On May 12, 2007 - as part of statehood centennial celebrations – state-of-the-art petroleum museums opened in Ponca City and Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

A circa 1880s Continental Oil Company horse-drawn tank wagon welcomes visitors to the Conoco Museum in Ponca City, Oklahoma, which opened in 2007. Phillips Petroleum Company, once headquartered 70 miles east in Bartlesville, merged with Conoco in 2002.

The Conoco Museum tells the story of a petroleum company that began as a small kerosene distributor serving 19th century pioneer America.

“These museums reaffirm our Oklahoma roots,” proclaimed Jim Mulva, chairman and CEO of ConocoPhillips, which built the Conoco Museum in Ponca City and the Phillips Museum in Bartlesville as “gifts to the people of Oklahoma, visitors to the state, and our employee and retiree populations around the world.” Read the rest of this entry »

The exploration history of the U.S. offshore oil and natural gas industry began in the Pacific Ocean more than 100 years ago. As recently as 1947 no company had ever risked drilling beyond the sight of land.

America’s offshore petroleum industry began in the late 19th century in Pacific Ocean with drilling and production piers at Summerland, California. Drilling platforms also appreared on lakes in Ohio and Louisiana. By the 1940s, technology was taking wells far into the Gulf of Mexico.

In 1896, as enterprising businessmen pursued California’s prolific Summerland oilfield all the way to the beach, the lure of offshore production enticed Henry L. Williams and his associates to build a pier 300 feet out into the Pacific – and mount a standard cable-tool rig on it.

Although never built, Thomas Rowland’s 1869 design for an offshore platform was far ahead of its time.

By 1897 this first offshore well was producing oil and 22 companies soon joined in the boom, constructing 14 more piers and over 400 wells within the next five years. The Summerland offshore field produced for 25 years – fueling the growth of California’s economy.

Piers, Platforms and a Patent

In 1894, Henry Williams drilled two wells on a California beach. He drilled another in 1895 with encouraging results. This led Williams and others to exploring for oil offshore the next year.

They constructed piers and drilled wells, leading to the realization that the Summerland oilfield extended offshore. This would be the first offshore field developed in the nation by drilling offshore wells from piers. – From Santa Barbara County records

In 1911, Gulf Refining Co. abandoned the use of piers. It drilled Ferry Lake No. 1 on Caddo Lake, Louisiana, using a fleet of tugboats, barges, and floating pile drivers. When the well came in at 450 barrels per day, Gulf constructed platforms every 600 feet on each 10-acre lakebed site.

The  Caddo Lake wells – completed over water without a pier connection to shore – have frequently been called America’s first true offshore drilling . However, Ohio oil documents record hundreds of oil wells pumping far out into a lake – 20 years before drillers ventured into the waters of Caddo Lake.

Louisiana’s Caddo Lake, circa 1911.

As early as 1891, the first submerged oil wells were drilled from platforms built on piles in Grand Lake St. Marys in Ohio, notes historian Judith L. Sneed in “The First Over Water Drilling: The Lost History Of Ohio’s Grand Reservoir Oil Boom.” See “Ohio Offshore Wells.”

Even earlier, some historians say the true beginning of the modern offshore industry can be traced to an 1869 U.S. patent. Thomas Fitch Rowland of Greenpoint, New York, patented a “submarine drilling apparatus” on May 4, 1869.

Rowland’s design included a fixed, working platform for drilling offshore to a depth of almost 50 feet. The anchored, four-legged tower – with telescoping legs “suitable hydraulic attachments or devices” – resembles modern offshore platforms. Ream more in “An 1869 Offshore Rig Patent.”

Gulf of Mexico Technologies

In 1938, Pure Oil Co. and Superior Oil Co. built a freestanding drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico, despite logistics, engineering, and communications challenges.

They hired a Houston engineering and construction company, Brown & Root Marine Operators, Inc., to build a 320-foot by 180-foot freestanding wooden deck in 14-feet of water about a mile offshore. The chosen drilling site was near Creole, La.

Using onshore building criteria and intuition, the Creole platform was designed to withstand winds of 150 mph and constructed 15 feet above the water. Three hundred treated yellow pine pilings were driven 14 feet into the sandy bottom.

The Superior-Pure State No. 1 well was successful – but was wiped off its pilings by a hurricane in 1940. Although the pilings were damaged, the platform was quickly rebuilt and put back into production in the four million barrel field.

Onshore salt domes were recorded as early as 1890 by the Geological Survey of Texas.

“It may be tentatively assumed that the Gulf of Mexico is a potential source of salt-dome oil…Whether or not it will ever be economically feasible to explore these waters for the domes that must exist is a question for the future to answer.” – Geologist Orval Lester Brace in 1941.

Kerr-McGee dramatically answered the salt dome question in 1947 with an experimental offshore rig.

Not much equipment specifically designed for offshore drilling existed and exploration remained an extraordinarily speculative and risky business venture. An offshore dry hole could easily swallow the huge capital costs sunk into construction of a large, permanent rig platforms.

