Exhibits & Events

 

Updated February 21, 2012

February 20 to February 26 — This Week in Petroleum History

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February 13 to February 19 — This Week in Petroleum History

After years of “dry holes,” Alabama’s first oilfield is discovered in Choctaw County on February 17, 1944. Texas oilman H.L. Hunt drills the No. 1 Jackson well — and discovers the Gilbertown oilfield. Prior to finding this oilfield, 350 noncommercial wells have been drilled in the state.

“Traces of petroleum, in the form of natural gas were first discovered in Alabama in Morgan and Blount counties in the late 1880s, and by 1902, natural gas was being supplied to the cities of Huntsville and Hazel Green,” notes one historian. “In 1909, a small discovery by Eureka Oil and Gas at Fayette fueled that city’s streetlights for a time, but no natural gas was recovered anywhere in the state for several decades afterward.”

Hunt’s well in Choctaw County discovers the Gilbertown oilfield in the Eutaw Sand at a depth of 3,700 feet. Today, Alabama’s major producing regions are in the west, including a coalbed methane region underlying Tuscaloosa and Jefferson counties.

February 6 to February 12 — This Week in Petroleum History

Forty-six natural gas lights along Philadelphia’s Second Street are lit for the first time in 1836 by employees of the newly formed Gas Works — the first municipally owned natural gas distribution company.

Today there are more than 900 public natural gas systems; the Philadelphia Gas Works is the largest. There are more than 70 million residential, commercial and industrial natural gas customers in the United States.

America’s first commercial gas lighting company, the Gas Light Company of Baltimore, Maryland (now Baltimore Gas and Electric Company), incorporated in 1817. It distributed gas manufactured from tar and later coal.

January 30 to February 5 — This Week in Petroleum History

Discovered just two years earlier by General Motors scientists, “Ethyl,” the world’s first anti-knock gasoline containing a tetra-ethyl lead compound, goes on sale February 2, 1923, at the Refiners Oil Company service station in Dayton, Ohio.

The gasoline additive — later discovered to be toxic — is the first to eliminate engine “knocking” — the out-of-sequence detonation of the gasoline-air mixture in a cylinder. Phase out of  tetra-ethyl lead for automobiles begins in 1976. It continues to be used for aviation fuel.

January 23 to January 29 — This Week in Petroleum History

On January, 29, 1969, an accident at an oil platform six miles off Santa Barbara, California, leads to between 80,000 barrels and 100,000 barrels of oil spilled into the Pacific — and onto beaches. “Thus the means by which the U.S. obtains about 25 percent of the nation’s natural gas production and about 24 percent of its oil production have become, understandably, linked to environmental degradation,” explains one historian.

Earth Day is born in the following spring, adds a report by the University of California, Santa Barbara. The Environmental Protection Agency is established in 1970. “Many consider the publicity surrounding the oil spill a major impetus to the environmental movement,” the university notes. A 2009 study by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution reveals that natural seafloor oil seeps from nearby Goleta have produced far more oil than the 1969 spill.

January 16 to January 22 — This Week in Petroleum History

Offshore technology advances when an “underwater manipulator with suction support device” is patented on January 19, 1965. Howard L. Shatto Jr. will help make Shell Oil an early leader in offshore oilfield development thanks to new technologies, including remotely operated underwater vehicles like the one at right.

Early underwater robot technology can trace its roots to the late 1950s, when Hughes Aircraft Company developed a Manipulator Operated Robot – MOBOT – for the Atomic Energy Commission. Working on land, the robot performed tasks in environments too radioactive for humans. Beginning in 1960, Shell began transforming the landlocked MOBOT into a marine robot — “basically a swimming socket wrench,” according to one engineer.

January 9 to January 15 — This Week in Petroleum History

The modern oil and natural gas industry is born January 10, 1901, on a hill in Texas, when a wildcat well erupts on Spindletop Hill in Beaumont. The discovery will change the future of American industry and transportation and bring new oilfield technologies.

The oil boom is welcomed. It comes just four months after the deadliest hurricane in U.S. history has devastated nearby Galveston. The story of the Spindletop discovery well, which popularizes rotary drilling technology, begins more than a decade earlier. Two museums in Beaumont educate the public about the historic oilfield — and the modern petroleum industry.

January 2 to January 8 — This Week in Petroleum History

January 7,1957, oil discovery well on Ferne Houseknecht’s dairy farm will uncover a 29-mile-long oilfield — the largest in Michigan. After almost two and a half years of drilling, the Houseknecht No. 1 well discovers the “Golden Gulch” near Scipio Township in Hillsdale County.

