From Kilgore Street, the stars on top of the downtown derricks look as permanent as the brick buildings below them. Each lit point is the latest round of a repair cycle that started in the 1980s. Volunteers, a Florida tower-painting crew, and donors' checks have kept it going since.
Two weeks from tonight, that cycle reaches its yearly payoff. Before the switch flips, here is what has to happen up there to make a lit skyline possible.
Thursday, November 12, at 7 p.m. sharp
The City of Kilgore posted the date on July 27, 2026. A Very Derrick Christmas runs on Thursday, November 12, in Historic Downtown Kilgore, with kids' activities, music, and entertainment. Visit Kilgore's holiday page lists the hours as 5 to 8 p.m. and says the derricks light "at 7 p.m. sharp." Texas Highways puts the event on South Kilgore Street and lists a Kris Kringle Market along with games and activities.
This year's window is a little tighter. The 2025 event ran from 5 to 9 p.m. on Thursday, November 13, and the lighting was also at 7. The listed hours now end at 8. That leaves two hours before the lighting and one hour after, so the market and the kids' activities fill most of the evening.
The skyline almost came down for good
The derricks you'll be looking at are mostly rebuilt or restored, not left standing. Don Jeter, vice chairman of the Kilgore Derrick Committee, described the near miss to KLTV in 2023:
"They were taking the derricks down, and some of the people in their wisdom realized that that's part of Kilgore's skyline, so they started putting them back up."
The Kilgore Historical Preservation Foundation's history credits the restoration idea to Jack Elder. His wife, Winter, whispered to him that Kilgore's derricks should be restored. The milestones line up quickly after that:
- Fall 1930. The discovery of the East Texas Oilfield turns Kilgore from a declining rural town into a boomtown, according to the Texas State Historical Association.
- February 1987. Kilgore First National Bank restores the first steel derrick, and Red Adair comes to the celebration. Christmas lights go onto the restored derricks that same year, according to the KHPF chronology.
- 1992. The first "Christmas in the Patch" celebration with a derrick lighting takes place.
The KHPF also notes that its derricks were designed to carry five-point stars. Jeter told KLTV that stars sat atop the derricks long before the 1980s rebuilding began.
What it takes to keep a star lit
Rebuilding the derricks was the first job, and upkeep has been the job ever since. For years, crews swapped out bulbs one at a time on fixtures that looked original to the 1980s rebuild. Jeter told KLTV the old stars had "the original bases and the wiring. It was just old, ceramic and coming apart."
Daniel Martinez, who climbs the derricks to do the work, told the station the fixtures may have been made in the 1970s. He said the bulbs kept breaking under "hail, birds, there's big vultures up there." In 2023 the city, the Kilgore Historical Preservation Foundation, and the derrick committee decided to stop patching. They replaced the old fixtures with LED lights from Longview Lights. KLTV reported the cost at about $1,000 per derrick, with roughly 30 derricks finished in the downtown World's Richest Acre.
The next summer, the steel itself got attention. In June 2024, KLTV reported that some downtown derricks were about 80 years old and showing surface rust. The worst spots were where the galvanized pieces bolt together. The foundation hired Shane Davis Tower Painters of Polk City, Florida, a company that mostly paints radio and TV towers. The crew sprayed zinc, primed with a zinc-based primer, and finished with Sherwin-Williams paint. The project covered 13 derricks, was expected to take about six weeks, and was meant to last 20 years or more.
For that project, the city put in hotel-tax money, but most of the funding came from donations. That same June, the foundation held its first Derrick Festival at the World's Richest Acre to raise more.
How many derricks depends on where you draw the line
The stars come on as one big show, but the derrick count changes with the boundary you use.
- The World's Richest Acre Park itself. The KHPF describes a half-city-block with 13 derricks. Twelve were added, and one is the original, preserved by the Kilgore Improvement and Beautification Association.
- The same ground during the boom. The KHPF says 24 derricks once stood there side by side. TSHA puts the greatest concentration of oil derricks in the world on part of one downtown block in the early 1930s, with more than 1,100 producing wells inside the city limits at the height of the boom.
- The wider downtown district. KLTV's 2023 count was about 30 derricks in the downtown World's Richest Acre area, plus 25 more elsewhere in town. Several of those outside downtown were also slated for LED upgrades.
The 13 in the park are the same 13 that got the zinc treatment in 2024. That makes the park block the most recently restored stretch of the skyline, which is worth knowing when you pick a spot to watch the lighting from.
A month under the same stars
The stars don't go dark after November 12. Visit Kilgore's description of Mingle & Jingle on December 5 asks shoppers to "admire the illuminated stars atop the oil derricks" while they browse. The lighting starts a run of downtown evenings that all happen under them.
| Date | Event | Time | Where | Hosted or listed by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thu., Nov. 12 | A Very Derrick Christmas | 5 to 8 p.m., lighting at 7 | Historic Downtown Kilgore | City of Kilgore |
| Tue., Dec. 1 | 95th Annual Kilgore Christmas Parade | 6:30 p.m. | Downtown Kilgore | Kilgore Chamber of Commerce |
| Sat., Dec. 5 | Mingle & Jingle | 6 to 9 p.m. | Historic Downtown Kilgore | Visit Kilgore |
| Sun., Dec. 13 | Kilgore College Rangerettes Christmas Show | 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. | Dodson Auditorium | Visit Kilgore |
The parade date comes from the Kilgore Area Chamber of Commerce calendar, which lists Tuesday, December 1, 2026. Visit Kilgore describes it as an evening lighted parade with more than 90 entries a year, and awards go to the best floats and best use of theme. This year's theme hadn't been announced when the listing went up. A night parade moving under lit derricks is one of the few times the 1987 restoration and the 2023 LED work are on display at the same moment.
At Mingle & Jingle, all the downtown stores stay open late. Visit Kilgore names The Shops on Main for jewelry and one-of-a-kind gifts, Pink Lantern for kids, and De Rigueur for women's apparel. This will be the first holiday season for one newer shop. The Kilgore News Herald reported that the Kilgore Area Chamber of Commerce held a ribbon cutting for Secrets & Sweets on August 7. Visit Kilgore describes it as a downtown shop selling antiques, boutique gifts, handmade items, home décor, and fresh-baked treats.
The Rangerettes show is the one indoor date, at Dodson Auditorium. It started in 2011 and is a Broadway-style production with the Rangerettes, the Kilgore High School Hi-Steppers, Kilgore-area dance studios, and guest performers. The stars will still be lit when the 6 p.m. crowd heads home through downtown.
Every one of these nights runs under steel that donors helped repaint in 2024 and stars that crews rewired with LEDs in 2023. The Kilgore Historical Preservation Foundation is the group behind that work, if you'd like to support it.
If you love these lit evenings and wonder which streets in town give you the derrick skyline from your own front porch, I'd be glad to walk through it with you. Brittany Sartain knows downtown Kilgore at street level, from the World's Richest Acre out to the quieter blocks around it. Schedule a Free Consultation and let's talk about where you'd like to be when the stars come on next year.