Nevertheless, Dean McGee of Kerr-McGee Oil Industries Inc. partnered with Phillips Petroleum and Stanolind Oil & Gas Co. to secure leases for exploratory wells in the Gulf of Mexico. They hired Brown & Root to build a freestanding platform 10 miles out to sea.

The Mighty Kermac No. 16

“We decided to explore the areas where the really potential prolific production might be – salt domes – the good ones on land were gone, but we could move out in the shallow water and, in effect, get into a virgin area where we could find the real class-one type salt dome prospect,” McGee said.

Vessels were needed to provide supplies, equipment, and crew quarters for the drilling site, 43 miles southwest of Morgan City, La. The gradually sloping Gulf of Mexico reached only about 18-feet deep at the drilling site. A second platform would be built about eight miles from the first at Ship Shoal Block 28. Sixteen 24-inch pilings were sunk 104 feet into the ocean floor to secure a 2,700 square foot wooden deck.

The Kermac No. 16 well stood in almost 20 feet of water, 10 miles at sea.

The well was spudded on Sept. 10, 1947. The biggest hurricane of the season arrived a week later – with winds of 140 mph. Kerr-McGee had $450,000 invested in the project. Both platforms were evacuated during the hurricane, but damage was minimal. Drilling promptly resumed. On Nov.14, the Kermac No. 16 well came in at 40 barrels per hour.

“Spectacular Gulf of Mexico Discovery. Possible 100-Million Barrel Field – 10 Miles at Sea,” proclaimed the Oil & Gas Journal. Kermac No.16 would produce 1.4 million barrels of oil and 307 million cubic feet of natural gas by 1984.

Early drillers focused on natural oil seeps – until a 1901 gusher at Spindletop, a salt dome in Beaumont, Texas. Seismic instruments revealed how salt moved up through the earth – sometimes leaving oil trapped.

New Records

By the end of 1949, 11 oil and natural gas fields were found in the Gulf of Mexico with 44 exploratory wells, according to the National Ocean Industries Association, which notes that the industry continued to through the 1950s.

Modern offshore energy industry benefits come from the hard lessons learned from 60 years of open water experience. Compared to the limits of just a few years ago, today’s achievements will no doubt pale in comparison to what the future of offshore exploration will bring.

Revenue generated from the production of oil became the second-largest revenue generator for the country, after income taxes. NOIA also notes:

As the industry entered the last decade of the 20th century, advancing technology ensued. New depth records for drilling reached 7,625 feet in the Gulf of Mexico, and Shell Oil’s platform ‘Troll,’ which stands in the North Sea in 1,000 feet of water, 1,500 feet high, became one of two man-made objects visible with the naked eye from the surface of the moon. The other is the Great Wall of China.

The first use of helicopters offshore was at the request of Kerr-McGee and Humble Oil. Bell Helicopters recognized the opportunity and formed Petroleum Bell Helicopters Co.

At right is a Bell Helicopter advertisement from 1954, courtesy the Ocean Star Offshore Drilling Rig and Museum

A flat area on an LST (from WW Two’s landing ship, tanks) anchored next to Humble Rig 28 served as landing pad for one of the first helicopters to be flown offshore.

Moveable rigs drill many exploratory offshore wells. Sometimes it is more economical to build a permanent platform from which well completion, extraction and production can occur. These large, permanent platforms are extremely expensive; they generally require large expected hydrocarbon deposits to be economical to construct.

This depiction of offshore drilling and completion platforms gives an idea of just how massive modern rigs can be. Because of their size, most permanent offshore rigs are constructed in pieces near land.

As components of the rig are completed, they are taken out to the drilling location. Sometimes construction or assembly can even take place as the rig is being transported to its intended destination, notes naturalgas.org.

Also see “Rigs to Reefs,“ “Deep Sea Roughnecks” and “Swimming Wrenches” (a history of remotely operated undersea vehicles).

————————————————————————-

A “big fin” squid.

On November 11, 2007, a mile and a half underwater, a petroleum company’s remote control submersible camera captured a rarely seen Magnapinna squid.

The brief video, obtained by National Geographic News, shows the alien-like squid loiter above the seafloor in the Gulf of Mexico. The clip – from Shell Oil Company’s Perdido production site — marks the first sighting of a Magnapinna or “big fin” squid near oil development. Some marine biologists have now formed partnerships with petroleum companies.

______________________________________________

Offshore Oil and Gas Resources

Gulf of Mexico federal offshore oil production accounts for 23 percent of total U.S. crude oil production and federal offshore natural gas production in the Gulf accounts for 7 percent of total U.S. dry production, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Over 40 percent of total U.S. petroleum refining capacity is located along the Gulf coast, as well as 30 percent of total U.S. natural gas processing plant capacity.

