years have quickly risen to the major league of urban centers is the story of how oil and gas have built a new West Texas. But the land was there long before the oil was tapped, and so were people--at least a few. The plains just south of the Texas Panhandle were for­bidding land during the pioneer days. Trails were scat­tered with the remains of abandoned wagons that mired in the loose sand under their heavy loads. By 1881, when the Texas & Pacific Railroad was built across the South Plains, there was at least a sprinkling of population, and the railroad brought some more. Of those people who did come to stay, a handful, like the Cowden brothers, staked out claims to ranchland that covered some of the nation's richest deposits of oil. But not many of the pioneer ranchers lived to see the potential of their land realized. There was a Midland, of a sort, before Odessa was founded. In 1880 Midland's population was about 300. A few long ranch houses around a public square ac­counted for most of them. Yet, the old Midland Gazette spoke proudly, around that time, of the "Queen City of the South Plains." In fact, Midland was about the only town for a considerable distance around. Land was advertised for sale in those days at prices "less than rent," an offer that might arouse doubts today but apparently did not in those optimistic times. In any case, the population grew. During the nineties it was well over a thousand. The coming of the railroad gave the town not only a means of transportation but also its name. Railroad men observed that the settlement was about half way from Fort Worth to El Paso. They could see little else worthy of note except that the West Texas heat was enough to singe the pinfeathers off a prairie chicken-if a rattlesnake didn't catch it first. Few of the railroaders stayed long enough to learn that the winters were formidable, too. Cold blue northers, then as now, whipped across the plains and sometimes took a heavy toll in unsheltered herds. But the ranchers stayed on, raising cattle to be driven up the old Chihuahua Trail that ran from Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos to Castle Gap, through Midland, past the watering place at Big Spring, and on to the east. . ~e buffalo grass no longer was grazed by buffalo, but it raised good cattle, even with less than 20 inches of rain­fall. No rivers watered the Midland area, but there was a • Instructor in Business Writing, The University of Texas. fertile valley, Johnson's Draw, where the grass was tender and green most of the time. The classic feud between cow­men and farmers never got very far in the Midland country. Neither, indeed, did the farmers. With so little water, not much crop potential was at issue before irriga­tion. Even the dry soil was fertile enough to raise a small amount of grain here and there, but perennial drouth dis­couraged most kinds of cropping. With the thought of im­proving this situation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture sent to Midland in 1891 a Major R. G. Dyrenforth, who was to engage in rainmaking experiments. What the Major failed to accomplish was done a little later by the water drillers and the men who brought pumps and windmills to the plains. With irrigation water available, cotton soon replaced corn as the main crop. About the time Midland was beginning to develop as a ranching center, a section crew of the Texas & Pacific shunted a string of box cars on to a siding about twenty miles down the line. They called their impromptu depot Odessa. Why they chose that name is still a point of argu­ment. Some contended that homesick Russian railroad workers were reminded by these bleak Texas plains of the rich wheat fields of the Ukraine, where the original Odessa is situated. Whether the story is true or not, there were some early and largely unsuccessful attempts to plant grain around Odessa. The second explanation, more straight­forward, is that a local rancher, or perhaps a railroad fore­man, had a daughter named Odessa. This story offers a second option: in some versions the daughter was beauti­ful; in others, the father was rich. By the late 1880's there were about ten families who had been persuaded by an enterprising town-site company to move from Pennsylvania to Odessa. The company chose its settlers well. These tenacious Yankees were not easily dis­couraged. They tried their luck at farming and found it bad. Nor did they fare any better in their next move, to establish formal education. In 1889 they erected a college but discovered there were not enough students to justify opening it. The following year the college burned. Within a decade even the stubbornest farmers were convinced that the future of the South Plains lay in ranching. But Odessa did progress during the next few years. A bank and churches were built. Electricity was provided two afternoons a week for the benefit of housewives with electric irons. But growth was slow. In 1920 the population of Odessa was llO; in 1930 it was 2,407. During the 1920's, however, important things began to happen. Some oil was discovered in the outlying districts as early as 1921. With the opening of the Penn Field (1929) and the Cowden Field (1930), the people of the South Plains began to discover their hidden wealth. The first few wells fell short of telling the whole story. Not until dozens of separate fields had been opened were geologists able to piece together the big picture. By ex­amining well cores, as if they were plugs sliced from a watermelon, they found that the surface of the earth where West Texas now lies was shifted, long ago, by paroxysmal movements in the earth's crust. For countless years, while the land was submerged beneath a sea, it accumulated thick deposits of organic material, the remains of generations of marine life. It is this material, deeply embedded in rocks of Permian age, that produced the hydrocarbon mixtures we know as petroleum and natural gas. The broad area now known as the Permian Basin contains the remains of part of this buried sea. Visitors are sometimes puzzled to find that on the surface of the land the Basin is almost flat. The gently rolling plains, though, cover an immense valley, al­most as large as New England, buried in the sediment of later ages. It would be a mistake to think that even today the oil­bearing formations of the area are fully known. Within the past year, Phillips Petroleum Company spent some $3 mil­lion in the western part of the Basin drilling a well over 25,000 feet. This well, the deepest ever drilled, yielded valuable geologic information, but no oil and only a brief whiff of gas. The hope remains, though, that strata deeper than any now commercially tapped will prove productive. The 35-million·acre Basin has already produced over 7 billion barrels of oil at a rate of about a half-billion barrels a year in recent years. Another 7 billion barrels or more is known to be recoverable from proven reserves. Today this area produces more oil than the entire world did in 1915. Roughly a fifth of the nation's reserves are in the Permian area. But estimates of produceable reserves have been boosted substantially in recent years through development of new production techniques. The conven­ tional method of flowing and pumping oil until it simply stopped coming recovered only 25% to 30% of the petro­ leum in the reservoir. When a field was abandoned, it still contained most of its oil. Now secondary recovery techniques are put to use to bring to the surface once­ unrecoverable oil. W aterflooding, gas repressuring, mis­ cible-phase recovery, and even underground combustion are used. The Interstate Oil Compact Commission now estimates that currently known fields can be made to yield 43% more of their oil through the use of these methods, and other techniques are still in development. The economy of the Permian Basin, flush as it may seem, is rather precariously balanced on the thin edge that di­ vides overproduction of oil from underproduction. Through skillful adjustment of production to market trends and to the fluctuations in volume of imported oil, the economy of the industry is effectively