The 3,576-foot-deep well in southwestern Michigan produces from the Black River formation of the Trenton zone. “The story of the discovery well of Michigan’s only ‘giant’ oilfield, using the worldwide definition of having produced more than 100 million barrels of oil from a single contiguous reservoir is the stuff of dreams, and of oilfield legends,” explains Michigan historian and author Jack Westbrook.

The giant oilfield will “foster a boom on a discovery-hungry petroleum industry to end a 15-year major discovery drought in Michigan,” Westbrook says. The well triggers drilling that results in more than 150 million barrels of oil. Modern oil and natural gas companies — armed with new detection and completion technology — have returned to the historic region. With 14,123 producing wells in 2009, Michigan is the nation’s 17th largest oil producer and ranked 16th in natural gas production.

December 26 to January 1 — This Week in Petroleum History

She was among the most famous journalists of her day as a reporter for the New York World. Journalist Nellie Bly, a celebrity by the age of 25, will marry a wealthy industrialist — and invent the modern oil drum.

Writing under her pen name (a character in a popular song of the time), Elizabeth Cochrane’s numerous exposés and adventures capture the public’s imagination and make her world famous. Much has been written about this remarkable woman from Cochran’s Mills, Pennsylvania. Her less known is her invention of the 55-gallon oil drum.

Issued a U.S. patent on December 26, 1905, Bly will proudly proclaim, “I am the only manufacturer in the country who can produce a certain type of steel barrel for which there is an immense demand at present, for the transportation of oil, gasoline, and other liquids.”

The 1901 Pan-American Exposition will promote her Iron Clad Manufacturing Company as “owned exclusively by Nellie Bly – the only woman in the world personally managing industries of such magnitude.”

December 19 to December 25 — This Week in Petroleum History

Born on December 21, 1842, Thaddeus Mortimer Fowler will become one of the most prolific “bird’s-eye view” artists who crisscross the country during the latter decades of the nineteenth century. Many of what Fowler called “aero views” captured the small cities near America’s earliest oil and natural gas fields.

Fowler gained his commissions by interesting citizens and civic groups in the idea of a panoramic map of their community. After one town had agreed to having a map made, he often sought to involve neighboring towns — exploiting their sense of community pride. He traveled through Oklahoma and North Texas in 1890 and 1891 similarly documenting such cities such as Wichita Falls, Texas, Bartlesville and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

December 12 to December 18 — This Week in Petroleum History

“The available supply of gasoline, as is well known, is quite limited, and it behooves the farseeing men of the motor car industry to look for likely substitutes,” declares a December 13, 1905, article in The Horseless Age.

The monthly journal first published in 1895 describes the earliest motor technologies, including the use of compressed air propulsion systems, electric cars, steam, and diesel power — as well as the first hybrids.

Ferdinand Porsche uses a small four-cylinder gasoline engine to generate electricity to power two electric motors mounted in front wheel hubs. His hybrid system is resurrected more than 100 years later with Chevrolet’s introduction of the Volt.

December 5 to December 11 — This Week in Petroleum History

Drilling safety increases dramatically in December 1931 when James S. Abercrombie improves the Cameron Iron Works mechanically operated ram-type blowout preventer.

Abercrombie patents a “Fluid Pressure Operated Blow Out Preventer” designed to be operated “instantaneously to prevent a blowout when an emergency arises.”

This hydraulic design, patent No. 1,834,922, sets a new standard in safe drilling operations. The rapidly reacting device is first used during the Oklahoma City oilfield boom to help end an era of gushers. In 2003, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers recognizes the “Cameron Ram-Type Blowout Preventer” as an Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark.

November 28 to December 4 — This Week in Petroleum History

A discovery on November 28, 1892, near Neodesha, Kansas, is considered the first significant oil well west of the Mississippi River. Although it begins as just a four-barrel-a day producer, it will prove to be the first to uncover the vast Mid-Continent oilfield, which extends into Nebraska, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas.

Today, the Norman No. 1 well site — added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1974, and designated a National Landmark in 1977 — is at the northeast corner of Mill and First streets in Neodesha. “A museum has been built in a city park surrounding the site — a fitting recognition of Norman No. 1′s importance as one of the most significant oil discoveries in U. S. and Kansas history,” notes the Kansas Historical Society.