To meet increasing U.S. demand while addressing environmental concerns, new technologies have resulted in drilling rigs capable of drilling 250 miles offshore to ocean depths exceeding 10,000 feet. At stake are an additional 19 billion barrels of oil and another 86 trillion cubic feet of gas. Fear of oil spills and heated environmental debates restrict access to many potential areas.

More than 5,000 offshore oil and natural gas platforms operate in the Gulf of Mexico around the clock, seven-days a week. It is the largest artificial reef system in the world.

According to the National Academy of Sciences, more than 60 percent of all oil found in seawater is not from wells, but from natural seepage (the largest emitting 1,000 barrels of oil a week); 32 percent comes from shipping and run-off from land. Four percent can be attributed to tanker spills.

However, near Santa Barbara, Calif., offshore drilling’s worst environmental disaster occurred in 1969 when an undersea well blew out. The calamity quickly brought industry changes that have protected the offshore environment ever since.

Between 1980 and 1999, about 7.4 billion barrels of oil were produced in federal waters, says the U.S. Coast Guard. Less than a thousandth of one percent spilled – less than the natural seepage of oil from the sea floor.

Please support the American Oil & Gas Historical Society with a donation.

————————————————————————-

Can you tell me anything about this old petroleum company…and its stock certificate, which I recently found? Am I rich?

Unfortunately, this small historical society cannot grant requests for free research regarding individual company histories and the potential value of stock certificates.

As you may have discovered, financial research is difficult and time consuming. If you are fortunate, a visitor to this website or a society volunteer may have posted helpful information.

Also, remember that this small, nonprofit society needs your 100-percent tax deductible financial support. Please make a donation.

Please note that the comment thread below is closed for this Q&A. But be sure to review its content – your certificate may be mentioned!

If it is not here, and to share further research experiences, you are invited to submit your query in the current Stock Certificate Q&A Forum.

LATEST RESEARCH POSTINGS

Below is research submitted by leading volunteers of the American Oil & Gas Historical Society. The company histories researched here are exclusive of “Stock Certificate Q&A” forum posts. Check back often for updates. Read the rest of this entry »

Outside the Page Museum of Los Angeles, life-size replicas of several extinct mammals are featured at the Rancho La Brea in Hancock Park. Although commonly called the “tar pits,” the pools are actually comprised of asphalt.

The La Brea “tar pits,” discovered on August 3, 1769, by Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola, exemplify the many natural petroleum seeps of southern California.

“We proceeded for three hours on a good road; to the right were extensive swamps of bitumen which is called chapapote,” Franciscan friar Juan Crespi noted in a diary of the expedition. “We debated whether this substance, which flows melted from underneath the earth, could occasion so many earthquakes.” Read the rest of this entry »

To make Hula Hoops and Frisbees, Arthur Melin, right, and his Wham-O Company partner Richard Kerr, left, chose Marlex – the world’s first high-density polyethylene plastic invented by two chemists at Phillips Petroleum Company.

In the 1950s, few companies knew what to do with a revolutionary plastic invented by Phillips Petroleum. Demand for “Marlex” would come from unexpected source – the Hula Hoop – “the great obsession of 1958 – the undisputed granddaddy of American fads.”

Prompted by a post World War II boom in demand for plastics, Phillips Petroleum invested $50 million to bring its own miracle product – Marlex – to market in 1954.

The company gambled that the new plastic would be perfect for all manner of emerging products trying to keep up with consumer demand.

With millions of dollars already committed, investors expected immediate results from the Phillips lab product.

Marlex is a first in plastics.

Marlex, a high-density polyethylene, was developed by Phillips chemists Paul Hogan and Robert Banks – who were researching gasoline additives. In their experiments, Hogan and Banks began to study catalysts.

“In June 1951, they set up an experiment in which they modified their original catalyst (nickel oxide) to include small amounts of chromium oxide,” notes the American Chemical Society. Their work was expected to produce low-molecular-weight hydrocarbons.

“As Paul Hogan recalls it, he was standing outside the laboratory when Banks came out saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got something new coming in our kettle that we’ve never seen before.’ Running inside, they saw that the nickel oxide had produced the expected liquids. But the chromium had produced a white, solid material. Hogan and Banks were looking at a new polymer – crystalline polypropylene.”

“Extruded tubing is desirable because it may be economically fabricated in continuous lengths,” Arthus Melin notes in his patent application, describing a hoop weighing no more than 10 ounces with an outside diameter of 31 to 37 inches. “The use of plastic gives both economy and strength.”

Only a few years later when Phillips introduced high-density polyethylene in 1954, under the brand name Marlex, “company marketing executives were wildly optimistic, expecting that the product would be a big hit and that the Phillips would not be able to keep it on the shelves.”

But the transition from laboratory to mass production was far more difficult than executives had anticipated. When customers failed to materialize, the dingy, inconsistently sized, off-specification pellets accumulated.

Phillips found itself with no buyers and warehouses full of Marlex. As the Bartlesville company stored its unwanted Marlex and searched for new customers, relief came from an unexpected source.

