Michael Linn named 2011 Chief Roughneck

On November 11, 2011, Michael C. Linn, executive chairman of Linn Energy, LLC, received the 2011 Chief Roughneck Award during the 82nd annual meeting of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, which took place in La Quinta Resort & Club in Palm Springs, California.

Since 1955, the annual event is “recognized as one of the most meaningful honors in the industry; the award and the character behind it symbolize the spirit, determination, leadership and integrity of individuals who have made a lasting impression on the energy industry.”

See of all the “Chief Roughneck Award Winners.”

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.

In late June, Globe Trekker visited several oil patch sites in Kilgore. Stops included the East Texas Oil Museum to learn the history behind the World’s Richest Acre, 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 Pilot Film & Television Productions producer explains to former Main Street Manager Fallon Burns.

“They told me they wanted to talk to an oil family,” the newspaper quotes Burns.” They wanted to go to the oil museum. They wanted to see the derricks and see downtown and the historical aspect of it. We spent all day driving around Kilgore looking for the shots.”

According to London-based Pilot Productions, the June 26 visit to Kilgore is part of a series of episodes featuring locations from around the world. In production since 1994 — with a focus for destinations “off the beaten track” — Globe Trekker has attracted a worldwide audience of 30 million viewers.

Alas, because many Texas sites will be visited for the documentary, time spent on East Texas petroleum heritage may be very limited. Bruns predicts Kilgore will receive about six minutes of coverage in the 50-minute program. Visit the East Texas Oil Museum.

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.

Among the most prestigious awards (to name only a few that take place every year) are: the Independent Petroleum Association of America, Washington, D.C., presentation of the Chief Roughneck Award at its annual meeting. The bronze “Joe Roughneck” statue has been presented since 1955. See “Meet Joe Roughneck.”

Other awards are presented by the Petroleum Museum in Midland, Texas, the Offshore Energy Center in Houston, Kansas museums in El Dorado and Great Bend, and the Pioneer Oil Museum in Bolivar, New York. All host special award events or maintain their own halls of fame honoring men and women of the petroleum industry.

Still other organizations, including professional trade groups like the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, Wichita Falls, frequently host legends or legacy award dinners and luncheons. Universities in oil producing states also honor their alumni.

Ohio’s Marietta College, with its world-renowned geology and petroleum engineering program, adds members to its Petroleum and Geology Hall of Fame. The Ohio Oil & Gas Association maintains its hall of fame “as a way to honor those who have made their own distinct contributions to the Ohio oil and gas industry.”

Petroleum Museum Hall of Fame

The Petroleum Hall of Fame at the Petroleum Museum in Midland, Texas — which added five distinguished members on April 14, 2011, is “dedicated to those who cherished the freedom to dare, and whose work and service helped build the Permian Basin — Let their achievements be remembered and their beliefs inspire!”

The Hall of Fame received its first member in 1968, several years before the museum itself actually opened in 1975. Induction of the 100th member came in 1999. In each odd-numbered year a maximum of four people are inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Those inducted have been elected by the museum’s governing board, after an exhaustive study of their qualifications by a special committee. Candidates not chosen in the year submitted will be automatically reconsidered in future elections.

The 2011 inductees were I. Jon Brumley, Sam G. Gibbs, William D. Kleine, and “the team of Mack C. Chase and John R. Gray,” according to museum Director Kathy Shannon. Biographical files and portraits of each honoree are available in the museum archives.

Located in the heart of the Permian Basin in West Texas, The Petroleum Museum includes a 40,000-square-foot facility housing photographic wall murals depicting early life in the oilfields, a West Texas boomtown, and a marine diorama of 230 million years ago.

Colonel Edwin L. Drake Legendary Oilman Award

In late June, the Petroleum History Institute(PHI) of Oil City, Pennsylvania, presented a life-time achievement award during its History Symposium in Marietta, Ohio. Oilman I.L. “Ike” Morris received the Petroleum History Institute’s “highest honor and most prestigious award,” the Colonel Edwin L. Drake Legendary Oilman Award.