stabilized. But it is small wonder that interest in politics runs high in the Basin. State and federal policies in regard to taxation, for­ eign trade, and industrial prices are of direct concern to oil men. And the expertly edited Odessa American and Mid­ land Reporter-Telegram are quick to point up the local significance of national policies. West Texans took heart recently when Humble Oil President, Morgan Davis, pre­ dicted that the nation would find twice as much oil in its reserves during the next twenty years as is now proven. Davis, a long-time specialist in production and exploration, looks to technologic improvement to offset the fast-inflating cost of drilling, to increase recovery from known fields, and to help find new ones. Abyssal depths are now being explored in the Delaware Basin-the vast western part of the Permian Basin-and there is hopeful expectation of important new strikes. Worries about the possibility of declining ~arkets for oil also seem ill founded. In spite of the comm~ of atomic power, oil is likely to hold its own and even mcrease its share of the energy market. By 1980, according to the National Planning Association, nuclear power may supply almost 10% of the nation's energy needs. The total market for energy, however, will be so much larger by that time that domestic oil consumption is likely to soar to 16 million barrels a day. Permian Basin natural gas is shipped to consumers over much of the nation. Most of the petroleum produced in the Basin also is shipped out, in this case for processing. Gulf Coast plants refine most of the Permian Basin oil. For a single example, the Gulf Oil refinery at Port Arthur runs about 100,000 barrels of sour Permian Basin crude daily. However, local processing of both oil and gas has been stepped up sharply in the last two years. The Odessa skyline is now spiked with the towers of a major petrochemical center, a complex of plants that repre· sent an investment of more than $33 million. Units now in operation are turning out conventional refinery products and also styrene, butadiene, and synthetic rubber com· pounded from the two. About two years ago the Odessa Natural Gas Products Company put on stream a 9,000. barrel-a-day refinery to supply both the local market and the EI Paso market. The refinery is linked to El Paso by a six-inch pipeline, which, by coincidence, roughly fol. lows the airline route between the two cities. Next door to the refinery is the Odessa Butadiene Com· pany, owned jointly by El Paso Natural Gas, the United Carbon Company, and Odessans E. G. Rodman and W. D. Noel. The product, butadiene, is piped to the adjacent plant of General Tire and Rubber Company, which uses it in copolymerizing Buna-S for tiremaking in its Akron and Waco plants. United Rubber and Chemical Company, a United Carbon subsidiary, also uses Odessa butadiene in its Baytown rubber works. The butadiene itself is based on butane, a liquid hydro· carbon recovered from gas at the Midkiff plant of El Paso Natural Gas and piped to Odessa. There the butane is split into two fractions, isobutane for use in gasoline making, and normal butane, which is stripped of part of its hydro· gen in huge reactors. The result is butadiene, 50,000 tons of it every year, enough to make 66 million ordinary auto­mobile tires. The other ingredient of the Buna-S rubber is styrene, made in the neighboring plant of the Odessa Styrene Com· pany (75% El Paso Gas-owned). Here another natural gas component, propane, is processed, at the rate of 50,000 gallons a day, to make inflammable, flowery-scented sty· rene. This chemical has the unusual characteristic of poly· merizing-hardening into a stiff plastic-when it is heated. The very fact that styrene is so easily polymerized creates a handling problem. Hot styrene from the plant cannot be stored for long or allowed to rise beyon a certain tempera· ture in a pipeline or it will begin to harden. Once it does, the plastic polymer is almost impossible to reconvert to fluid styrene. For this reason, the Odessa styrene plant stores its product in insulated, refrigerated tanks, then moves it the half-mile to the rubber plant through insulated pipelines. Styrene has other uses than rubber making. The plastic that results from its polymerization is familiar in thousands of household and industrial products, inexpensive toys, bottle caps, lighting fixtures, and so forth. Brittleness and inability to withstand much heat are its major weaknesses; but it is cheap to produce and mold, is a good electrical insulator, and can be made either crystal clear or in any color. In fact, about a third of the styrene produced in Odessa is sent by refrigerated tank car to Holyoke, Massa­chusetts, for use in plastics making. Southwest of Odessa, in Ward County, is the third and smallest of the major Permian cities located on the east­west transportation lines. This is Monahans. With a popu­lation approaching 10,000, Monahans is strategically lo­cated near some of the most productive oil fields in the Basin. Secondary petroleum recovery through the use of waterflood has been particularly successful in areas in and around Ward County. Yet Monahans has never been a typical boom town. It was scarcely a town at all until the coming of oil in 1928. The 500 inhabitants had neither electricity nor tele­phone service. Today the Monahans Station of Texas Elec­tric Service Company serves an area the size of Ohio. A small refinery and two natural gasoline plants operate in the Monahans area, but oil-field servicing and administra­tion are the main businesses. During World War II, Rattle­snake Air Base, which local people preferred to call Pyote Air Base, served as a training station. Later it was used to store gleaming acres of military aircraft. It is used now as a radar warning station. Thousands of interregional tourists passing through Monahans on U.S. Highway 80, and on the Texas &Pacific Railroad, loo, might be surprised to know that the town is a recreational center of considerable interest. On oppo­ site sides of the highway, just east of Monahans, visitors can engage in water sports and desert sports. The water is contained in an enormous man-made pond, or "tank," as West Texans call it. There it will shortly be possible not only to go swimming and fishing but also to go dancing on the water. A floating dance pavilion is projected, to com­ plete what is perhaps the most unlikely pleasure resort in West Texas. The desert sports available at Monahans Sandhills State Park differ even more from the usual "tourist attraction." Over an area of fifteen square miles flows a sea of fine, buff-colored sand, swept into dunes as high as sixty feet by the nearly ceaseless wind. Paradoxically, the sandhills have served since Stone Age times as an oasis in the plains. Over six thousand years ago, primitive Indians stalked game here-and dropped their flint-pointed spears to be buried in the sands for modern archeologists. The wind exposes here and there in the sands a pool of clear, cool water, and visitors can usually find water within inches of the surface in the valleys between dunes. Wild hogs, too, know about the buried lake. They root for water after eating the large acorns borne on the two-foot oak trees of the sandhills. The Sandhills Park is dotted with picnic facilities and provided with an impressive art and natural history mu­ seum and a refreshment building converted from a rail­ road section house and decorated in the style of a TV­ western saloon, complete down to a face on the barroom floor. For the conservative, the park offers horseback rides through the dunes; for the less cautious, there are jeep rides as harrowing as any roller-coaster could provide. Enthusiastic Monahans promoters like local business­ man Conrad Dunagan look forward with temperate opti­ mism to the development of trade and distributive indus­tries. Monahans is already a growing shipping point for irrigated farm produce, especially onions, trucked in from the south. It may also have some potential as a manufactur­ing center, partly by virtue of the excellent quality, if not quantity, of its water. But Monahans