Phenomenal Toy Craze brings Sales Read the rest of this entry »

Du Pont models at the 1939 New York World’s Fair play tug-of-war with a nylon stocking to dramatize its strength.

Du Pont Corporation foresees the future artificial fibers “strong as steel.” The chemical company becomes a global giant as its scientist create consumer products out of nylon, rayon and lucite.

The world’s first synthetic fiber – nylon – is discovered on February 28, 1935, by a former Harvard professor working at a DuPont Corporation research laboratory. Later called Nylon 6 by scientists, the revolutionary product comes from chemicals found in petroleum.

Professor Wallace Carothers had experimented with artificial materials for more than six years. He previously discovered neoprene rubber (commonly used in wetsuits) and made major contributions to understanding polymers – large molecules composed in long chains of repeating chemical structures.

DuPont names the new petroleum product nylon – although chemists call it Nylon 6 because the adipic acid and hexamethylene diamine each contain 6 carbon atoms per molecule. Durable petroleum-based polymer products are in common use throughout the world.

Just 32-years-old, Carothers creates fibers when he combines the chemicals amine, hexamethylene diamine, and adipic acid.

He forms a polymer chain using a process in which individual molecules join together with water as a byproduct.

However, the fibers are weak, explains a PBS series, A Science Odyssey: People and Discoveries.

“Carothers’ breakthrough came when he realized the water produced by the reaction was dropping back into the mixture and getting in the way of more polymers forming,” notes the PBS website. “He adjusted his equipment so that the water was distilled and removed from the system. It worked!” Read the rest of this entry »

Oil patch lore says “yellow dog” lanterns were so named because their two burning wicks resembled a dog’s glowing eyes at night. Others say the lamps cast a dog’s head shadow on the derrick floor.

Jonathan Dillen’s lantern was “especially adapted for use in the oil regions…where the explosion of a lamp is attended with great danger by causing destructive conflagration and consequent loss of life and property.”

Rare is the community oil and natural gas museum that doesn’t have a “yellow dog” in its collection. The two-wicked lamp is an oilfield icon.

Some say that the unusual design originated with whaling ships – but neither the Nantucket nor New Bedford whaling museums can find any such evidence.

Railroad museums have collections of cast iron smudge pots, but nothing quite like these heavy, odd shaped, crude-oil burning lanterns once prevalent on petroleum fields from Pennsylvania to California.

Although many companies manufactured the iron or steel lamps, the yellow dog’s origins remain in the dark.

Oil patch lore says these lanterns were so named because their two burning wicks resembled a dog’s glowing eyes at night.

Others say the lamps cast a dog’s head shadow on the derrick floor.

Inventor Jonathan Dillen of Petroleum Centre, Pennsylvania, was first to patent what became the yellow dog in 1870. Read the rest of this entry »

The U.S.S. Texas, commissioned in 1914, was the last American battleship built with coal-fired boilers. By 1927, it had been converted to burn fuel oil – with a dramatic improvement in efficiency. The revolutionary change from coal to oil-fired boilers at sea is another chapter in the story of petroleum.

When the industrial revolution ended the “age of sail,” coal that fired the boilers of steam-powered ships became a strategic resource. Worldwide “coaling stations” were essential at a time when oil was little more than a crude lubricant or patent medicine.

Commissioned on March 12, 1914, with coal-powered boilers that were converted to use fuel oil in 1925, the U.S.S. Texas “was the most powerful weapon in the world, the most complex product of an industrial nation just beginning to become a force in global events,” says an historian at Battleship Texas State Historic Site.

In 1866, Congress appropriated $5,000 to evaluate petroleum as a potential replacement for coal to fire the Navy’s boilers. The “experts” decided to stay with coal. Read the rest of this entry »

As early 20th century worldwide demand for oil grew – but the science for finding it remained obscure – a small group of geologists organized the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG).

Beginning as the Southwestern Association of Petroleum Geologists in Tulsa, Oklahoma, about 90 geologists gathered at Henry Kendall College, now Tulsa University, and on on February 10, 1917, formed an association “to which only reputable and recognized petroleum geologists are admitted.”

AAPG embraces a code that assures “the integrity, business ethics, personal honor, and professional conduct” of its worldwide membership.

The new association’s mission included promoting the science of geology, especially as it related to oil and natural gas, and encourage “technology improvements in the methods of exploring for and exploiting these substances.”

AAPG would also “foster the spirit of scientific research among its members; to disseminate facts relating to the geology and technology of petroleum and natural gas.”

Adopted its present name a year after the meeting at Henry Kendall College, AAPG begins publishing a bimonthly journal that remains among the most respected in the industry.

AAPG launches a peer-reviewed Bulletin that includes papers written by leading geologists. With a subscription price of five dollars, the journal is distributed to members, university libraries, and other industry professionals. Read the rest of this entry »

Theodore Seuss Geisel devoted his early career to creating advertising campaigns for Standard Oil – where for more than 15 years he developed the skills that would redefine children’s literature. This Standard Oil Company “Essolube” oil charge card was issued between 1930 and 1940.