The June 23, 2011, presentation took place during the Institute’s annual symposium and field trip — as members cruised aboard a sternwheeler riverboat on the Ohio River following a reception and banquet. Larry D. Woodfork, PHI chairman of the honors and awards committee, presented this year’s award to Morris, founder and CEO of Waco Oil and Gas Company, Glenville, West Virginia.

Originally from Oklahoma, Morris established an oil service company in Gilmer County, West Virginia, in the early 1960s and eventually expanded into all exploration and production, notes an article in the Gilmer Free Press.

After nearly five decades and a “nose for oil and gas,” Morris has drilled or operated 2,000 wells — and today is active in the Marcellus Shale, where he is drilling up a natural gas well every three weeks.

Well known in West Virginia for his philanthropy — donating millions of dollars to Glenville State College and other charitable enterprises — the Gilmer Free Press article notes that “Ike to this day, despite his fame and fortune, remains an unpretentious ‘man of the people’ and often stops in a small diner in Glenville for breakfast — and buys breakfast for all the other patrons who happen to be dining there that morning.”

The PHI 2011 award was presented by Woodfork, an independent consulting geologist and emeritus state geologist of West Virginia. He praised Morris and his “stellar business career, great successes and accomplishments in the oil and gas industry, as well as his contributions to the local community, including the very generous philanthropy of he and his wife, Sue — a Gilmer County girl and long-time school teacher — to Glenville State College, their support of W.V.U., and numerous other charitable organizations and enterprises — the list of which goes on and on.”

Editor’s Note — Both Woodfork and Morris have been previously honored as the “West Virginia Oil and Gas Man of the Year”  — Woodfork in 1991 and Morris in 1994. The award is made during the September annual West Virginia Oil and Gas Festivalheld in Sistersville, an historic oil community on the Ohio River.

Pioneer Oil Days in Bolivar, New York

The Pioneer Oil Museumis located in what used to be the McEwen Brothers Oilfield Supply store, in the heart of the old “Allegany Oil Field.” Cattaraugus and Allegany counties are the northernmost extensions of the nation’s oldest oil-producing region — Northwestern Pennsylvania.

Local historians note that for more than a century the “Penn Grade” fields of Appalachia have been the source of the world’s finest lubricating oils. With petroleum companies returning to the region to explore the Marcellus Shale, the museum today is expanding its exhibits  — adding space of the former well service company buildings of Hahn & Shaffner.

Volunteers and financial support from an association of New York oil producers helps maintain a “Wall of Fame” to annually honor petroleum industry leaders. Four outstanding oilmen were posthumously added to the wall in June: Burdette West, Lloyd West, John Walchli Sr., and Arthur Yahn, according to museum Director Kelly Lounsberry.

On June 24, 2011 — during the annual celebration of Pioneer Oil Days in Bolivar — the Pioneer Oil Museum added the four new names to the New York State Oil Producer’s Association Wall of Fame at the Hahn and Schaffner building. “Each man made a significant contribution to the oil industry in this county,” the Wellsville Daily Reporterquoted Lounsberry saying.

Lounsberry explained there are 21 names on the Wall of Fame honored posthumously, adding that the New York State Oil Producer’s Association wanted to honor the men who had made contributions to the oil boom and who were significant to oil production in the first half of the 20th Century.

Bronze likenesses with an account of their accomplishments will be placed on the wall. Acquaintances or members of the family help unveil the plaques during the ceremony. The newspaper also noted that following the inductions, the museum and the Bolivar Lioness Club hosted a popular “Wine and Cheese and Hors d’oeuvres Extravaganza” featuring New York state wines and cheeses from local dairies.

Chronicle of Gulf of Mexico Petroleum History

Is knowledge of U.S. offshore exploration and production history important?