remains, for the present, essentially an oil town, firmly based on the awe­some mineral resources of its area. In Odessa, too, manufacturing may be the key to the future. Today, however, Odessa businesses deal mainly in the appallingly complex equipment used in oil exploration and production. Odessa still makes a gesture toward its ranching past in the annual Sand Hills Hereford-Quarter Horse Show and Rodeo. But this is an avocation, and the county's agricul­tural income, including sales of livestock, is relatively slight. Odessa's prospects for manufacturing growth, except in the petrochemical industry, are mixed. Carbon black pro­duction in the Basin has been declining, since it depends upon low-priced "sour" gas, useless for other purposes, as a feedstock. The development of processes for removing from this gas the sulfur that makes it sour has largely stripped this manufacture of its raw material base. An industry only now under way in Odessa is the making of Portland cement. Southwest Portland Cement is currently beginning operations at its new $18.5-million plant, designed to turn out about 1.2 million barrels of cement yearly. Water is still a question mark in the future of the Mid­land-Odessa area. With less than twenty inches of rainfall annually and with easily tapped but distinctly limited un­derground reservoirs, the cities must clearly go outside their immediate vicinity for large-scale water supplies. Odessa banker Charles Perry, who is president of the water district that supplies Odessa from a lake a hundred miles away, is optimistic. He would not discourage the coming of industries with relatively high water requirements and points out that water to supply them is certainly available, if distant. Perry admits that present water pipeline facili­ties to Odessa are now used at full capacity but sees no difficulty in expanding them further. Fresh water from the Lake Thomas reservoir is now being used for waterflood operations in the oil fields of Scurry and Mitchell counties, certainly a low-priority use. Furthermore, the water dis­trict has been surveying other promising sites for impound­ment of the Colorado River, and if new facilities are built it would be desirable to have some new large-scale indus­trial customers for the water. In the meantime, however, the Odessa petrochemical plants use processed sewage ef­fluent water because the companies could not be assured of a firm supply of fresh water from the Odessa system. Odessa is planning its future growth as never before. Chamber of Commerce Manager Ray W. Hedges has ex· pressed interest in the establishment of local plants for the production of oil-well sucker rod and also foundry products for field use. He feels that the production of salt chemicals in Odessa is also promising. While there are massive eco­nomic obstacles that make the establishment of both these types of industry unlikely in Odessa, local enthusiasm and ingenuity combined with the advantages that do exist might conceivably overcome the difficulties some time in the future. The growth of heavy industry in Odessa has prob­ably overshadowed some of the most significant phases of the local economy-wholesaling, retailing, and service trades. With a population now edging toward 80,000 and due to pass 100,000 by about 1970, there will be continued demand for the necessities of life and, in this high-income area, many of the luxuries. As the volume of demand grows, it will become profitable to retail, wholesale, or even manufacture many of the goods that not long ago were sent into the area on individual order. Today Odessans consume $30 million worth of food a year, and their ex­penditures for automobile purchases and upkeep are ev~n more. Clothing sales may account for as much as $15 mil­lion a year, and as new suburban centers and refurbished downtown stores make local shopping more attractive, there will be constantly fewer Odessa dollars migrating to out-of-town shopping centers. Additional trade may be at­tracted by the presence of Odessa College, a two-year in­stitution built not long ago on the fringe of the city but now engulfed by new residential areas. Development of retailing and residential property has created some unusual patterns of change in Odessa. New houses commonly go up at the rate of 40 a week, or more, and the landmarks like the old Parker buffalo wallow have long since been obliterated by sleek housing developments. But in the process of residential growth, Odessa has tended to become a solid suburb. Shoppers and business people are apparently reluctant to use parking lots or to park their cars more than a few yards from their destinations. This attitude is generally felt to have inhibited the growth of the downtown business district. Planned parking areas have remained largely unused. The trend toward shopping in planned centers seems considerably stronger than in most cities. Nevertheless, downtown Odessa is not stagnat­ing. Construction began just last month on a new 14-story bank and office building, and hospital and clinic construc­tion on the downtown fringe has been especially active. Lots on the edge of the central business district that sold for as little as $700 in 1948 have recently been resold for as much as $1,200 per front foot. New office space and such facilities as the relatively new Lincoln Hotel, which boasts Texas-size (7-foot) beds, will unquestionably continue to attract business people downtown, regardless of where the shoppers choose to go. The most spectacular forecast for Odessa is certainly the prediction, based on entirely creditable evidence, that the one-time boom town will continue its growth to a total population of about 150,000 by the year 2000. Not all of today's Odessans will be around to see the accomplishment of the goal, but if they live in Odessa they already know it will be reached. Odessa is described more often than not as a boom town. Yet Midland, which has grown almost as much, although not quite so rapidly, is seldom labeled with that term. The fact is, most Midlanders would prefer not to think of their city as a boom town. Its growth has been orderly and rather staid; its atmosphere, urbane and conservative. The main downtown thoroughfare is, appropriately enough, Wall Street. And Midland itself is the Wall Street of West Texas. It is the financial and administrative center of the companies and individuals that own the oil fields, just as Odessa is the headquarters of the companies that build them. Over six hundred oil and oil service firms have offices in Midland, mostly in the central business district. At office closing time, when the senior executives and junior execu­tives, the accountants and the geologists, the map clerks and the secretaries spill out onto the street, the scene is the same as one might see in the most white-collared downtown districts of Dallas, Tulsa, or, for that matter, New York. Midland has more low-income workers than Odessa, most of them engaged in providing the personal services and amenities to which Midlanders are accustomed. On the other hand, Midland has over half again as many house· holds in the over-$10,000 income bracket, many of them far over that level. This in spite of the fact that Midland's city population is barely over 50,000, about one-third smaller than Odessa's. Midland's high income level, aver· aging more than $7,500 per family, has had a telling effect on local development. Midlanders eat out more often and more expensively than Odessans. They trade in their cars a bit more frequently on new models. And the clothing they buy is not only likelier to come from an expensive specialty shop, it is also nearly certain to be more formal, more Eastern, than the leisure-type apparel that most Odessans wear whether they are at leisure or not. A look at Midland's background helps explain the rela· tive importance of conservatism and symbols of social status there. In Odessa oil has been the sine qua non. But in Midland before there was an oil elite there was a ranch· ing aristrocracy that did much to bring civility to West Texas. For nearly eighty years Midland has been a center of power and