From the Snyder Daily News, Fall 1973
A Barbecue Celebrated Canyon Reef Discovery (1948)
Celebrating a festive occasion with a barbecue is a West 
Texas tradition. Scurry County’s Billionth Barrel of Oil 
celebration will include a barbecue on Thursday evening, 
with Gov. Dolph Briscoe to be among the guests.

Some of those who will be attending Thursday’s barbecue 
were in Scurry County when the Canyon Reef field was 
opened 25 years ago, and they remember another barbecue 
given to show appreciation for the people in the oil 
industry. That barbecue was served in real West Texas 
style at a site near the discovery well, the Standard 
Oil of Texas No. 1 Brown, and ranchers and farmers and 
the oil men involved met there with high hopes for the 
future of the oil field.

Hosts for that barbecue were Bob Brown, George Parks, 
and Shorty Whatley. Brown owned the land on which the 
well was drilled, and Parks and Whatley each had land 
nearby. Parks said there was no way to tell how many 
people came to the gathering, but there were people 
from all over the county.

Marion Reep, who had a reputation for turning out the 
best barbecue to be had, came to supervise the barbecueing. 
At his direction, the men dug a trench about two and a half 
feet wide and that deep and several yards long. They 
piled the trench full of large mesquite logs which would 
burn down to make hot coals. The meat was cooked on hog 
wire stretched above the coals.

The meat barbecued included a beef or two (nobody 
remembers how many), a hog, duck, quail, and chickens. 
W.R. Bell, Sr. fixed a wash pot full of son-of-a-gun stew.

Next came a wash pot full of red beans, and these were 
almost the undoing of the cooks. They started with a 
five gallon can of dry beans and dumped them into a wash 
pot full of water. As the beans began to swell, they 
overflowed the pot and almost put out the fire. The 
men dipped beans back into the five gallon can they 
had started with until they got down to the proper 
level of cooking. Nobody ever ate better beans, it was 
agreed.

No time had been set for the barbecue to be served, so 
people began arriving soon after 10:00 in the morning, 
Parks remembers. They trimmed cooked meat off the outside 
of the barbecue and fed everybody who came by. Service 
continued until after 2:30 in the afternoon.

Snyder was caught up in an oil boom after that time, 
and some of the traditions of the town faded away with 
the coming of new people. But the tradition of getting 
together to eat and celebrate is appealing to people 
everywhere, and Thursday the people of Scurry County 
and visitors from many localities will enjoy doing just 
that again.