Although America’s offshore petroleum industry began in the Pacific Ocean more than 100 years ago, it wasn’t until 1947 that a company drilled beyond the sight of land — southwest of Morgan City, Louisiana.

Now available online: the first six volumes of a project to study Louisiana offshore petroleum history — a decade in the making and still in progress.

“Understanding Louisiana’s relationship with offshore energy development must begin in the bayous, lakes and marshes of south Louisiana in the late 1920s,” notes the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE), which is working with three universities to compile a history of southern Louisiana’s oil and natural gas industry.

Funded by the agency’s environmental studies program, the Offshore Oil and Gas History Project draws from economic research, oral histories, photographs, artifacts — and personal accounts gathered from former industry engineers, managers, workers, and community and political leaders, according to Ocean Science, a quarterly publication of BOEMRE, formerly the Minerals Management Service.

This offshore history project, begun in 2002 as a cooperative agreement with the Louisiana State University — which partnered with the University of Arizona and the University of Houston — has two phases. The six volumes of the completed first phase (a southern Louisiana offshore history up to 1970) are available online at the University of Arizona. The second phase focuses on the development farther offshore.

The first-quarter 2011 issue of BOEMRE’s Ocean Science notes that the two phases of the Offshore Oil and Gas History Project “forms the basis for understanding the evolution of the industry and how that is intertwined with local communities.”

Editor’s Note — The first U.S. well out of sight of land was drilled in 1947 in the Gulf of Mexico by Kerr-McGee Oil Industries partnered with Phillips Petroleum and Stanolind Oil & Gas companies. A freestanding platform was erected 10 miles offshore…in 18 feet of water. Read more at “Offshore Oil History.”

Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center Opens

“Opening the Heritage Center is the closing of one chapter, but just the beginning of another to fulfill our pledge of ‘Claiming our Past and Inspiring our Future’ through a comprehensive programming schedule,” says Heritage Center Chairman Lew Ward, describing the April 1, 2011, opening of the heritage center in Enid, Oklahoma.

The center’s opening follows six years of dedicated work, Ward adds in a recent newsletter — “The Stakeholder.” Upcoming programs will make a significant impact on future generations, he says.

 

 

For example, Ward notes the center’s oral history library already contains more than 260 interviews capturing the stories of the Cherokee Strip from those who have lived them. “This growing library is an invaluable component of historical research for our region,” he adds. “Trained staff and volunteers collect the oral histories of people from the Cherokee Strip and Northwest Oklahoma, and the interviews are then transcribed and made available to the public and for use in the Research Center.”

Further, a special Academy of Educational Excellence teachers seminar will be held May 31 to June 3 on the Enid campus of Northwestern Oklahoma State University, says Ward.

“This four-day seminar teaches educators how to incorporate lessons of leadership into their curriculum through the study of history,” he adds. “Teachers completing the course receive educational credit — and full scholarships are available through the Heritage Center.”

The Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center’s exhibits include: The Outlet — Learn about life before the land run, and how the run changed the course of history; The Land & the People Gallery — Hear the stories of settlers in the years after they staked their claims.

In addition, visitors can see: the Dave Donaldson Oil & Gas Gallery — Experience one of the best natural resource galleries in the state, including a Champlin Oil exhibit; the Allen Enid Gallery — Discover communities throughout Northwest Oklahoma, and the story of Enid’s emergence as the center of commerce and culture.

Also among the exhibits, the Thelma Gungoll Phillips University Gallery — Celebrate the founding and history of the first private university in the state.

Pioneer Oil Museum Expands Oil Patch Exhibits

Renovations are underway at a new and far larger petroleum equipment exhibit area for the Pioneer Oil Museum of New York in Bolivar.

The museum’s website, which has also grown, now promotes the museum’s growth, the result of a dedicated group of volunteers, and the generosity of the New York State Oil Producers Association– the museum in western New York has purchased a six-acre site formerly housing the Hahn & Schaffner Oil Pipe Supply Company.