The Dr. Seuss Collection of the Mandeville Special Collections Library at the University of California, San Diego notes that the future Dr. Seuss, “hawked such diverse goods as ball bearings, radio promotional spots, beer, and sugar.” The library preserves examples of his Standard Oil artwork, including this 1932 gasoline advertisement.

Ted Geisel’s unique critters populated Standard Oil advertisements for “Flit,” once a popular bug spray.

About 30 years before the Grinch stole Christmas, Dr. Seuss’ strange but wonderful critters worked for Standard Oil of New Jersey.

In the January 14, 1928, issue of New York City’s Judge magazine, Theodore Seuss Geisel first introduced America to one of the many characters inhabiting his imaginative menagerie.

Dr. Seuss later said his experience working at Standard Oil “taught me conciseness and how to marry pictures with words.”

In the cartoon that launched his career, Geisel drew a peculiar dragon inside a castle.  “Flit,” was a popular bug spray of the day – especially against flies and mosquitoes. It was one of Standard Oil Company’s many consumer products derived from petroleum.

Late in 1927, Standard Oil’s growing advertising department, which had focused on sales of Standard and Esso gasolines, lubricating oil, fuel oil and asphalt, reorganized to promote other products, according to author Alfred Chandler Jr.

“Specialities, such as Nujol, Flit, Mistol, and other petroleum by-products that could not be effectively sold through the department’s sales organization, were combined in a separate subsidiary – Stanco,” noted Chandler in his 1962 book, Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the American Industrial Enterprise.

“Quick, Henry, the Flit!”

Geisel’s fortuitous bug-spray cartoon depicted a medieval knight in his bed, facing a dragon who had invaded his room, and lamenting, “Darn it all, another dragon. And just after I’d sprayed the whole castle with Flit.”

According to the curators of the Dr. Seuss Collection at the University of California, San Diego, an anecdote in Judith and Neil Morgan’s 1995 book Dr. Seuss and Mr. Geisel, the wife of the ad executive who handled the Standard Oil account saw the dragon cartoon. Read the rest of this entry »

With a collection of more than three million artifacts, the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., today exhibits surprisingly few relating to America’s petroleum exploration and production industry. It wasn’t always so.

Tulsa will recover the forgotten “Panorama of Petroleum” mural – thanks to the city’s Gilcrease Museum. In 1998, the mural is restored and installed at the Tulsa International Airport, where it remains today.

In June 1967, a massive “Hall of Petroleum” opened at the Smithsonian Institution’s museum on the national mall. The exhibit featured many exploration and production technological advancements – and the resulting onshore and offshore discoveries considered essential to development of U.S. energy resources. Read the rest of this entry »

The luck of John Washington Steele begins on December 10, 1844, when Culbertson and Sarah McClintock adopt him as an infant.

John Washington Steele of Venango County, Pennsylvania

Johnny Steele – who will one day will be known as “Coal Oil Johnny” – is adopted along with his sister, Permelia. The McClintocks bring them home to their farm on the banks of Oil Creek in Venango County, Pennsylvania.

Fifteen years later, the petroleum boom prompted by Edwin Drake’s discovery – America’s first commercial oil well – will make the widow McClintock a fortune in royalties.

When Mrs. McClintock dies in a kitchen fire in 1864, she leaves the money to her only surviving child, Johnny. At age 20, he inherits $24,500 and his mother’s 200-acre farm along Oil Creek between what is now Rynd Farm and Rouseville. The farm includes 20 producing wells yielding $2,800 in royalties a day.

“Coal Oil Johnny” Steele will earn his name in 1865 after such a legendary year of extravagance that years later the New York Times will report: “In his day, Steele was the greatest spender the world had ever known…he threw away $3,000,000 in less than a year.” Read the rest of this entry »

It’s the first of a series of nuclear denotations conducted by the Atomic Energy Commission to test the feasibility of using nuclear explosions to release natural gas trapped in dense shale deposits. This is “fracking,” late 1960s style.  

In December 1967, government scientists – exploring the peacetime use of controlled atomic explosions – detonate Gasbuggy, a 29-kiloton nuclear device they had lowered into a natural gas well in rural New Mexico. The Hiroshima bomb was about 15 kilotons.

Scientists lower a 13-foot by 18-inches diameter nuclear warhead into a well in New Mexico. The experimental 29-kiloton Project Gasbuggy device will be detonated at a depth of 4,240 feet. Los Alamos Lab photo.

Project Gasbuggy included experts from the Atomic Energy Commission, the U.S. Bureau of Mines and El Paso Natural Gas Company. Near three low-production natural gas wells, the team drilled to a depth of 4,240 feet – and lowered a 13-foot-long by 18-inch-wide nuclear device into the borehole. Read the rest of this entry »

Since 1896, when the first commercial oil well was drilled in Bartlesville, many historic Oklahoma oilfields have been discovered: Glennpool, Cushing, Three Sands, Healdton, Oklahoma City and others – including 20 “giants.” Few have had the tremendous economic impact as the late 1920s oilfields of the greater Seminole area. 