authority over the lands around it. About as large a volume of checks is cleared monthly by Odessa banks as by those in Midland, but time deposits in Midland are more than three times as high as in Odessa banks. Nevertheless, Midland is not sitting idly by while the rest of the Permian Basin grows. The city is now plan· ning for a population of 100,000, which is expected "he· fore you know it." (Conservative estimates concede that Midland is likely to reach the 100,000 mark around 1990.) The conservative estimates may prove to have been over· cautious. Midland, with its 1.7 million square feet of office sp.ace, competed with Tulsa for the unwieldly title, "City with the Most Downtown Office Space per Capita." Not o~ly are Midland_'s downtown office buildings fully occu· pied, they are bemg augmented. Two new buildings of 8 and 14 stories are now being completed, and two more, of 12 and 15 stories, respectively, are under way. The new buildings, moreover, have generally been fully leased al­most since ground was broken. Although this intensive development in the downtown area tends to conceal the fact, retail trade and services have been almost as strongly suburbanized in Midland as in Odessa. . On the west side of Midland, the city limit juts out i~to a narrow eight-mile corridor joining the city to its airport. Midland's air terminal, which serves Odessa also and is centrally located between the cities, is one of the nation's busiest small-city fields. Here the area, otherwise rather isolated geographically, is tied to the rest of the nation by flights radiating in almost every direction. American Airlines offers through flights to Los Angeles and Dallas-Fort Worth. And Continental Air Lines links Midland-Odessa with El Paso, Houston and Austin, Dallas­Fort Worth, Tulsa, and cities in the Panhandle and New Mexico. An elaborate new terminal building, now under construction, will serve the growing passenger traffic. And new facilities may well be needed once again before the end of the century. If the best forecasts are realized, the year 2000 will find a Midland-Odessa Metropolitan Area with a population of 270,000-and still going strong. Agriculture: AGRICULTURE IN NUECES COUNTY By GLENN A. MITCHELL, JR.* Nueces County, which has a lan.d area of 838 square miles, is richly endowed with a vanety of resources bene­ficial to agriculture. The terrain of most of the county's surface is drained adequately and is ideal for mechanized farming activity. A growing season of 280 to 300 days is exceptionally favorabl~ for cr~p production. A layer. ~f impervious clay underlies the soil. Average annual prec1p1­tation is 26 inches. Soils in Nueces County are of the cher­nozem variety and range from rich clay to clay loam as much as six feet deep in places. Most of this area is dry­farmed, except for irrigated sections of farmland north of Robstown. Nueces is listed in the 1954 agricultural census as the 67th ranking county in the United States in terms of value of all farm products. The seasonal cycle of farming activities in the Coastal Bend follows this order : Fall and Winter. In the fall, most of the land is ex· posed to absorb the heavy autumn ra~n~all.; some a.cre_age is planted to cover crops. Ample prec1p1tahon at this time of year usually results in high yields of spring and summer crops. In October, both table and field onions are planted. Spring. Some farmers plant cotton between rows 0£ onions; about March 1 the cotton seeds sprout before the onions are harvested. Grain sorghum is planted in early April, and corn is planted in March. Summer. The Nueces County cotton harvest begins in August. In July, grain sorghum is cut; corn is harvested in August. After harvest the lands, if not put to cover crop, are exposed to the fall rains and the cycle begins again. Most of the Coastal Bend's agricultural lands are dry­fanned; scant fall precipitation therefore severely affects crop production in the following year. The year of 1954, in terms of precipitation (27 inches) and crop production, was normal in Nueces County, de­spite the preceding dry years of 1951, 1952, and 1953. Ap­proximately 365,000 acres were classified as cropland in the county in 1954. In the same year there were 1,157 farms (41.5% of which were operated by tenant farmers); the average farm size was 489 acres with an estimated aver­age annual income of $31,009.00 per farm. Total income for all of the county's farms was an estimated $35,877,­ 275.00. Farm acreage, on the average, was divided into approximately 60% cropland and 40% pasture. In 1910, when most of the county's farms were smaller, the rich "hog wallow" land sold for about $20.00 per acre. This same land sold for $150.00 to $400.00 per acre in 1959. At present, farmland for sale in Nueces County is scarce; it is difficult to find any even for rent. Irrigated land in Nueces County accounted for approxi­mately 18 square miles (11,250 acres) of harvested crop­land in 1954. All of this land belongs to 15 farm operators and the entire area lies north of Robstown. Water is pumped from the Nueces River by farmers and is dis­tributed in a series of ditches reaching as far south as Robstown. * G1aduate student, Department of Geography, The University of Texas. The worst handicap imposed on agriculture in Nueces County is drought. However, a variety of agricultural pests is present in limited numbers. Insects that are harmful to the county's farmers (especially to those growing cotton) are cutworms, thrips, flea hoppers, over-wintered boll weevils, boll weevils, boll worms, cotton aphids, spider mites, cotton flea hoppers, leafworms, cabbage hoppers, and pink boll worms. The following weed varieties are present: vine weed, careless weed, and thistle. Extensive weed growth, however, is held back by the county's semi· arid climate. Plant diseases found in Nueces County in­clude cotton root rot and head smut and a variety of diseases common to each individual crop type. The majority of plant diseases thrive best after an extremely wet season. AGRICULTURAL TRENDS IN NUECES CO »TY, 1900-1954 1925 1930 1935 1940 1945 1950 1954 Number of farms 1,947 l ,969 1,650 1,457 1,186 1,307 1,169 Tractors on farms 759 1,089 1,730 2,370 2,481 A cerage farm size (acres) 134 192 284 317 370 489 481 Crop land ha r vested (acres) ____________ __ 184,524 288,303 228,609 233,898 252,055 300,647 327,559 Full owners 356 389 480 468 412 447 353 Farm employment ( 10 years and older) 6,051 4,9 76 4,325 3,863 Source: Census of Agriculture. Erosion of soil by wind action is possible during the period from September through March when much of the county's cropland is exposed to collect moisture. Slight sheet and gully erosion occurs in the rolling northwest corner and increases after the Jim Wells County line is crossed. Cotton Of the forty-odd varieties of cotton successfully tested in Nueces County, the following are the most popular: Delta Pine 15, Stoneville 7, Northern Star, and Delflos. Nueces is one of the nation's leading cotton producing counties for a variety of reasons, one of which is the uniformity of its soil. Soil uniformity insures a uniform county-wide cotton crop. Cotton produced in Nueces County is rated at "middling white" or better, with staple lengths of one to one and three thirty-seconds of an inch. Per acre yield in terms of lint cotton averages 250 pounds. Another factor favoring cotton growth in the county is the lack of rain­fall and high humidity in the Coastal Bend during the so­called "making months" when the cotton boll matures. This period of cotton growth coincides with the county's driest period, July and August. Pickers employed in Nueces County come from the lower Rio Grande Valley, where they have just completed the cotton harvest. Later they move on to Central Texas cotton fields, which are ready after the Nueces crop is in. The 30-year history of cotton in Nueces County from 1928 to 1959 shows one outstanding trend. There has been a marked decrease in cotton acreage and an equally marked increase in output per acre. In 1928 approximately 270,000 acres were planted to cotton in the county; 80,700 bales were produced. By 