Renovations continue at the legendary oilfield supply company established in Bolivar in 1921. Work includes renovating the old store and adding new electric, insulation, plumbing, and heating.

Much of the building’s original tin ceiling has been saved, according to Pioneer Oil Museum of New York, Inc., President Paul Plants.

Future exhibits at the Hahn & Schaffner site will include several working antique engines recently donated, and restored equipment buildings to house an actual pipe threading machine and related exhibits.

The Job Moses No. 1 well, located 30 miles west of Bolivar in Limestone, New York, in 1865 became the state’s first successful oil well. It produced seven barrels a day. One rare Pioneer Oil Museum exhibit is a portable “dynamite making machine” — a wagon used to load dynamite sticks for shooting wells.

From 5th graders to college students the museum offers something of value,” says Director Kelly Lounsberry, a Bolivar school teacher. “Whether you are studying the geological characteristics of this area or learning about the oil heritage of Western New York, you can find it all in one place.”

Drake Well Museum brings Energy Education to Pennsylvania Students

A newly updated version of the Mobile Energy Educational Trailer will greet young visitors as it begins its 2011 energy education tour of Pennsylvania.

The trailer includes historical exhibits and artifacts that educate visitors about Pennsylvania’s rich petroleum heritage — and its evolution to modern exploration and production technologies. Improvements for the 2011 season include a second touch-screen monitor, and the trailer will be divided into three zones: the using zone, the finding/production zone, and the energy zone. In this zone we will ask visitors to choose energy source for the future and present the pros and cons to their choice.

The tractor-trailer truck logged more than 7,000 miles in 2010 — and participated in three forums, three industry functions, four fairs and five festivals to educate about 30,000 adult visitors. MEET-U participated in the 2010 Boy Scouts of America camp at Moraine State Park on September 25, where 9,000 scouts registered for the three-day event. Even greater outreach is planned for this year.

“Due to the overwhelming success of the project, MEET-U is already scheduled for 23 schools visits, six industry events and 14 community fairs or festivals in 2011,” the website notes. “The key word here is already, because we know there will more.”

Because of this dedication to education, MEET-U, a program of The Friends of Drake Well, needs contributing products, in-kind services or donations. Contact Project Manager Joe Hulsizer at the Drake Well Museum, 205 Museum Lane, Titusville, PA 16354, (814) 758-2541.

Spudder Discovered in Mojave Desert

A March 12 e-mail from the Park Service in California asks the historical society for oil patch research. Hopefully, there are petroleum museum staff and oil patch historians out there who can help us learn more about a 1926 Wichita Falls Spudder Model 15!

Mr. Wells, It was a pleasure speaking with you. It sounds as if you may be a tremendous asset to our project. I am assistant to our resident archeologist for Mojave National Preserve in California.

The cultural resource work in Mojave is to identify, record, and protect historic, and prehistoric artifacts. Our Superintendent Larry Whalon has given the go ahead to begin preliminary development of a wayside exhibit for said drilling rig. Thank you for offering your involvement. — Glenn Wallis

Glenn added that attempting to preserve the spudder may be a lengthy process, the resident archeologist is David Nichols — and the site is some miles over a two- track dirt road “in the middle of nowhere” in the Mojave National Preserve.

Thus far, in response to the Wichita Falls Spudder Model 15 (serial No. 434 Pat. Oct, 8, 1926) mystery, the historical society has tracked down a Popular Science of February 25, 1931 and learned that the business itself operated from 122 Ohio Avenue, Wichita Falls, Texas.

Harry A. Clark received five patents between 1924 and 1928, all related to the spudder and similar equipment. The October 8, 1926, patent is still a mystery. The Clark Machine Company voluntarily dissolved under the hand of W. H. Ealy on May 11, 1937.