Prosperity brought traffic jams to Seminole, Oklahoma, in the mid-1920s when newly discovered oilfields “swung the United States’ oil inventory from scarcity to surplus.” Photo courtesy the Oklahoma Oil Museum.

A July 16, 1926, discovery well near Seminole, Oklahoma, revealed the massive potential of an oil producing formation, the Wilcox sand –  and launched a drilling boom that will make Oklahoma one of today’s leading producing states. The Fixico No. 1 well penetrated the Wilcox sand at 4,073 feet.

By 1935, the oilfields around Seminole became the largest supplier of oil in the world. More than 60 petroleum reservoirs were found in 1,300 square miles of east-central Oklahoma – and six were “giants,” producing more than million barrels of oil each. Read the rest of this entry »

Students visit the Norman No. 1 Well Museum in Neodesha, Kansas, to learn about the November 28, 1892, gusher — and about their state’s modern petroleum industry. Oil or natural gas is produced in 89 of 105 counties.

After 22 days of drilling near Neodesha, Kansas, the Norman No. 1 well comes in.

This November 28, 1892, oil discovery is considered by many to be America’s first significant oil well west of the Mississippi River.

Beginning as just a four-barrel-a day producer from 832 feet deep, this Kansas discovery is the first to uncover production from the Mid-Continent region, which includes oil and natural fields extending into Nebraska, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas.

“Norman No. 1 was the first oil well west of the Mississippi River to produce a commercial quantity of oil,” explains one historian.

“This major oil discovery ushered in a new era for Neodesha and the state. By 1904, Kansas was producing four million barrels of crude oil per year and, in 1925, ranked fifth among the states in oil production,” notes the Kansas Historical Society. Read the rest of this entry »

By 1920, Tulsa is home to 400 petroleum companies, two daily newspapers, seven banks, four telegraph companies – and more than 10,000 telephones.

On a chilly fall morning in 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,” now the Tulsa suburb Glenpool.

This November 22 discovery well will help make Tulsa the “Oil Capital of the World.”

With daily production soon exceeding 120,000 barrels, Glenn Pool exceeds Tulsa County’s earlier “Red Fork Gusher” – and the giant Spindletop discovery near Beaumont, Texas, four years earlier. Read the rest of this entry »

The Chief Roughneck Award annually recognizes “one individual whose accomplishments and character best represent the highest ideals of the oil and natural gas industry.” Read the rest of this entry »

Among its records for dry holes, Florida’s first – but certainly not last – unsuccessful attempt to find commercially viable oil reserves began in 1901, not far from the Gulf Coast panhandle town of Pensacola.

Florida’s first oil well’s site is by present day Big Cypress Preserve in southwest Florida, about a 30 minute drive from the resort city of Naples — where a museum exhibit describes the discovery.

Two test wells were drilled, the first to 1,620 feet and the second a hundred feet deeper. Both were abandoned. Whether that wildcatter was following science or intuition, contemporary accounts of his efforts reveal only a small historical footnote: “Florida’s first dry holes.”

Twenty years later, as America’s oil demand continued to soar, oil still had not been found in Florida. The state’s panhandle still looked promising – despite a growing list of failed drilling ventures.

Indian legends and a wildcat stock promoter’s claim of oil inspired yet another attempt near today’s Falling Waters Park, about 100 miles east of Pensacola. A tall, wooden derrick and steam-driven rig were used to drill.

At a depth 3,900 feet, a brief showing of natural gas excited area residents with a false report of a possible gusher. Undeterred, the oilmen continued to drill to a depth of 4,912 feet before finally giving up.

No oil of commercial quantity was found and the well was capped in 1921. Another dry hole. Read the rest of this entry »

The Boy Scouts of America geology merit badge began in 1911 as a mining badge – one of less than 30 scouting merit badges. The mining badge evolved into the rocks and minerals badge and in 1953 became the geology merit badge.

Read the rest of this entry »

It was a foggy Tuesday morning, August 16, 1927, as eight airplanes prepared for takeoff before a crowd of more than 50,000 at the Oakland Airport in California. Aviation history was about to be made with a race to Honolulu – thanks to a revolutionary petroleum product: Phillips Nu-Aviation Gasoline.

Four days after Charles Lindbergh’s famous transatlantic flight in May of 1927, James Dole of the Dole Pineapple Company offered a $25,000 first prize for an air race of its own – across the Pacific from Oakland to Honolulu, Hawaii.

Phillips Petroleum Co. vice presidents L.E. Phillips and Clyde Alexander, pilot Arthur Goebel Jr., and legendary oilman Frank Phillips with the 1927 racing airplane – Woolaroc.