1958, with the aid of fertilizers, new and improved machinery and newly intro-duced varieties, about the same quantity of cotton was produced on less than half the acreage planted in 1928. Per acre yields increased about four times during the same period. This trend is notable in most machine societies as technology finds its way into agricultural production and is usually accompanied by a decrease of farm workers and an increase in individual farm size. Nueces County has 29 gins to serve the area's cotton farmers. Picked cotton is usually transported to the gins by farm truck. From the gins, cotton is transported by flat­bed trailer truck to either of the two compresses in the county. From the compress, cotton either moves to market or into government storage as a surplus commodity. Cotton production is still the foundation for the eco­nomic well-being of Nueces County. Because cotton pro­duction was significant, there was pressure for a deep water port. The port then served-and serves-as a major stimulant to the county's industrial growth. The future of cotton production in Nueces County is un­certain, because of uncertainty over the course of federal cotton price supports and acreage controls. Given condi­tions economically similar to those now prevailing, how­ever, the future of cotton production in the county appears secure; no other crop or farm activity in sight can as well utilize Nueces County cropland. Grain Sorghum Nueces County is one of the nation's leading producers of grain sorghum. In fact, in 1954 the county's production exceeded grain sorghum production of the entire state of Oklahoma. Grain sorghums are a "short species" of the grass family and are produced primarily for grain. As a world food, grain sorghums rank third after rice and wheat. In the United States, only wheat and corn exceed it in production. Grain sorghum production in Texas usually accounts for approximately 37% of the total value of the state's agri­cultural output. Most grain sorghum production in Texas occurs on the High Plains and in the Coastal Bend area. In the United States, grain sorghum is used mainly to feed poultry, cattle, sheep and swine. Some grain sorghum, however, is processed for its wax and starch content. The wax is used in the manufacture of polishes, carbon paper, electric insulation, and grain alcohol; the starch is used as sizing in the output of paper, fabrics, adhesives, and various food products. "Martin" is the most popular grain sorghum variety in Nueces County and the hybrids most used are RS·610, Texas 601, F-62A, Amak R-10 and E-56. About 50% of the county's sorghum production is the "Martin" variety. It and the hybrids listed are known as "combine maize," which is a plant approximately five feet in height de­veloped expressly for mechanical harvesting. (Prior to the introduction of "combine maize," grain sorghum plants grown in the United States attained heights of ten feet and could only be harvested with a knife, since these plants were too high for mechanical reaping.) Sorghum is ideal in the Coastal Bend area as it is drought-tolerant, and the terrain of the area allows the crop to be harvested mechanically. Grain sorghum is seeded in April and harvested in July. Seed rot is best avoided when sorghum is seeded in soil with a temperature of about 70° F. However, if the county's farmers plant later than the fifteenth of April, their grain seeds are subject to insect attack. This means seeding in soil that has a temperature of 58° to 60° F. Seed rot at this temperature is not prevalent unless the weather is cool and humid. The first half of April in Nueces County, however, is usually characterized by low humidity. About 50% of the county's farmers cut and haul their grain to storage facilities and the rest hire harvest con­tractors to perform this task. The grain is threshed from standing stalks by combines and is stored in a cool dry place to await shipment. The county's average grain farmer produces a crop valued at $800.00 to $1,000.00, sells $700.00 worth, and uses the rest for feed. Grain is removed from the farms by truck to local community grain elevators, whose average storage capacities are 100,000,000 pounds, 40 carloads, or two million bushels. (Distribution of grain elevators in Nueces County is as follows: Corpus Christi, 5; Robstown, 3; Bishop, 2;Dris­coll, 2; Agua Dulce, 2; Banquete, 2; Violet, 1; and London, 1.) At the grain storage sites, the grain is dried, and in some instances graded; it is then sold to the corn products refining plant at Corpus Christi, or is moved into government storage via the grain elevator at that city. Although Nueces County cropland is well suited for the COTTON PRODUCTION I N NUECES COUNTY, 1928-19:>8* Lint yield Total Acres per acre production Year h arvested (pounds) (bales ) 1928 270,000 143 80,700 1929 268,000 231 129,000 1930 250,000 295 154,000 1931 254,600 178 94,900 1932 226,900 140 66,100 1933 252,300 227 83,400 1934 173,000 159 57,400 1935 186,000 232 90,200 1936 201,000 207 87,000 1937 218,000 203 92,800 1938 166,200 232 74,900 1939 152,200 254 79,300 1940 139,200 201 54,600 1941 135,000 212 57,900 1942 136,000 276 77,245 Source: Census of Agriculture; U. S. Department of Agriculture. Lint yield Total Acres per acre productionYear harvested (pounds) (bales) 1943 133,000 297 82,300 1944 119,000 215 53,000 1945 106,000 211 46,600 1946 90,000 235 44,000 1947 110,000 289 66,350 1948 91,000 282 53,400 1949 140,000 353 103,000 1950 95,500 235 46,200 1951 216,000 51 22,900 1952 174,000 282 102,000 1953 141,500 60 17,700 1954 125,000 432 109,000 1955 86,000 112 20,100 1956 98,000 315 64,000 1957 78,700 339 55,500 1958 95,769 434 83,040 •The 31-year average yield of lint cotton per acre in Nueces County is 228 pounds. growing of grain sorghum, the present high level of pro­duction is undoubtedly the result in large part of favorable government price supports. A sharp downward revision of these supports could adversely affect sorghum production in Nueces County, as elsewhere. A counterbalancing trend, however, is the rapidly growing use of sorghum for live­stock feed, especially in cattle feedlots in the state. Lower sorghum support prices would encourage the use of more grain sorghum for this purpose. Nueces County grain sorghum might be marketed to cattle feeding operations in the Houston area, for example, and could also be used in similar operations in Nueces County itself. As a result, the county's livestock population could reverse the decline characteristic of the past few decades. Oniom Onions are an important winter money crop to Nueces County farmers, and the county ranks as one of the na­tion's leading onion producers. A first-generation hybrid known as "White Granex," "Texas Granex 502," "Excel L-60," and a few of the Bermuda variety are most com­monly grown. Soils with a high degree of fertility, good structure, ability to hold moisture and plant food, and, above all, good drainage are prerequisite to successful onion produc­tion. The loam, silty loam, and alluvial soils of Nueces County meet most of these requirements. Clay soils, how­ever, become dry and hard during the dry season and will deform the tender onion bulbs if an adequate amount of humus is not present. For this reason, green manure is usually applied before the crop is seeded in October. Onions require cool temperatures during their early growth period, as best root development occurs between air temperatures of 54° F. to 68° F. The climate of Nueces County is generally ideal for onion growth. Because of careless farming practices or unusual weather conditions, onions grown in South Texas are sub­ject to a variety of diseases. The most destructive diseases are sun scald and damping off, both of which result from poor farming practices, and pink root and bolting, which result from occasional unfavorable weather. Harvesting occurs around May 15, when temperatures are as high and humidity as low as possible. Onions har­vested at this time will dry out rapidly, thus avoiding the possibility of fungus diseases. After drying, the onions are removed to packing sheds where they are sorted according