The society has contacted Lisa Cooley, curator of education, at the outstanding Kansas museum — the Butler County Historical Center and Kansas Oil Museumin El Dorado, because of the museum’s large equipment collection, including a working cable-tool spudder. Staff and volunteers there may have suggestions.

We have suggested contacting F.T. Felty, a Wichita Falls oilman who has an outdoor collection of historic spudders. See our Petroleum Age article, “Felty’s Outdoor Oil Museum.”

We also have suggested that Mr. Wallis contact Don Maxwell, the new director of volunteers at the West Kern Oil Museumin Taft — or his predecessor Agnes Hardt, who still volunteers at the museum. They both have extensive knowledge and contacts regarding California’s petroleum heritage. The Kern County Museum also has an oil exhibit.

Energy Museum Seeks Oil Patch Folk Art for Exhibit

A great exhibition idea for 2011 comes from Ryan Smith, executive director of the Texas Energy Museum in Beaumont. Ryan has e-mailed the historical society that he is planning a special exhibition — and wants to get the word out to oil patch communities. It’s a chance to share stories…and folk art.

Ryan says next year’s exhibition will focus on folklore and folk art of the petroleum industry. He seeks help locating items for display at his southeastern Texas museum. Other oil and natural gas museum directors are invited to share their ideas and artifacts, he says.

 

“We are defining folk art in the traditional sense — items of utilitarian nature that have been artistically embellished or are the result of ordinary people expressing their traditions or values through the creation of utilitarian objects,” Ryan notes. The museum is not looking for the ubiquitous painting of oil derrick scenes, he adds, but, for example, a wrench that has been artistically inscribed or a workman’s bench with scrollwork. “I would consider a sculpture, model or work on paper or canvas, if it was created by someone reflecting their personal experiences or working or living in the oil industry,” he concludes. “Please feel free to post and share this request.”

Contact Ryan Smith at the Texas Energy Museum.

Kansas Museum Celebrates state’s Centennial

This year is a milestone for Kansas, notes Teresa Bachman, executive director of the Butler County History Center and Kansas Oil Museum. On January 29, 1861, Kansas became the 34th state.

Teresa’s museum plans a number of 150th anniversary events in addition to the annual “Kansas Oil and Gas Legacy Induction Ceremony” in March. The museum’s latest “Crown Block” newsletter also tells the story of a muzzle-loading cannon now on exhibit.

The museum’s six-foot long cannon, donated by City Services Company in 1982, and restored in 1996 by Carl Henn and Jim Lill, is now an exhibit that describes its use — for putting out oil tank fires. Especially in the Great Plains, frequent lightening strikes causes oil tank fires. At a safe distance, cannons were used to shoot holes in the base of burning tanks, allowing oil to drain into a holding pit until the fire was out.

 

Learn more by reading “Oilfield Artillery” — and visit an oil and natural gas museum in your state.

Historical Society’s “Shooters – A Fracing History” Article Updated

About 90 percent of the wells in operation today have used hydraulic fracturing to enhance well performance, minimize drilling, and recover otherwise inaccessible resources.

Today, however, “fracing” has become controversial when needed for production in unconventional formations, such as “tight” gas sands, shale deposits and coal-beds.

This “Shooters – A Fracing History” article tells the story of a much earlier production-enhancing technology…and the Civil War veteran who invented it. The technology — first used in the late 1940s — has been utilized nearly one million times.

 

Chevron Celebrates 5 Billion Barrels of Permian Oil, Donates to Petroleum Museum

In late February 2011, as Chevron prepares to celebrate the production of five billion barrels of Permian Basin oil in West Texas, company officials announce a surprise donation of $1 million, evenly divided between Christmas in Action of Odessa and Midland’s Permian Basin Petroleum Museum, according to the Midland Reporter-Telegram.

“We appreciate being here because we’re allowed to be here,” said Gary Luquette, president of Chevron North America Exploration & Production, who traveled from Houston for the celebration. “We get our license to operate from the community. We’re thankful for 85 years of history and look forward to many, many more years.”