Arthur Goebel Jr., a veteran barnstormer and Hollywood stunt pilot joined seven other aircraft in the race, which took place just three months after Lindbergh’s historic flight. Goebel found a sponsor and friend in Frank Phillips, president of Phillips Petroleum Company, Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

Phillips Petroleum – now ConocoPhillips – was involved early in aviation fuel research and had already provided high gravity gasoline for some of the first mail-carrying airplanes after World War I. But in 1927, aviation fuel technology was still in its infancy.

Phillips loaned Goebel $4,500 needed to take delivery of a Travel Air 5000 monoplane. Goebel promised to use a new aviation fuel developed by Phillips Petroleum for the planned 2,439-mile flight over the Pacific. They named the airplane “Woolaroc,” the name of Frank Phillips’ ranch near Bartlesville. Read the rest of this entry »

July 2, 1910 – President Taft establishes Naval Petroleum Reserves

The U.S.S. Texas was the last American battleship to be built with coal-fired boilers. By 1927 she had been converted to burn fuel oil and served throughout World War II. The battleship now is a floating museum in LaPorte, Texas.

As the U.S. Navy rapidly converts from coal to oil-burning ships, President William Howard Taft establishes three Naval Petroleum Reserves.

National security concerns about an assured oil supply in the event of war or a national emergency resulted in the Pickett Act of 1910, which authorizes the president to withdraw large areas of potential oil-bearing lands in California and Wyoming as sources of fuel for the Navy.

Within 15 years, the properties that make up the Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale Reserves include the three Naval Petroleum Reserves and three Naval Oil Shale Reserves. A Naval Petroleum Reserve Number Four, on the north slope of Alaska, is added in 1923.

“As not only the largest owner of oil lands, but as a prospective large consumer of oil by reason of the increasing use of fuel oil by the Navy, the federal government is directly concerned both in encouraging rational development and at the same time insuring the longest possible life to the oil supply.” -  Message to Congress by President Taft Read the rest of this entry »

Today known more correctly as Apatosaurus, this 70-foot “Dino” traveled more 10,000 miles through 25 states and 38 major cities — stopping at shopping centers and other venues where crowds of children were introduced to the wonders of prehistory, courtesy of Sinclair Oil.

Formed by Harry F. Sinclair in 1916, Sinclair Oil Corporation, is one of the oldest continuous names in the oil industry. The company will create a marketing icon whose popularity with children – and educational value – remains to this day. Read the rest of this entry »

Petroleum companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico’s outer continental shelf are required to provide detailed sonar data in areas that have archaeological potential.

Several federal agencies today review about 1,700 oil and natural gas company surveys every year. The surveys have revealed more than 100 historic shipwrecks. In 2001, scientists at the Minerals Management Service noted that “a German submarine definitely got our attention.” Read the rest of this entry »

March 5, 1963 – Petroleum Product receives Patent

Arthur Melin receives a U.S. Patent (No. 3,079,728) for a “Hoop Toy.”

Oil Creek Plastics of Titusville, Pennsylvania, celebrates the 150th anniversary of the U.S. petroleum industry during a 2009 parade.

The Wham-O Company, founded in 1948 by Melin and partner Richard Knerr, previously trademarked the name “Hula Hoop.”

The California company began using Marlex, a new plastic from Phillips Petroleum Company of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, to manufacture its first hoop in 1958.

An estimated 20 million Hula Hoops are sold in six months.

Although Phillips Petroleum introduced Marlex polyethylene in 1954, there was little demand until orders came from the toy company that began by making wooden slingshots. In 1957 Wham-O added a plastic flying disc, the “Pluto Platter” – today’s Frisbee – to its products. The next year, the Marlex-made Hula Hoop was introduced, launching a national craze. Read the rest of this entry »

February 28, 1935 – Nylon is World’s First Synthetic Fiber

The world’s first synthetic fiber – nylon – is discovered by a former Harvard professor working at a DuPont Corporation research laboratory. Later called Nylon 6 by scientists, the revolutionary product comes from chemicals found in petroleum.

Wallace Carothers had experimented with artificial materials for more than six years. He previously discovered neoprene rubber (commonly used in wetsuits) and made major contributions to understanding polymers – molecules composed in long chains.

DuPont names the new petroleum product nylon – although chemists call it Nylon 6 because the adipic acid and hexamethylene diamine each contain 6 carbon atoms per molecule. Strong and durable petroleum-based polymer products like nylon are in common daily use throughout the world.

Just 32-years-old, Carothers creates fibers when he combines the chemicals amine, hexamethylene diamine, and adipic acid. He forms a polymer chain using a process in which individual molecules join together with water as a byproduct. But the fibers are weak, explains a PBS series, A Science Odyssey: People and Discoveries.

“Carothers’ breakthrough came when he realized the water produced by the reaction was dropping back into the mixture and getting in the way of more polymers forming,” notes the PBS website. “He adjusted his equipment so that the water was distilled and removed from the system. It worked!” Read the rest of this entry »

February 20, 1959 – First LNG Tanker arrives in England

After a three-week voyage, the Methane Pioneer – the world’s first liquefied natural gas tanker – arrives at the world’s first LNG terminal at Canvey Island, England, from Lake Charles, Louisiana.

