Oil Field Artillery

Several oil and natural gas museums educate visitors about an early fire-fighting technology. 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.

A cloud of black smoke marks the site of an early oil tank fire being fought with oil field artillery as spectators look on. This rare photograph is from the collection of the Butler County History Center & Kansas Oil Museum in El Dorado. The museum features a cannon exhibit, a large collection of antique drilling rigs — and a recreated boom town.

“Oil Fires, like Battles, are fought by Artillery” is the catchy phrase in an 1880s magazine article:

Lightning had struck the derrick, followed pipe connections into a nearby tank and ignited natural gas, which rises from freshly produced oil. Immediately following this blinding flash, the black smoke began to roll out.

“A Thunder-Storm in the Oil Country,” an October 22, 1884, article in Tech magazine, describes what happened next:

“Without stopping to watch the burning tank-house and derrick, we followed the oil to see where it would go. By some mischance the mouth of the ravine had been blocked up and the stream turned abruptly and spread out over the alluvial plain.

“Here, on a large smooth farm, were six iron storage tanks, about 80 feet in diameter and 25 feet high, each holding 30,000 barrels of oil. The burning oil spread with fearful rapidity over the level surface, and finally touched the sides of the nearest tank.

“Suddenly, with loud explosion, the heavy plank and iron cover of the tank was thrown into the air, and thick smoke rolled out. Already the news of the fire had been telegraphed to the central office and all its available men and teams in the neighborhood ordered to the scene. The tanks, now heated on the outside as well as inside, foamed and bubbled like an enormous retort, every ejection only serving to increase the heat.

This “oil field artillery” exhibit is at the Oklahoma Oil Museum in Seminole also educates visitors about an early fire-fighting technology. 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.

“The writhing masses of black smoke were streaked with reddish flames and white steam from the little pools of water. The area of the fire rapidly extended and soon loud explosions in quick succession told that the two nearest tanks had caught.

“These tanks, surrounded by fire, in turn boiled and foamed, and the heat, even at a distance, was so intense that the workmen could not approach near enough to dig ditches between the remaining tanks and the fire.

“By this time arrived the long looked for cannon; for oil fires, like battles, are fought by artillery. Since the great destruction is caused by the oil becoming overheated, foaming and being projected to a distance, it is usually desirable to let it out of the tank to burn on the ground in thin layers; so small cannon throwing a three-inch solid shot are kept at various stations throughout the region for this purpose.

The first major oil field in Texas is discovered in Corsicana in 1894 — by a drilling contractor hired by the city to find water. In Petroleum Park a plaque reads: “This cannon stood at the Magnolia Petroleum tank farm. It was used to shoot a hole in the bottom of the cypress tanks if lightning struck. The oil would drain into a pit around the tanks and be pumped away. The cannon was donated by Mobil Oil Company in 1969.”

“The cannon was placed in position, aimed at points below the supposed level of the oil and fired. The marksmanship at first was not very good, and as many shots glanced off the iron plates as penetrated, but after a while nearly every report was followed by an outburst. The oil in the three tanks was slowly drawn down by this means and did not again foam over the top, and the supply to the river being thus cut off the fire then soon died away.

“It was not till the sixth day from that on which we saw the first tank ignited that the columns of flame and smoke disappeared. During this time 180,000 barrels of crude oil had been consumed, besides the six tanks, costing $10,000 each, destroyed.”

A park in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, includes an “oil patch cannon.”

Visitors to Johnstone Park in Bartlesville can view a replica of the Nellie Johnstone No. 1 cable-tool derrick that drilled the first commercial oil well drilled in what is now the state of Oklahoma on April 15, 1897. Near the replica, which marks the spot of the original site, is an “oil patch cannon” exhibit.

In addition to the oil field cannons exhibited in Bartlesville’s Johnstone Park, the Kansas Oil Museum in Butler County, and the Oklahoma Oil Museum in Seminole, there’s another educating tourists in Ohio.

The Wood County Historical Center and Museum in Bowling Green, Ohio, proudly displays its own “unusual fire extinguisher” among its collection of artifacts. The Buckeye Pipeline Company of Norwood donated the cannon, according to the museum’s Kelli King.

Wood County Historical Society

“The cannon, cast in North Baltimore (Ohio), was used in the 1920s in Cygnet before being moved to Northwood,” Kelli says. “More information about Northwest Ohio’s oil and gas boom can be found in the documentary ‘Ohio Crude’ or in the exhibit ‘Wood County in Motion,’ at the museum.”

“Our neighbors in Hancock and Allen counties also have an extensive collection of oil and gas boom artifacts and documentation,” she adds.

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