WOODVILLE, Texas — Maybe nowhere more than in Texas does the price of gasoline cut so clearly both ways.

“It’s helping a few people, but it’s hurting a lot,” Tyler County resident Ross Toler said.

It’s hurting anybody who has to fill up, but it’s helping the Texas energy industry.

Woodville is in Tyler County, but increasingly, you’ll find people here from Houston.

Lee Spraggins is from Clear Lake.

He’s in the Tyler County Courthouse, elbow to elbow with other land men, some of whom are women.

Land men search court records to find who owns the land and the rights to the oil and gas underneath it.

“It's about the most crowded place I’ve ever been,” Spraggins said.

That’s why we came here, to see firsthand why almost overnight, hundreds of millions of dollars of oil and gas are coming out of the ground.

These dirt roads are new; they’re not on any map. 11 News’ guide in the front seat knows where to find black gold — Texas Tea.

“And I did fill up with gas this morning so we’re in good shape,” Tyler County property appraiser Eddie Chalmers said. He pointed out where crews have drilled dozens of new oil and gas wells and where welders are finishing construction of one of the biggest pipelines in Texas.

“We’re sitting on a lot of untapped reserves,” he said.

He said five years ago, none of it was there.

“It wasn’t economically feasible to drill where we’re standing right here,” Chalmers said.

It’s feasible now because oil is worth more than $100 a barrel.

The big profits made here will mostly go to the energy companies like Anadarko, which is based in The Woodlands.

But Tyler County collects about $7 million dollars a year in oil and gas taxes. And all of the out-of-towners are spending money there, like at the town’s one motel that just opened last year.

“Yeah, new restaurants, new motel, who knows — might even get a movie theater,” Stagecoach Motel manager Christopher McCoo l said.

It’s oil money that just like in Houston, is cushioning Woodville against tough economic times. And they’re having more than their share.

One plant used to make windows but shutdown a few years ago, eliminating 150 jobs in a county that already was one of the poorest in Texas.

The county’s top official said even the oil boom isn’t going to make up for that.

“It’ll have a trickledown effect for us because the bulk of it is going to go outside of the county itself,” Jacques Blanchette said.

It’s the two sides of high-priced oil: painful at the pump but in Woodville, at least some of the money comes back.