Someone had sent me to Mr. Stone because he had taken part in an early attempt, 20 years ago, to clean up the Wichita River, and allegedly knew the true location of the original falls. Mr. Stone, who is in the oil business, was born in Burkburnett in the year of the boom. His father was a driller. Our conversation took place in his office, where he sat in a battered leather chair, chain-smoking Winstons, his dog at his feet. On the wall was a photograph of an old jackknife rig, spouting oil.

Mr. Stone first told me he wanted no publicity. When I asked him to show me the letter of thanks the Chamber of Commerce had given him for his efforts, he refused. Then he gave me a lecture, in wonderfully blunt language, on how writers regularly distort the facts of what goes on in Washington, that made me glad I had never worked for him as a roughneck. At one point, his dog even joined in, giving me a few barks.

Once Mr. Stone got started on the history of Wichita Falls, however, he was hard to stop. His favorite subject was mesquite. He asked me if I knew how it had gotten here. I did - it was brought up from Mexico in the excrement of cattle - but I didn't know why there was so much of it around Wichita Falls, until Mr. Stone told me cowboys used to pasture trail herds here for five days, to fatten them up before they crossed the Red River. It took five days, he explained, for a steer to relieve himself of all the excrement in his system. Could I quote him on that? No, I could not - and I had wasted enough of his time. The whole thing was a lot of damned nonsense, anyway.

The last thing he told me was, ''You see, the real falls was in coloredtown, and that's why people pretend they don't know where it was.''

Actually, there was no attempt at deception - the new location was chosen for maximum visibility from the interstate, and its proximity to the Sheraton hotel. The falls were designed by Groves & Associates, a San Antonio engineering and landscape architecture firm that has previously designed river-beautification projects for San Antonio and Waco, and is working on one for Lima, Peru. The finished product is satisfyingly impressive, especially at close range. ''We wanted noise, volume,'' Mr. Groves told me. ''That's the secret.''

After the falls were unveiled, at the Second Annual FallsFest (the first was the kickoff of the fund-raising campaign), everyone who had opposed the project came around overnight. The falls are an unqualified success. Several people told me it was ''the best thing that ever happened to this town.''

The events of the Second Annual FallsFest have already passed into legend. The Wichita River was in flood, and the Sheraton was surrounded by water. The visiting dignitaries (which included the mayor of Niagara Falls) had to be taken to the ceremonies in the ''Wichita Falls Navy,'' a fleet of canoes. I watched all this from a hospital in New York City, where my son was being born. The ''Today'' show coverage began before daybreak, with Willard Scott, wearing a red ''gimmie'' cap, his arm around the mayor, saying, ''I want you to meet America's No. 1 fall guy, Charles Harper.''