Epic Texas Failure – With A Happy Ending – Near El Paso

Thing's really are bigger in Texas, including the "F" - ups. A museum about 3 hours east of El Paso pays homage to one of Texas' most successful industries, atop one of its biggest failures.

250 miles from El Paso, near Monahans, stands a museum dedicated to the oil industry. Kinda. Not surprising for the area which has been oil rich for decades and pumps out crude like there's no tomorrow.

What is surprising is that the museum celebrates success atop a massive failure. A huge oil tank that was never even completely filled.

The Million Barrel Museum isn't named for what the gigantic, (525' x 422' with walls 30' high at a 45 degree slope) tank could hold, it's named for all it did hold. Designed to store 5 million barrels of oil, they barely got in 1 before it started leaking.

Turns out, 1 million barrels of oil is pretty heavy and all the concrete they used was poured in sections so, there were seams they couldn't properly seal. This was in the 1920's, today we have stuff to make big ass tanks work. Then, notsomuch.

What Happened To The Oil Tank?

Since they couldn't fill it, they drained what they could and, in the 1950's, sold it to Wayne and Amalie Long. They decided to turn it into a water park with boating, fishing and swimming areas.

They pumped in water from wells Mr. Long drilled, had an extravagant grand opening and then closed it. It was in operation exactly one day ... 1 day ... before the water started to leak out.

Losing a zillion gallons of water in the desert is no joke so, they gave up on that plan too. Next up, somebody thought about turning it into a race track. No dice there, either. In 1986, Amalie Long donated it to the Ward County Historical Commission.

READ MORE: "Zombie" Oil Wells In Texas

They in turn built a museum on the tank to commemorate the project(s), 'cuz, who wouldn't want to honor the memory of not one, but two epic failures? It's also home to a museum commemorating the (former) Pyote Air Force Base and another part of it is an amphitheater.

Odessa Meteor Crater

If you want to see another big hole in the ground, go check out the Odessa Meteor Crater. It has a museum too, about 30 miles from the Million Barrel Museum, in Odessa, (hence the name), Texas.