November 21 to November 27 — This Week in Petroleum History

On a chilly November morning in November 1905 — two years before Oklahoma becomes a state — oil is discovered on the Glenn farm south of Tulsa. Soon, there are hundreds of wells producing so much oil that the land is called the “‘Glenn Pool.” The discovery will help make Tulsa the “Oil Capital of the World.”

With daily production soon exceeding 120,000 barrels, Glenn Pool becomes the greatest oilfield in America at the time, exceeding the giant Spindletop discovery near Beaumont, Texas, four years earlier.

“Unlike the thick, sour oil from Spindletop, the famed 1901 Texas discovery that had already played out, this oil was light and sweet — just right to refine into gasoline and kerosene,” notes one Oklahoma historian.

In April 2008, a monument was unveiled in Glenpool’s Black Gold Park by the Glenn Pool Oil Field Commission. The 28-foot “derrick” illuminates at night and includes granite etchings that tell the story of the historic 1905 discovery.

November 14 to November 20 — This Week in Petroleum History

The modern offshore oil and natural gas industry is born on November 14, 1947, when an exploratory well strikes oil in the Gulf of Mexico. It is the first successful offshore oil well out of sight of land.

Commissioned by Kerr-McGee Industries, the offshore drilling platform is 10 miles off the Louisiana coast in just 18 feet of water. Built by Brown & Root Company for only $230,000 — and without comparable information on how strong to make the pilings, welds and jackets — the platform will withstand hurricane-force winds and waves.

Sixteen 24-inch pilings sunk 104 feet into the ocean floor secure the 2,700 square foot wooden deck.Kerr-McGee purchases World War II surplus utility freighters to provide supplies, equipment, and crew quarters. The “Kermac 16″ oil platform will produce 1.4 million barrels of oil and 307 million cubic feet of natural gas before being shut down in 1984.

2011 Chief Roughneck

Michael C. Linn, executive chairman of Linn Energy, LLC, on November 11, 2011, received the 2011 Chief Roughneck Award during the 82nd Independent Petroleum Association of Americas’ 82nd annual meeting. The award is “recognized as one of the most meaningful honors in the industry.”

November 7 to November 13 — This Week in Petroleum History

“With six major gas companies serving New York City, the streets were constantly being torn up by one company or another installing or repairing their own mains — or removing those of a rival,” notes a Con Edison historian. “From time to time, work crews from competing companies would inadvertently meet on the same street and literally battle for customers, giving rise to the term “gas house gangs.’”

Con Edison today distributes natural gas to more than one million customers  – and maintains more than 4,200 miles of gas mains.

October 31 to November 6 — This Week in Petroleum History

America’s first National Automobile Show opens in New York City’s Madison Square Garden on October 4, 1900. Almost 48,000 visitors pay 50 cents each to see the latest in automotive technology. Of the 4,200 automobiles sold by the end of the year, less than a thousand are powered by gasoline.

Manufacturers present  160 different vehicles and conduct driving and maneuverability demonstrations on a 20-foot-wide wooden track that  encircles the exhibits. A 200-foot ramp tests hill-climbing power. Almost 48,000 visitors pay 50 cents each to see the latest in automotive technology.

Automobiles will help reduce the 450,000 tons of horse manure annualy removed from New York City streets.

October 24 to October 30 — This Week in Petroleum History

In Boonsville on October 26, 1970, Texas, Governor Preston Smith dedicates a “Joe Roughneck” statue on the 20th anniversary of the Boonsville natural gas field’s discovery. The field’s first well, Lone Star Gas Company’s B. P. Vaught No. 1, produced 2.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas in its first 20 years.

He began life in Lone Star Steel Company advertisements in the 1950s. The oilfield tubular goods manufacturer hired Texas artist Torg Thompson to create a character representing the “heart of the oil and gas industry.”

Joe — whose bronze face is on four other Texas monuments — is also presented annually as the U.S. petroleum industry’s “Chief Roughneck Award” honoring one individual whose achievements and character represent the highest ideals of the oil and natural gas industry.

October 17 to October 23 — This Week in Petroleum History

Wyoming’s first oil boom begins on October 23, 1908, when the Dutch-owned Petroleum Maatschappij Salt Creek brings in the “Big Dutch” well — a gusher about 40 miles north of Casper.

Although the Salt Creek area was known to be productive, the central Salt Creek dome received little attention until noted Italian geologist Dr. Cesare Porro recommended the drilling site to Petroleum Maaschappij in 1906.