to size and packed in 50-pound net sacks. Later they are shipped by refrigerated boxcars to consuming centers. Since onion crops are free of government control, and since local conditions for this product's growth are ex­ceptionally good, Nueces County will in all probability continue to be one of the nation's leading onion producers. Miacellaneous Agricultural Activities Cotton, grain sorghum, and onions almost completely eclipse other crops in the county in terms of acreage and monetary return. The only other crop of any size in 1954 was corn: 175,173 bushels were harvested from 5,596 acres. Most corn is fed to cattle; some is sold to local tortilla factories. The area's climate is not ideal for corn production; the growing of grain sorghum on what might otherwise be "corn land" is much more profitable. The corn grown is, from an industrial point of view, of low quality; the local corn products plant imports corn from the Midwest. CARLOAD SHIPMENTS OF LIVESTOCK• Source : Bureau of Business Raiearch In cooperation with Airricultural Marketing Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture Percent change Classification Apr 1959 Mar 1959 Apr 1958 Apr 1959 from Mar 1959 Apr 1959 f rom Apr 1958 TOTAL --·-······---­ 5,073 3,106 4,895 + 63 + 4 Cattle -·-·············------················ 4,180 2,541 4,198 + 65 Calves -----------············­---··------­ 426 286 315 + 49 + 35 Hogs ···············---------·············· 0 0 4 -100 Sheep ····--·--------·········-·--·-­------­ 467 279 378 + 67 + 24 I NTERSTATE ----------­ 4,648 2,841 4,387 + 64 + 6 Cattle ----------------­-------·---------­ 3.896 2,339 3,722 + 67 + 5 Calves -----------------------­-------­---­ 298 227 289 + 31 + 3 H ogs -----------------------­---------------­ 0 0 -100 Sheep --------------------­----------------­ 454 275 372 + 65 + 22 I NTRASTATE' -----------­ 425 265 508 + 60 -16 Cattle ----­-----------------------------­ 284 202 476 + 41 -40 Ca lves ------------·----------------------­ 128 59 26 +ll7 +392 Sheep -------------------------------------­ 13 4 6 +225 + ll7 • Rail-car basis: Cattle, 30 head per car ; calves, 60 ; hogs, 80, and sheep, 250. •• Change is less than one-half of one percent. Flax had a high acreage in 1949, but very little was planted in 1959. Cabbage acreage has declined since 1949 because of poor market conditions. Dairying, broiler and egg production, and the growing of other agricultural produce are primarily for local consumption and for the Corpus Christi market. Winter Vegetable Production Nueces County, as well as the entire Coastal Bend, is capable of winter vegetable production on a scale com­parable to that in California and Florida. However, the county's farmers have smaller land holdings and have not developed the elaborate marketing associations found in other winter vegetable producing areas (notably Cali­fornia). For this reason, winter vegetable production is not as profitable as subsidized cotton and grain produc­tion. It is locally known that many of the vegetables con­sumed in Corpus Christi are grown in the Rio Grande Valley and in Florida. Even the county's onion crop cannot successfully be marketed at times. It is possible that more acreage will be devoted to winter vegetables and that the county's farmers will investigate the possibilities of marketing them successfully if support prices are sub­stantially lowered on cotton and grain sorghum. Livestock Although livestock production (principally beef cattle) is an important element in the economy of South Texas, agricultural activities in the Coastal Bend are devoted primarily to row crop production. Cattle, sheep and other livestock were mainstays in the Coastal Bend's economy prior to that area's land parcelization. However, land pro­moters who came to Nueces County in the first decades of the twentieth century knew that the area's clay soils were capable of supporting a large farm population. They were able to purchase large tracts from large ranches in the area, which they then subdivided and sold to individual farmers. The county's farmers since that time have found that their greatest monetary return per acre is derived from the cultivation of cotton and grain sorghum. This accounts for the decline of the county's livestock population and number of farms and ranches in the county devoted to that phase of agricultural activity. Industrial Production: THE DYNAMIC TEXAS PAINT MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY By WALTER GRAY The Texas paint manufacturing industry is an _outstand­ing example of the fact that the over-all economic growth of the Southwest has occasioned a growth rate for some industries that is much higher than that of the economy as a whole. From 1947 to 1954 the total dollar volume of production of the state's paint manufacture~s rose from $10 million to $18 million, for an 80% gam-by most standards an outstanding growth. Yet so great has been the increase in Texas paint production since 1954 that the 80% gain in the earlier period seems hardly significant. From 1954 to 1958, the dollar volume of paint produced in the Dallas and Houston areas-where the Texas indus­try is concentrated-rose approximately 250'f? and 180'f?, respectively. During the four-year penod pamt output m the Dallas area went from $7,887,000 to $28,198,000-or for that manufacturing center alone a 1958 figure more than that for the entire state in 1954, and nearly three times the state total in 1947. In the same period the ex­pansion of the Houston segment of the industry was almost as remarkable; production rose from $8,213,000 in 1954 to an estimated $22,000,000 last year. The 1954 Census of Manufactures reported 56 plants in Texas manufacturing paints and allied products( var­nishes, lacquers, and enamels). Since 1954 at least 12 new paint manufacturing concerns have located in the state, and the extension of operations by other already-estab­lished manufacturers into paint production has increased the total number of Texas paint plants to the 78 listed in the 1959 Directory of Texas Manufacturers. Dallas is the state's leading paint manufacturing center, both by number of plants and volume of production. From 1955 through 1958 three new plants were built in Dallas, bringing that city's total number to 29. Two of these were built in 1955, one by the Texas Solvents & Chemical Co., and another by Western States Lacquer Corp. In 1958 the Sherwin-Williams Co. completed a $4 million Garland­ Dallas facility; its output reportedly boosted total paint production in Dallas by approximately 50%. Houston, which now has 17 paint manufacturing plants, also gained three new plants within the past four years. Seidlitz Paints of Texas, Inc., began production in 1956, and in 1957 Benjamin Moore & Co. opened a new plant. Houston's third new manufacturer for the period came last year when Devoe and Raynolds completed a new $1 million structure. EI Paso, the third-ranked Texas city in number of paint plants, added its fifth plant in 1957 when Given Paint Co. began operations there. Other new paint plants (for the most part relatively small) were placed in operation in other cities in the state during the period. Fort Worth and San Antonio have four plants each, but neither have gained new plants in recent years. In the past few years there have been a number of im­ portant paint plant construction and expansion projects by already-operating Texas manufacturers. For example, the Jones-Blair Paint Co. constructed a new $350,000 Dallas plant in 1957, and last March Minnesota Paints, Inc., began a 17,000-square-foot addition to the $750,000 Dallas facility which had been built in 1957. In Houston, Napko Corp. completed a $500,000 plant in ~955 w~~ch is thr~ times the size of the firm's former pamt fac1hty. Also m Houston, Tube-Kote, Inc., expanded and Masury Paints of Texas, Inc., built a new $150,000 plant building in 1956. Last year Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co.'s Paint Division com­pleted a new $500,000 structure, including a new paint lab­oratory, and in April of this year the Coast Paint and Lacquer Co. (whose 1958 sales exceeded $5 million and whose