 

Editor’s Note — Chevron, headquartered in California for more than 130 years, traces its roots to an 1879 oil discovery at Pico Canyon, north of Los Angeles. The discovery led to the formation of the Pacific Coast Oil Company, which later became Standard Oil Company of California. The company adopted the name Chevron after acquiring Gulf Oil Corporation in 1984 — at that time the largest merger in U.S. history.

“Another major branch of the family tree is the Texas Fuel Company, formed in Beaumont, Texas, in 1901, Chevron adds. “It later became known as the Texas Company and eventually Texaco. In 2001, our two companies merged. The acquisition of Unocal Corporation in 2005 strengthened Chevron’s position as an energy industry leader, increasing our crude oil and natural gas assets around the world.”

Recommended Reading

In Midland, Texas, the Petroleum Museum’s Director of Archives and Collections — Leslie Meyer — hosts a blog where she shares her work projects and personal insights. Her “Adventures in Collections Life in the Archives & Collections Department at the Petroleum Museum” is a great way to explore the museum’s collections — and learn from Leslie’s enthusiasm for research and preservation. Her March blog notes: “The Petroleum Museum’s Library & Archives Center has been a hive of activity recently. We now have four faithful volunteers in the Center, working on various projects.”

Letter from Texas: 300 Children need Petroleum Education Material

Dear Mr. Wells,

I am the president of the Yorktown Historical Society. Yorktown is currently going through an oil/gas boom. Our society is struggling as many societies are in maintaining the Yorktown Historical Museum.

As an educator I am interested in presenting as many educational exhibits as possible. I would like to put up an exhibit and present a 30-minute presentation telling the story of oil and gas formation and the production of such to our elementary students.

We do not have computer access to this historical museum, so I must rely on classroom size posters. I know that you also must raise funds for your efforts and that you probably can’t give me what I need; however, I have written a grant and received a small donation for the purpose that I want to accomplish. Do you have some classroom posters that we could purchase so that an exhibit and presentation could be formulated?

Our city is very small. This would tell the story to approximately 300 children. This story is an important one at this period in their lives and the happenings around them. At any time they are able to see as many as 10 rigs from their homes. I would appreciate any help that you might give me in creating this exhibit.

Thank you for any and all of your suggestions and help. Beverly Bruns, President, Yorktown Historical Society, January 19, 2011.

Agnes Hardt Returns to West Kern Oil Museum’s Garden

Change has come to the West Kern Oil Museum, notes a January 14, 2011, article in the Taft Independent newspaper. Highly regarded Agnes Hardt is leaving her position as director of volunteers. Hardt — who began working in the museum’s garden in 1983 — became director in 2005.

“I wasn’t asked, I was told, ‘you’re it,’” she said with a laugh. After Oildorado in 2005, Hardt told the board that she would stay in the director’s seat through 2010′s Oildorado celebration. “The day after Oildorado was over, I retired,” she said. Don Maxwell has filled her vacated role. “They found Don and they could not have done any better. The first thing he did was help me with the ice maker and he hasn’t stopped since!”

Hardt is excited to get back to the garden at the museum. “I’d just like to take care of the flowers again, they don’t talk back,” she said. As the new director for the oil museum, Maxwell plans to revive the Standard Oil tradition of decorating the museum’s iconic wooden derrick during the winter holidays. He will use grant money from Chevron to help bring the museum to all of the schools on the Westside. “It might be that if we’re successful at the schools the kids will tell their parents, neighbors or friends about the museum and come on their days off,” Hardt said.

It’s clear that Don Maxwell has a passion for the West Kern Oil Museum. “Sometimes, I don’t think we realize how important it is to the community,” he said. Hopefully, with his help and that of all the tremendous volunteers like Agnes, the museum will gain the recognition it rightfully deserves. Maxwell was a key member in securing the acquisition of the saber-tooth cat exhibit, now currently on display.

Oil Patch Events