Drillers J. E. Stock and his father, working for an English corporation known as the Oil Wells Drilling Syndicate, brought in the well at 1050 feet with initial production of 600 barrels a day.

October 10 to October 16 — This Week in Petroleum History

Formerly known as Caddo-Pine Island Oil and Historical Museum, the Louisiana State Oil and Gas Museum tells the story of the state’s petroleum industry using historic buildings, a collection of outdoor displays, and interactive exhibits.

The museum is in Oil City, where the October 12, 1905, discovery of the Caddo Pine Island field created a classic boom town — and brought economic prosperity to northern Louisiana that would last for decades. About 20 miles northwest of Shreveport, the oilfield includes more than 80,000 acres.

Louisiana’s first natural gas production came much earlier — thanks to an 1870 effort to drill a water well for a Shreveport ice factory. The discovery was used to light the ice factory, becoming the state’s first commercial use of natural gas.

October 3 to October 9 — This Week in Petroleum History

On October 3, 1980 — exactly 50 years after the discovery of the giant East Texas oilfield — the East Texas Oil Museum opens in Kilgore — “a tribute to the independent oil producers and wildcatters, the men and women who dared to dream as they pursued the fruits of free enterprise,” notes Joe White, founding director.

“Here are the people, their towns, their personal habits, their tools and their pastimes, all colorfully depicted in dioramas, movies, sound presentations and actual antiques donated by East Texas citizens,” says White. One downtown block in Kilgore – the “World’s Richest Acre Park” — once contained the greatest concentration of oil wells in the world.

September 26 to October 2 — This Week in Petroleum History

On October 2, 1919, William Grove Skelly incorporates a company that will help make Tulsa become known as the “Oil Capital of the World.”

Skelly Oil Company builds on Skelly’s earlier success in the El Dorado oilfield in, Kansas. Skelly, born in 1878 in Erie, Pennsylvania — where his father hauled oilfield supplies in a horse-drawn wagon — becomes known as “Mr. Tulsa.” He is a philanthropic sponsor of civic, educational, and charitable causes — and serves as president of Tulsa’s famous International Petroleum Exposition for 32 years until his death in1957.

September 19 to September 25 — This Week in Petroleum History

New Mexico’s first commercial oil well is drilled September 25, 1922, on the Navajo Indian Reservation near Shiprock by the Midwest Refining Company.

The Hogback No. 1 is a modest producer at 375 barrels per day, but Midwest soon drills eleven additional wells to establish the Hogback oilfield as a major producer of the San Juan Basin.

Two years later, a pipeline to Farmington is completed and oil is shipped by rail to Salt Lake City, Utah, for refining. However, discoveries in southeastern New Mexico will overshadow the San Juan Basin’s oil and natural gas possibilities. New Mexico has produced more than 5.5 billion barrels of oil since the Hogback No. 1 well.

September 12 to September 18 — This Week in Petroleum History

The Texas petroleum industry is born in 1866 east of Nacogdoches when Lyne Taliaferro Barret and his Melrose Petroleum Oil Company bring in the state’s first commercial oil well.

The Confederate army veteran’s No. 1 Isaac C. Skillern well — drilled in an area known as Oil Springs — finds the newly prized resource at a depth of 106 feet. His well yields a modest ten barrels per day, but limited access to markets soon leads to the company’s failure.

Barret’s failed project lay dormant for nearly two decades until 1887 when new wildcat drilling companies once again found oil and by 1889 had 40 producing wells. The Nacogdoches oilfield remains the first and oldest in Texas. Barret’s 1848 homestead, added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, today has been restored as a bed and breakfast.

Mobile Offshore Learning Unit

The Houston-based Offshore Energy Center’s traveling exhibit, the Mobile Offshore Learning Unit (MOLU), is a $1.2 million traveling educational exhibit consisting of six self-contained components with curriculum-based, hands-on learning activities about earth science and energy topics. According to the center, since the program’s introduction in 2008, about 23,000 students have experienced MOLU in 187 schools across Texas. Read More

September 5 to September 11 — This Week in Petroleum History

August 29 to September 4 — This Week in Petroleum History

On August 31, 1959, just four days after America’s first commercial oil discovery at Titusville, Pennsylvania, a series of far less known “firsts” are achieved by local entrepreneur John Livingston Grandin.

Instead of being remembered as America’s second commercial oil discovery, the Grandin exploratory well results in the petroleum industry’s first “dry hole.” Gradin’s drilling attempt might also be credited with the first stuck tool, the first shooting of a well with black powder (and first well ruined by a failed shooting attempt).

