{"id":1590,"date":"2017-02-26T17:14:16","date_gmt":"2017-02-26T17:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusonthebackroads.com\/?p=1590"},"modified":"2017-02-26T17:16:07","modified_gmt":"2017-02-26T17:16:07","slug":"focus-on-the-family-bobs-oil-well-matador-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusonthebackroads.com\/?p=1590","title":{"rendered":"FOCUS ON THE FAMILY &#8211; BOB&#8217;S OIL WELL:  MATADOR TEXAS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"pp-lightbox-1488129139\" class=\"pp-lightbox-placeholder pp-gallery-placeholder lightbox-1488129139 mceItem\" style=\"display: none;\" src=\"https:\/\/focusonthebackroads.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/p4\/placeholders\/lightbox-placeholder-1488129139.jpg\" \/>Once this \u00a0unique West Texas landmark, <strong>Bob&#8217;s Oil Well<\/strong>, \u00a0was one of the states busiest road-side businesses. \u00a0Located at the crossroads of US 70 and TX 70 in Matador, Texas.<\/p>\n<p>Luther &#8220;Bob&#8221; Robertson, a World War I veteran, moved to Matador in the 1920s and worked as a filling station attendant. \u00a0In 1932 he decided to open his own service station. \u00a0To draw attention to the station he built a wooden oil derrick over the station. \u00a0He replaced the wooden structure with an 84 foot tall steel derrick and included lights, that could be seen for miles. \u00a0Bob paid long distant truck drivers to place signs at strategic locations across the nation stating how many miles to <strong>Bob&#8217;s Oil Well<\/strong> in Matador. \u00a0Soon travelers from near and far were visiting.<\/p>\n<p>Robertson enlarged his business to include a grocery store, cafe (next door), garage, and even a small zoo where visitors could see caged rattlesnakes, monkeys, lions, coyotes and a white buffalo.<\/p>\n<p>Bob died in 1947. \u00a0His wife, Olga, kept Bob&#8217;s open until it closed in 1950&#8217;s. \u00a0In 2004 it was placed on the Texas endangered building list and a historical marker was placed at the site.<\/p>\n<p>Bob Robertson is one of my new heroes&#8230;&#8230;war veteran, worker, business owner, and a marketing mastermind.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;There is no one road to success &#8211; you must find your own route&#8221;<\/em> \u00a0 Robert Kryonsaki<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Once this \u00a0unique West Texas landmark, Bob&#8217;s Oil Well, \u00a0was one of the states busiest road-side businesses. \u00a0Located at the crossroads of US 70 and &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,16,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-backroads","category-texas-historical-site","category-texas-towns"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/focusonthebackroads.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/west-texas-backroads-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusonthebackroads.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusonthebackroads.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusonthebackroads.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusonthebackroads.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusonthebackroads.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1590"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/focusonthebackroads.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1600,"href":"https:\/\/focusonthebackroads.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590\/revisions\/1600"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusonthebackroads.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusonthebackroads.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusonthebackroads.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusonthebackroads.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}