The world’s first liquefied natural gas tanker is a converted World War II liberty freighter.

The vessel, a converted World War II liberty freighter, contains five, 7,000-barrel aluminum tanks supported by balsa wood and insulated with plywood and urethane, according to the Center for Energy Economics (CEE).

“This event demonstrated that large quantities of liquefied natural gas could be transported safely across the ocean,” notes CEE, a research arm of the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas.

The 340-foot Methane Pioneer, owned by the Comstock Liquid Methane Corporation, refrigerates its cargo to minus 285 degrees Fahrenheit. When vaporized, the LNG expands by the ratio of 600 to one.

“German engineer Karl Von Linde built the first practical compressor refrigeration machine in Munich in 1873,” CEE explains. “The first LNG plant was built in West Virginia in 1912 and began operation in 1917. The first commercial liquefaction plant was built in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1941.” Read the rest of this entry »

This section of the society’s energy education contacts begins with petroleum-related programs of the U.S. government, including a list of federal resources for teachers, students and industry researchers. Also see our list of State Energy Education Contacts.

Read the rest of this entry »

An updated state-by-state list of resources and contacts for teachers, students and researchers. Also see our list of National Energy Education Contacts.

This collection of state contacts offers education programs (designed for grades kindergarten through 12th grade) with emphasis on oil and natural gas exploration and production. It is a research product of the American Oil & Gas Historical Society — as a service to society members and supporters.

Contact the society and support its energy education mission.

When petroleum leaves the wellhead and reaches a refinery, it has moved into what is considered the “downstream” segment of the industry. Information about the “upstream” segment (exploration and production) is available from sources — in the oil and natural gas producing states.

Since 1930, the Independent Petroleum Association of American has published an annual magazine containing detailed statistics — including drilling, production, prices and financial information, operating rotary rigs, and much more.

For a collection of individual state geological surveys in all 50 states, visit theAssociation of American State Geologists. Many of the following resources are documented from updated information of the U.S. Department of Energy’s booklet Energy Education Resources: Kindergarten through 12th Grade – edited to narrow scope to oil and natural gas. Read the rest of this entry »

The Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center opened April 1, 2011, in Enid, Oklahoma.

Honoring America’s Petroleum Pioneers

Many universities and colleges with petroleum-related curricula honor accomplishments of their oil patch alumni. Ohio’s Marietta College, with a renowned geology and petroleum engineering program, maintains a Petroleum and Geology Hall of Fame on campus.

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, is “dedicated to those who cherished the freedom to dare, and whose work and service helped build the Permian Basin.”

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

The Petroleum History Institute’s Larry Woodfork, left, presented the 2011 Colonel Edwin L. Drake Legendary Oilman Award to I.L. “Ike” Morris, founder and CEO of Waco Oil and Gas Company, Inc., Glenville, West Virginia.

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.

Every September since 1969, the West Virginia Oil and Gas Festival is hosted by Sistersville, an historic oil community on the Ohio River. In addition to antique engine shows, a parade and the crowning of an Oil and Gas Queen, festival organizers host a banquet for its West Virginia Oil and Gas Man of the Year.

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.”

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.

Chronicle of Gulf of Mexico Petroleum History

The Offshore Oil and Gas History Project “draws from economic research, oral histories, photographs, artifacts — and personal accounts gathered to examine the historical evolution of the offshore oil and gas industry and its effects on Louisiana’s coastal culture, economy, landscape, and society.”

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.”

Latest Updates at News

Oklahoma Historical Society Annual Meeting

“Music and Folklore from the Oklahoma Oil Patch” is among the planned sessions when members of the Oklahoma Historical Society gather April 18-20, 2012, in Miami, Oklahoma.

Opened in 1929 as a vaudeville theatre and movie palace, the “Coleman Theatre Beautiful” of Miami, Oklahoma, has never been “dark” since. It will host Oklahoma Historical Society members in April.

Educational sessions and evening events will take place at the elegant Coleman Theatre, according to Annual Meeting Committee Chair Leonard Logan.

“The theme of the annual meeting this year is Crossroads of Creativity: The Impact of Oklahoma on Popular Culture,” Logan explains. “Festivities will begin Wednesday evening with a Coffeehouse Concert at the Coleman Theatre featuring Mason Williams and a host of outstanding musicians who were prominent in the folk music scene as experienced in coffeehouses in Oklahoma and throughout the nation in the 1950s.”

Program sessions on Thursday, April 19, and Friday, April 20, will feature presentations on topics such as “The Image of American Indians in Movies and Popular Culture, Images of Oklahoma in Popular Culture, The Coffeehouse Era in Oklahoma, Impact of Oklahomans on Images of the American West, Music Festivals and Circuses in Rural Oklahoma, Oklahoma’s  Contributions to Jazz and Blues, Oklahoma Authors and Cartoonists  - and Music and Folklore from the Oklahoma Oil Patch. Read the rest of this entry »