Travelers on U.S. 62 about four miles south of the Allegheny River Bridge at Tidioute, Pennsylvania, will find an historic marker erected in July 1959. The marker reads: “At oil spring across river at this point J. L. Grandin began second well drilled specifically for oil, August 1859, after Drake’s success. It was dry, showing risks involved in oil drilling.”

August 22 to August 28 — This Week in Petroleum History

The modern American petroleum industry is born in Titusville, Pennsylvania. The Seneca Oil Company’s highly speculative pursuit of oil is rewarded when Edwin Drake and his blacksmith driller, William “Uncle Billy” Smith, bring in the first commercial oil well at 69.5 feet near Oil Creek in Venango County. They launch a new industry.

August 27, 1859, is one of those special dates that changed the world, explains one respected oil patch historian. “Edwin Drake’s quest to find oil by drilling was a success, and the modern oil and gas industry took a giant leap forward. Even though the use of petroleum dates back to the first human civilizations, the events of that Saturday afternoon along the banks of Oil Creek near Titusville, Pennsylvania, provided the spark that propelled the petroleum industry toward the future.”

August 15 to August 21, 2011 — This Week in Petroleum History

It is a foggy Tuesday morning as eight airplanes prepare for takeoff before a crowd of 50,000 at the Oakland Airport in California. But in 1927, aviation fuel technology is still in its infancy. A pilot agrees to use a new Phillips Petroleum aviation fuel — Nu-Aviation Gasoline. His winning aircraft today is in a museum at the Woolaroc Ranch near Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

Just three months after Charles Lindbergh’s famous 1927 transatlantic flight, the Dole Pineapple Company sponsors an air race of more than 2,400 miles across the Pacific. Aviation gasoline developed by Phillips Petroleum Company fuels the Woolaroc aircraft to victory. Several of its competitors disappear over the ocean.

August 8 to August 14 — This Week in Petroleum History

Biographers of Howard Hughes Sr., who patented the twin-cone roller bit on August 10, 1909, note that Hughes met inventor Granville A. Humason in a Shreveport bar — where Humason sold the rights to a roller bit consisting of two interlocking cones.

The University of Texas Center for American History collection includes a 1951 recording of Humason’s recollections of that chance meeting. He recalls that he sold the rights for $150 — and spent $50 of his sale proceeds at the bar during the balance of the evening.

August 1 to August 7 — This Week in Petroleum History

The Page Museum is located at the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits in the heart of Los Angeles, California. The tar pits, discovered by a Spanish expedition on August 3, 1769, is one of the world’s most famous sources of fossils, recognized for having the largest and most diverse assemblage of extinct Ice Age plants and animals in the world.

Although commonly called the “tar pits,” the thick liquid that bubbles out of the ground at Rancho La Brea is actually comprised of asphalt — not tar. “Asphalt is a superb preservative; small and delicate fossils, such as hollow bird bones or paper-thin exoskeletons of beetles are very  well-preserved here. As a result, our collection of fossil birds is one of the worlds largest.”

July 25 to July 31 — This Week in Petroleum History

A wildcat well comes in on S. L. Fowler’s farm on July 29, 1918, near a small North Texas community on the Red River. The subsequent drilling boom will make Burkburnett famous  — two decades before “Boom Town,” the motion picture it inspires. The 1940 MGM feature will star Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable, Hedy Lamarr and Claudette Colbert.

Following the 1918 discovery, Burkburnett’s population grows from 1,000 to 8,000. A line of derricks two-miles long greets visitors. The new oilfield joins earlier discoveries in nearby Electra (1911) and Ranger (1917) that will make North Texas a worldwide leader in petroleum production.

July 18 to July 24 — This Week in Petroleum History

A 19th century petroleum product — kerosene — fuels the first stage of the Saturn V rocket that carries Apollo 11 to the moon, where astronaut Neil Armstrong announces on July 20, 1969, “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”

Although the Saturn V was last launched in 1972, “rocket grade” kerosene continues to fuel spaceflight — powering today’s Atlas and Delta II launch vehicles…and Russia’s Soyuz.

July 11 to July 17 — This Week in Petroleum History

A 1926 discovery well near Seminole, Oklahoma, reveals the potential of an oil producing formation, the Wilcox sand — and launches a drilling boom that will make Oklahoma one of today’s leading producing states. The Fixico No. 1 well penetrates the Wilcox sand at 4,073 feet.