plant investment has grown from $20,000 to Sl mil­lion in 14 years) announced an expansion program for their twelve-building plant. And recently Fresco Paint Mfg. Co. of Fort Worth announced a 10,000-square-foot addition to their paint production facilities. From one point of view, however, the above account of the recent history of the Texas paint industry is far from adequate. For the term "paint industry" is am­biguous. The word "paint" as frequently used designates only one product among hundreds of "protective coatings" -including heavy asphalt roof coatings, for example-­manufactured for application to a great variety of sudaces. Furthermore, many plants that manufacture "paints" in Industrial Electric Power Use in Texas Ind ex • Adjusted for seasonal variation • 1947-1949·100 the ordinary sense also produce a number of allied prod· ucts, such as pigments, oils, solvents, and resins-some of which are also manufactured by chemical concerns that do not produce "paints" at all. Therefore, in order to treat adequately a major segment of the "paint industry" and its most familiar product, "paint" is used in this report in its nontechnical sense. House paints and general purpose industrial paints do in fact account for the major portion of the industry's gallonage sales. A complex of related factors has caused the rapid ex· pansion of the Texas paint manufacturing industry in the past decade, but most of these factors can be found in the postwar population and economic growth of the Southwest. Perhaps most important, this growth has meant the de· velopment of a major new regional market for paint and paint products. Population growth and urbanization have supported-and are supporting-a high rate of residential, commercial, industrial, and public construction and at· tendant consumption of paint and allied products. The multiplication of such structures, reinforced with a grow· ing emphasis upon presentability and good repair, has also created a strong and growing secondary market for paint That the paint market has expanded so greatly in the entire region at the heart of which Texas lies, and not only in Texas, is important in accounting for the recent expan­sion of the Texas segment of the paint industry. The growth of the Texas market alone could scarcely support paint in­dustry growth of the magnitude that is occurring. Even with the advantages of location and raw material acces­sibility, it has been difficult for Texas paint manufacturers to compete with plants located in the major out-of-state population centers without the benefits of mass production, but the adoption of such techniques by numerous Texas paint manufacturers required a nearby market greater than Texas alone could offer. The rapid growth of Texas' neigh­bors has furnished the necessary environment for the re­cent notable expansion of the Texas paint industry. Now out-of-state manufacturers, who produced in large volume and sold most of their output in their home areas, and were thus able to market a part of their production profitably in Texas even while paying substantial transportation costs, find it more and more difficult to match prices of paints and paint products produced in Texas plants by methods as up-to-date as utilized anywhere. Texas and the South supplied many of the vegetable and mineral raw materials which go into the manufacture of paints at a time when the state's industry was still in its infancy, but now that the industry has reached major pro­portions the accessibility of these raw materials constitutes another significant advantage for paint manufacture in Texas. Among these raw materials are linseed oil, tung oil, clays, metals used for pigments and platings, and a variety of petrochemical solvents. The often-noted expansion of the Gulf Coast petrochemical industries, and the development of synthetic resin based paints, have greatly reinforced the position of Texas paint manufacturers in relation to raw material sources. The raw materials used in the production of paints are classified generally into pigments, drying oils, driers, thin­ ners and resins. Most paints contain hiding pigments and inerts ( nonhiding pigments) . The hiding pigments are minerals or mineral compounds which may be selected, as requirements of production dictate, in variations of six basic colors: whites, blacks, blues, greens, reds, and yel­ lows. Hiding pigments provide color and covering power; inerts increase paint life and weather resistance, make for ease of application and add to the appearance and adhesion of paints. Widely-used inerts are mica, asbestine, and silica. Drying oils most often used in paints are linseed oil, tung oil, soybean oil, oiticica oil, and tall oil (a refined product derived from the paper industry for uses in low­ cost varnishes). Drying oil (called the "vehicle" of the coating) holds or carries the pigment after the polymeriza­ tion is completed. Driers, usually solutions of cobalt, man- Misullauous Freight Carloadi19s, S01t~west District Index • Adjusted for seasonal variation • 1947-1949-100 '50 '51 '52 '53 .'5' '55 '56 •57 '58 ·59 ganese, or lead salts of organic acids, catalyze the oxidiza­tion and polymerization of the oil. Widely-used thinners (volatile solvents) are coal-tar, petroleum products, or tur­penes (turpentines, dipentene, and pine oil). The thinner aids in spreading the coating and, on evaporation, leaves a thin, even film of oil and pigment on the coated surface. Resins are classified as natural or syntl1etic. At one time the only resins available were the natural resins (various kinds and grades of gum), none of which offered a very wide range of possibilities to the paint industry. The de­velopment and low-cost production of synthetic resins, how­ever, caused a revolution in the paint industry. The first synthetic resins were a phenol formaldehyde type called phenolics, which became available commerci­ally about 1925. Later came the alkyds, vinyls, styrenes, REFINERY STOCKS* (in thousands of barrels) Source : The Oil c>nd Ga.a J ournpula tion ... . 7,136 29,952 24,326 + 23 ••Change is less than one-half of one percent. •Includes public (nonfederal) administration bulldlnp beslnnlns Ju17 1957. i1ncludes sovernment (nonfederal) service bulldinp besinnlns Jul7 1957. flnclude11 addition• and alterations to public bulldlnp beginnlns JalJ 1957. tAa defined In 1950 cenaua. B1lldi11 Co1Str1+----$ 11,942 2 + Annual rate of deposit turnover 16.8 -1 + 8 Annual rate of deposit turnover _ 9.2 6 + 6 Postal receipts• _________________$ 11,757 12 38 VICTORIA (pop. 44,188') Building permits, less federal contracts $ 424,270 13 + 179 Retail sales -8 1 Bank debits (thousands) _____________$ 11,345 + 8 + 6 Apparel stores -25 -20 End-of-month deposits (thousands)+----$ 12,029 + 5 + 12 Automotive stores 16 + 4 Annual rate of deposit turnover 11.6 + + 3 Eating and drinking places . + -..8 Food stores -----------------------­ TAYLOR (pop. 9,071) + Furniture and household Retail sales appliance stores ......... . + 23 + Automotive stores -------------·-----+ + 59 Lumber, building material, Postal receipts• -------------------------___ __ $ 9,100 5 + 15 and hardware stores ___ _ 14 -23Building permits, less federal contracts $ 47,160 + 39 + 12 Postal receipts* ------$ 29,859 + 9 + 18 Bank debits (thousands) ------------------------$ 6,721 + + Building permits, less federal contracts $ 248,112 -21 -78End-of-month deposits (thousands) t ___ $ 12,343 + 20 Annual rate of deposit turnover ..... 6.4 + 5 -11 WACO (pop. 101,824r) Retail sales 14 + 11 TEMPLE (pop. 33,912r) Apparel stores 4 11 Retail sales 2 5 Automotive stores . 12 + 27 Apparel stores -------------------24 15 Furniture and household Drug stores ----------------------------­6 appliance stores 19 + 10Furniture and household General merchandise stores 16 + appliance stores ............... . + 33 + 4 Postal receipts• ________ _________$ 149,795 Lumber, building material, Building permits, less federal contracts $ 1,420,828 + 36 + 56 and hardware stores -------------------•• -27 Bank debits (thousands) --------___ $ 109,787 + + 20Postal receipts• ______ ______$ 31,871 + 35 + 2 End-of-month deposits (thousands)+----$ 70,064 + 7 Building permits, less federal contracts $ 333,722 + 7 -22 Annual rate of deposit turnover .... 