January 17, 1911 – North Texas Discovery will lead to Oil Boom

The Electra oilfield is revealed in Texas with the first commercial oil discovery in Wichita County. The Producers Oil Company well Waggoner No. 5 comes in at 50 barrels per day from a depth of 1,825 feet on land owned by rancher William T. Waggoner.

Oil previously had been found by Waggoner, who often drilled for water to supply his horse and cattle operations. “At first, there weren’t any cars, and about the only thing oil was good for was to help repel chicken house mites,” notes one historian. The discovery well, although a small producer, will bring new drilling to the county — led by Producers Oil, Clayco, and Magnolia Petroleum Company.

A true oil boom will begin when the Clayco No. 1 well erupts as a gusher on April 1. By September the Electra oilfield is producing 6,000 barrels of oil each day. The Texas Company (later Texaco) builds a pipeline to its Dallas refinery. At the end of 1911, the “Electra Arch” is producing almost 900,000 barrels of oil a year.

“Detailed geological and geophysical prospecting using the vast amount of information collected through the years, supplemented with new exploration technology, will lead to the discovery and economical production of oil reserves that have been overlooked,” exclaims the Waggoner Ranch website. The Electra Arch area is productive from just below the surface (the Permian age) down to about 5,500 feet (Ordovician).

The Wichita County town — named after Waggoner’s daughter — annually celebrates its oil and natural gas heritage. In 2001, Texas legislators designated Electra as the “Pump Jack Capital” of Texas.

Learn more North Texas petroleum history in the historical society’s article, the “Felty Outdoor Oil Museum,” about a multigenerational oil family in Burkburnett. Wichita Falls is headquarters of the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers.

January 19, 1922 – Geological Survey predicts End of Oil

The U.S. Geological Survey predicts America’s oil supply will run out in 20 years. Warnings of oil shortages have been made for most of the 20th century, according to geologist and geophysicist David Deming of the University of Oklahoma.

In a January 2000 paper, “Oil: Are We Running Out?,” Deming cites a 1950 monograph, “A Case History of Oil-Shortage Scare” that includes six claims prior to 1950: “The Model T Scare — 1916; the Gasless Sunday Scare — 1918; the John Bull Scare — 1920-23; the Ickes Petroleum Reserves Scare — 1943-44; the Cold War Scare — 1946-47; and the Cold Winter Scare — 1947-48.”

January 19, 1965 – Swimming Socket Wrenches

Howard L. Shatto Jr. patents an “underwater manipulator with suction support device” — precursor to today’s modern remotely operated underwater vehicles.

Shatto and others help make Shell Oil Company an early leader in offshore oilfield development thanks to new technologies. Their 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. In his 1965 patent description (patent no. 3,165,899), Shatto explains how his underwater device particularly relates to the offshore petroleum industry.

“A recent development at offshore locations is the installation of large amount of underwater equipment used in producing oil fields and gas fields situated many miles from shore,” he says. “Many of the wells are being drilled in water up to 600 feet deep, a depth greater than divers can safely work.”

The inventor adds that a primary objective of his design is to provide a “manipulator device” with articulated arms that can secure itself to a wellhead on the ocean floor. “Each of the arms is provided at its outer end with a suitable suction means in the form of a suction cup.”

Modern offshore remotely operated vehicles can lift more 1,000 pounds and operate at more than 10,000-foot depths. The petroleum industry remains the principle user of this space-age, underwater technology. Shatto — inducted into the Houston-based Offshore Energy Center’s Industry Pioneers Hall of Fame in 2000 — receives other patents for his offshore inventions.

“A world-respected innovator in the areas of dynamic positioning and remotely-operated vehicles (ROV), Howard Shatto led in the design of the first subsea wellheads for drilling and production using an ROV,” the Offshore Energy Center notes.

“He conceived the world’s first automatic control for dynamic positioning on Shell’s Eureka core drillship in 1960. It controlled surge, sway and yaw independently and resolved thruster commands, a procedure followed on the more than 1,300 dynamic positioning systems built since then.”

Shatto will also led in the development of the Sedco-445 – “the world’s first dynamic positioning oil exploration drillship.”

Today, offshore exploration is prompting a new generation of marine robotics – the autonomous underwater vehicle, which abandons the use of a cable connection to the mother ship. Defined as “a crewless, non-tethered submersible which operates independent of direct human control,” these vessels can also make detailed maps of seabed topography and hazards.

Learn more at “ROVs — Swimming Socket Wrenches” and “Deep Sea Roughnecks.”

January 20, 1886 – Ohio Natural Gas

The spectacular natural gas well — the “Great Karg Well” of Findlay, Ohio — comes in with an initial flow of 12 million cubic feet per day. The pressure is so great it cannot be controlled by the technology of the time. Its flame becomes a tourist attraction that burns for four months.

Ohio’s first natural gas well was drilled in Findlay two years earlier by the Findlay Natural Gas Company, formed by Dr. Charles Oesterle. However, the Karg well, then the largest in the world, launches the state’s first major natural gas boom — and brings many new industries.

Glass companies especially are “lured by free or cheap gas for fuel,” notes an historical marker at the Richardson Glass Works in Finlay. “They included eight window, two bottle, two chimney lamp, one light bulb, one novelty, and five tableware glass factories.”

By 1887, Findlay will become known as the “City of Light,” adds another nearby historical marker at the first field office for the Ohio Oil Company — established the same year by five independent oil producers. After becoming an international exploration and production company, in 1962 Ohio Oil Company will change its name to today’s Marathon Oil Company.

The Hancock Historical Museum of Findlay includes natural gas exhibits from the region and is less than two miles from the site of the famous well. Also learn how natural gas discoveries bring industries to neighboring Indiana in “Indiana Natural Gas Boom.”

January 21, 1865 - Civil War Veteran tests an Oil Well “Exploding Torpedo”

Civil War veteran Col. Edward A. L. Roberts (1829-1881) conducts his first experiment to increase oil production by using an explosive charge deep in the well. He twice detonates eight pounds of black powder 465 feet deep in the wellbore of the Ladies Well on Watson’s Flats south of Titusville, Pennsylvania.

The “shooting” of the well increases daily production from a few barrels to more than 40 barrels. Col. Roberts — who had fought at the 1862 battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia — says his idea came watching explosive Confederate artillery rounds plunging into a canal on the battlefield. His observations gave him an idea that would evolve into what he described as “superincumbent fluid tamping.”

In 1866, the Titusville Morning Herald reports: “Our attention has been called to a series of experiments that have been made in the wells of various localities by Col. Roberts, with his newly patented torpedo. The results have in many cases been astonishing. The torpedo, which is an iron case, containing an amount of powder varying from 15 pounds to 20 pounds, is lowered into the well, down to the spot, as near as can be ascertained, where it is necessary to explode it. It is then exploded by means of a cap on the torpedo, connected with the top of the shell by a wire.”

Modern well fracturing — or “fracking” — will evolve from Col. Roberts’ success. He will received the first of his many patents for an “exploding torpedo” on  April 25, 1865. Read more about his revolutionary invention in “Shooters – A “Fracking” History.”

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