The greater Seminole area – several 1920s Oklahoma oilfields — will swing the United States’ oil reserves from scarcity to surplus. More than 60 petroleum reservoirs are found in 1,300 square miles of east-central Oklahoma — and six are giants that produce more than million barrels of oil each.

Globe Trekker discovers East Texas Oil

Millions of television viewers could soon learn a little East Texas petroleum history — thanks to the Globe Trekker documentary series. Fimmakers from Globe Trekker have visited several oil patch sites in Kilgore, including the East Texas Oil Museum, notes an article in the Kilgore News Herald.

“The history of Kilgore is fascinating and from what I’ve seen, it’s a very visual place to film Texas’ oil story,” a producer from the London-based Pilot Film & Television Productions explains.

Honoring America’s Petroleum Pioneers

Their reputations among peers speak of many noble achievements — and award-deserving careers in the oil patch. Every year a select group oil and natural gas business leaders are honored by their colleagues, their industry, and their communities. Read about the annual Chief Roughneck Award, the Petroleum Museum Hall of Fame, the Colonel Edwin L. Drake Legendary Oilman Award, and the Wall of Fame additions during the June 22-25 Pioneer Oil Days of Bolivar, New York.

July 4 to July 10 — This Week in Petroleum History

On July 9, 1883, L. Frank Baum –  whose father found great success in Pennsylvania oilfields — opens Baum’s Castorine Company in Syracuse, New York.

The future author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and his brother Benjamin begin their enterprise by offering petroleum lubricants, oils — and Baum’s Castorine.

Although the oil products company will fail by the late 1880s, L. Frank Baum’s sales trips may have influenced this future writing. “On one of these trips, while installing a window display for a customer, the idea of the Tin Woodman came to him,” claims one historian.

June 27 to July 3 — This Week in Petroleum History

Wisconsin Petroleum Museum

Despite uncertain weather conditions on June 18, 2011, the eighth annual Three Lakes Car Show drew nearly 2,000 people to the grounds of Northwoods Petroleum Museum in upper Wisconsin. The oldest car on display was a 1914 Model T Ford, according to the Vilas County News-Review.

“In spite of the threatening weather, we had a bigger and better show than last year,” says Ed Jacobsen, who founded the museum in 2006. “There were 110 vehicles exhibited and we estimate that almost 2,000 people attended the show.”

June 20 to June 26 — This Week in Petroleum History

After years of “dry holes,” a 1921 discovery on Signal Hill, California – one of the world’s most famous oil strikes – launches a drilling boom 20 miles south of Los Angeles.

The well reveals the Long Beach oilfield, which will eventually produce one billion barrels, making Signal Hill acreage among the most productive in the world.  Signal Hill, a growing residential area prior to the discovery, would have so many derricks people would call it Porcupine Hill.

“Today you can see wonderful commemorative art displays of this era throughout the lush parks and walkways of Signal Hill,” notes a local newspaper. Dedicated in 2006, a bronze-cast sculpture — Tribute to the Roughnecks — today overlooks western Signal Hill and Long Beach.

June 13 to June 19 — This Week in Petroleum History

The Library of Congress American Memory collection includes photographs of Hobbs, New Mexico, taken by Russell Lee for the Farm Security Administration. The June 13, 1928, discovery of a massive oilfield would provide him many subjects.

Completed in April 1929 at 4,220 feet, Midwest Refining Company’s well revealed the Hobbs field, later cited by the New Mexico Bureau of Mines & Mineral Resources as “the most important single discovery of oil in New Mexico’s history.”

“Although Lee visited Hobbs a dozen years after its first major oil strike, these photographs are the most complete visual record available of this early New Mexico oil boom town,” notes U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman. The Hobbs oilfield was discovered on June 13, 1928.

“New Mexico has been a major producer of oil and natural gas since hydrocarbons were first discovered in the state during the early 1920s,” notes the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources. “In 2000, New Mexico produced more than 68 million barrels of oil, 1.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and 119 billion cubic feet of naturally occurring carbon dioxide for a total value of $8.2 billion.”

June 6 to June 12 — This Week in Petroleum History

The first major oilfield in Texas is discovered in Corsicana — by a water-well contractor hired by the city. Some consider this well the first commercial discovery west of the Mississippi. The city council, still wanting water for its growing community, pays only half of the contracted $1,000 feet. In 1976, Corsicana leaders decide to commemorate the community’s rich petroleum exploration history with an annual Derrick Days festival (and popular Chili & BBQ Cook-off).

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