18.8 + 4 + 12Bank debits (thousands) ______$ 22,234 + 9 + 23 Employment (area) 47,250 + + 4 End-of-month deposits (thousands)+----$ 27,202 + 3 -11 Manufacturing employment (area) ---­10,150 + 2 + 7 Annual rate of deposit turnover ....... . 9.9 + + 39 Percent unemployed (area ) --------5.3 7 -23 TEXARKANA (pop. 50,784r) WICHITA FALLS (pop. 103,152r) Retail sales -------------------------------------------------8 + 35 Retail sales 11 + 13 Apparel stores -23 15 Automotive stores ....... . 12 + 17 Automotive stores ..... 13 + 59 Furniture and household Furniture and household appliance stores + + 64 3 appliance stores -----------------·-··· + 13 + 31 Lumber, building material, Postal receipts• _-------------------------------______ $ 46,316 + 5 + and hardware stores + 19 12 Building permits, less federal contracts $ 463,750 + 153 +165 Building permits, less federal contracts$ 683,932 64 + 2Bank debits (thousands) _____ ________ ___________$ 46,050 + 2 + 20 Bank debits (thousands) ------------------------$ 117,309 + 1 + 23 End-of-month deposits (thousands )+----$ 16,123 5 + End--0f-month deposits (thousands) L .. $ 102,607 2 Annual rate of deposit turnover -------­15.6 + 3 + 11 Annual rate of deposit turnover ....... . 13.6 + 3 + 21 Employment (area) 28,950 •• + 3 Employment (area) -------------------------40,300 •• + 5 Manufacturing employment (area) ___ _ 3,510 + + 1 Manufacturing employment (area) ---­3,650 + 4 + Percent unemployed (area) -----------7.4 14 34 Percent unemployed (area) 4.4 -14 39 • For the period April 4-May 1. Reported by the Bureau of Business and Economic Research, University of Houston, for Harris County. t Money on deposit at the end of the month, but excludes deposits to the credit of banks. §Figures include Texarkana, Arkansas (pop. 19,733) and Texarkana, Texas (pop. 31,051). 'Revised for uae by the Texaa Highway Department. "1960 Urbanized Census. ••Change Is less than one-halt ot one percent. BAROMETERS OF TEXAS BUSINESS Year-to-date average Apr Mar Apr 1959 1959 1958 1959 1958 GENERAL BUSINESS ACTIVITY 216 202 192 211 193 tTexas business activity, index ------------------------·---------------------------------------------------­Miscellaneous freight carloadings in SW District, index ------------------------------· 87 85 78 81 77 398 394 369 399 362 Ordinary life insurance sales, index ------------------------------------------------------------------­ Wholesale prices in U. S., unadjusted index ----------------------------·-----------------------­ 120.0 119.6 119.4 119.7 119.3 Consumers' prices in U. S. unadjusted index -------------------·--·---------------------------­123.9 123.7 123.5 123.8 122.9 Income payments to individuals in U.S. (billions, at seasonally adjusted annual rate) ----------···-------------------·-------····--------·------------·-·--------··-·-----· s 372.7° $ 369.5 $ 349.7 $ 367.7° s 348.7 Business failures (number) ----------------------------------------------------·----------------------------34 31 48 34 39 TRADE 206° 203r 191 Total retail sales, index -----------------------------------------------------------------------------·-----·--­169° 167r 140 Durable-goods stores ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------­Nondurable-goods stores ---------------------------·-------------------------------------·------··----­ 226° 222r 219 Ratio of credit sales to net sales in department and apparel stores ----------··--­69.4° 65.8° 68.9 68.5° 68.0 Ratio of collections to outstandings in department and apparel stores -------34.9° 35.8° 34.1 36.6° 36.9 PRODUCTION 357• 340° 311 348° 318 Total electric power consumption, index ------------------·------------·--------------------------­ Industrial electric power consumption, index --------------------------------------------------­374• 347• 324 362° 333 119• 122° 97 122• 109 Crude oil production, index -----------------------------------------------------------------------·--------­ Crude oil runs to stills, index ------------------------------------------------------------------------------­ 148 145 132 148 132 Gasoline consumption, index ------------------------------------------------------------------------------­173 179 189 Natural gas production, index -------------------------------------------------------------------·--------­198 180 182 Industrial production in U. S., index ----------··----·-----------------------------------------------­149 147 126 146 129 Cottonseed crushed, index --------------···-·----------·-----·----------------------------------­186 165 169 163 146 Construction authorized, index -----------------------------------------------------------------·-----------252• 235° 227 239• 202 Residential building ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------301° 273° 260 289° 223 Nonresidential building --------------------------------------------------------------------------------­202• 187° 188 182° 175 Cement production, index ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------­216 221 173 197 158 Cement consumption, index ------------------·---------------------------------------------------------------· 199 217 159 200 155 Cement shipments, index ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------· 212 227 166 207 158 AGRICULTURE Prices received by farmers, unadjusted index, 1909-14=100 ------------------------· 288 288 276 284 271 Prices paid by farmers in U. S., unadjusted index, 1909-14=100 --------------­299 298 294 298 292 Ratio of Texas farm prices received to U. S. prices paid by farmers 96 97 94 95 93 FINANCE Bank debits, index ----------------------·-·---------·-····--·--··---····--······--··----·-------·---·-········---·-259 241 229 252 230 Bank debits, U. S., index ----------------------------------·-·····-··-·----·-·--·--·-----·-······-------·-------236 215 212 223 206 Reporting member banks, Dallas Federal Reserve District: §Loans (millions) -----------·----------·······--··--··············---·--·----·-····--····-··-·----------------$ 2,793 $ 2,773 $ 2,519 s 2,757 s 2,510 §Loans and investments (millions) ··--···---···--·------·--···········--··-·------··············· $ 4,502 $ 4,581 $ 4,168 $ 4,515 s 4,016 Adjusted demand deposits (millions) -----------····--·--·-···-····------------·-···---·--·· $ 2,810 $ 2,750 $ 2,643 $ 2,809 s 2,628 Revenue receipts of the State Comptroller (thousands) ·····--·--·-······------·-······· $131,250 $106,022 $120,549 $ 98,774 $ 89,956 Federal Internal Revenue collections (thousands) ----------······----·--·---·-········---· $276,324 $203,737 $295,706 $261,320 $268,094 LABOR Total nonagricultural employment (thousands) R-------····-·---·--·---·-··--·--·---······--···· 2,420.4 2,411.1 2,378.9 2,408.0 2,378.5 Total manufacturing employment (thousands) R--···---·····--------··-··-----------·-··­481.8 481.6 475.6 478.4 482.3 Durable-goods employment (thousands) R--··---······-··---·········--------·-····-­230.6 229.8 225.8 228.6 231.4 Nondurable-goods employment (thousands) R--·-···--------·······----·--··-----­251.2 251.8 249.8 249.8 250.9 Total civilian labor force in 17 labor market areas (thousands) ··--------······-2,077.1 2,078.3 2,074.7 ······ Employment in 17 labor market areas (thousands)................................... 1,921.2 1,911.1 1,788.2 1,906.0 1,790.2 Manufacturing employment in 17 labor market areas (thousands) 363.7 362.5 356.7 360.5 359.2 Total unemployment in 17 labor market areas (thousands) ----·-------------· 96.6 109.2 125.0 110.0 118.5 Percent of labor force unemployed in 17 labor market areas ........ . 4.6 5.3 5.3 All figures are for Texas unless otherwise indicated. All indexes are based on the average months for 1947-49, except where Indicated; all are adjusted for seasonal variation, except annual indexes. Employment estimates have been adjusted to first quarter 1956 benchmarks. • Preliminary. t Based on bank debits In 20 cities, adjusted for price level. § Exclusive of loans to banks after deduction of valuation reserves. 1f Includes wage and salary workers only. r Revised.