October 9, 1999 – Converted Offshore Platform launches Rocket –
Sea Launch, a Boeing-led consortium of companies from the United States, Russia, Ukraine and Norway, launched its first commercial rocket using the Ocean Odyssey, a modified semi-submersible drilling platform. After a demonstration flight in March, a Russian Zenit-3SL rocket carried a DirecTV satellite to geostationary orbit.
In 1988, the former drilling platform had been used by Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) for North Sea explorations. The Ocean Odyssey made 36 more rocket launches until 2014, when the consortium ended after Russia illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.
Learn more in Offshore Rocket Launcher.
October 10, 1865 – Oil Pipeline constructed in Pennsylvania
A two-inch iron pipeline began transporting oil five miles through hilly terrain from a well at booming Pithole, Pennsylvania, to the Miller Farm Railroad Station at Oil Creek. With their livelihoods threatened, teamsters attempted to sabotage the pipeline, until armed guards intervened. A second oil pipeline would begin operating in December.
Oil tanks at the boom town of Pithole, Pennsylvania, where Samuel Van Syckel built a five-mile pipeline in 1865. Photo courtesy Drake Well Museum.
Built by Samuel Van Syckel, who had formed Oil Transportation Association, the pipeline used 15-foot welded joints. Three 10-horsepower Reed and Cogswell steam pumps pushed the oil at a rate of 81 barrels per hour.
With up to 2,000 barrels of oil arriving at the terminal every day, more storage tanks were soon needed, along with a fourth pump, explained historian Samuel Pees in 2004. The pipeline transported the equivalent of 300 teamster wagons working for 10 hours.
“The day that the Van Syckel pipeline began to run oil a revolution began in the business,” proclaimed Ida Tarbell in her 1904 History of the Standard Oil Company. “After the Drake well, it is the most important event in the history of the Oil Regions.”
October 13, 1917 – U.S. Oil & Gas Association founded
The United States Oil & Gas Association was founded as the Mid-Continent Oil & Gas Association in Tulsa, Oklahoma, six months after the United States entered World War I. Independent producers Frank Phillips, E.W. Marland, Bill Skelly, Robert Kerr and others established the association to help increase petroleum supplies for the Allies. In 1919, the association formed an Oklahoma-Kansas Division, now the Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma.
October 13, 1954 – First Arizona Gas Well
After decades of searching for oil, Arizona became the 30th petroleum producing state when Shell Oil Company completed a natural gas well one mile south of the Utah border on Apache County’s Navajo Indian Reservation. The East Boundary Butte No. 2 well indicated gas production of about 3 million cubic feet per day from depths between 4,540 feet to 4,690 feet, but just a few barrels of oil a day.
Arizona produces oil only from Apache County.
A rancher had reported finding natural oil seeps in central Arizona in the late 1890s, and by 1902, a part-time prospector from Pennsylvania, Joseph Heslet, began a lengthy exploration effort that ended in 1916 after finding traces of oil.
Arizona’s oil production declined sharply after 2015, occasionally reaching 1,000 barrels per month by 2020, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Learn more in First Arizona Oil and Gas Wells.
October 14, 1929 – Van Oilfield Discovery East of Dallas
The discovery of oil in Van, Texas, by the Pure Oil Company created an oil boom town 60 miles east of Dallas. The Jarman No. 1 well initially produced 3,500 barrels of oil a day from the Woodbine sandstone at a depth of 2,700 feet. Three more wells were completed as construction began on a camp for oilfield workers.
This Van Zandt County museum east of Dallas is in a warehouse originally built in 1930 by Pure Oil Company. Photo by Bruce Wells
By April 1930, the Van oilfield was producing 20,000 barrels of oil a day, and oil companies attracted to the field adopted advanced production techniques. Two new pipelines linked the field to the Pure refinery in Beaumont, Texas, and Standard Oil’s refinery in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Among the oilfield’s “Cook Camp” buildings was a sheet metal warehouse, which today houses the Van Area Oil and Historical Museum. Van residents continue to celebrate their petroleum heritage; the 44th annual Van Oil Festival — celebrating the 1929 oilfield discovery — is set for October 21, 2023, in Van City Park.
October 15, 1895 – Patent for a Well Boring Machine
Oscar Benjamin of Lafayette, Louisiana, patented a compact, cable-tool drilling rig. His design for the “Well Boring Machine” used a framework mounted on wheels with a hinged derrick “adapted to swing over in transit.”
An 1895 patent for a portable cable-tool rig noted: Mounted on this framework (A) is the boiler (B) and the steam-engine (C), which drives the belt (D).
Although Benjamin’s designed included a boiler and steam-engine mounted on the framework, any source of power could be used “independent of the portable boring-machine,” he noted in his patent application (no. 548,109). The derrick could be steadied by stay-ropes and the velocity of the shaft controlled by means of a band-brake.
October 15, 1966 – Johnson signs National Historic Preservation Act
Recognizing the “spirit and direction of the nation are founded upon and reflected in its historic heritage,” Lyndon Johnson signed into law the National Historic Preservation Act to protect historical and archaeological sites. The Act authorized the Secretary of the Interior to maintain a National Register of Historic Places.
“The historical and cultural foundations of the nation should be preserved as a living part of our community life and development in order to give a sense of orientation to the American people,” the Act proclaimed.
October 15, 1997 – Kerosene fuels Land Speed Record
The current world land speed record was set at 763.035 miles per hour by the Thrust SSC, the British “supersonic car” fueled by a 19th century oil product, kerosene. The vehicle’s twin turbofan engines burned JP-4, a fuel that first powered jet aircraft as early as 1951.
The latest SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets are fueled by highly refined kerosene rocket fuel, which also powered NASA’s Apollo moon launches. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) fueled the world land speed record held from 1970 to 1983 (see Blue Flame Natural Gas Rocket Car).
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Recommended Reading: Offshore Pioneers: Brown & Root and the History of Offshore Oil and Gas
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Become an AOGHS annual supporting member and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2023 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
