October 3, 1930 – Discovery of the Giant East Texas Oilfield
 
With a crowd of more than 4,000 landowners, leaseholders, stockholders, creditors and spectators watching, Daisy Bradford No. 3 comes in as a gusher near Kilgore, Texas.

Two months later, another wildcat well will strike oil about 10 miles to the north. A third well even farther north brings another large oil discovery. At first, the distance between these wells suggests that they are separate fields. Petroleum geologists are stunned when it becomes apparent the discoveries are from the same formation (the Woodbine)  — 140,000 acres.  

"Thousands crowded their way to the site of Daisy Bradford No. 3, hoping to be there when and if oil gushed from the well to wash away the misery of the Great Depression," notes one Kilgore, Texas, historian. Independent oilman Columbus "Dad" Joiner will discover the East Texas oilfield, which remains the largest in the lower-48 states.

“All of East Texas waited expectantly while Columbus ‘Dad’ Joiner inched his way toward oil,” notes Jack Elder in his book, The Glory Days. “Thousands crowded their way to the site of Daisy Bradford No. 3, hoping to be there when and if oil gushed from the well to wash away the misery of the Great Depression.”

The “Black Giant” oilfield has yielded more than five billion barrels since 1930.

When Daisy Bradford No. 3 came in, the thousands of spectators who cheered madly celebrated their newfound fortunes, and congratulated Joiner, the independent oilman who overcame many obstacles — and dry holes– to finally succeed.

Recognizing the significance of the first discovery before the rest of the industry, another oilman, H. L. Hunt, purchases the Daisy Bradford No. 3 well and nearby leases from Joiner. By the summer of 1931 about 900,000 barrels of oil per day are being produced from 1,200 wells. The oilfield provides the financial base for the founding of Hunt Oil Company in 1934.
 
The East Texas field remains the largest and most prolific oil reservoir ever discovered in the contiguous United States. The “Black Giant” has yielded more than five billion barrels — and is still producing.

Read “H.L Hunt and the East Texas Oilfield.”

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

Established with funding from the Hunt Oil Company, the museum at Kilgore College houses recreations of the boomtown atmosphere of the early 1930s in the largest oil field inside the United States. 
 

Created with the assistance of local oil and natural gas companies, "Boomtown, USA," is the most popular East Texas Oil Museum indoor exhibit --- a full scale town full of stores, people, animals, and machinery depicting the lively activity of a town booming in oil.

“Here are the people, their towns, their personal habits, their tools and their pastimes, all colorfully depicted in dioramas, movies, sound presentations and actual antiques donated by East Texas citizens,” says White. The early discoveries created new towns, new ways of living, and a livelihood for thousands of East Texas citizens. One downtown block in Kilgore, the “World’s Richest Acre Park,” once contained the greatest concentration of oil wells in the world — producing more than 2.5 million barrels of oil.

The oil museum in Kilgore, as well as ones in Beaumont and Galveston (and the region’s modern petroleum story) are featured in an educational booklet, American Oil & Gas Families, East Texas Independents, published by the historical Society in June 2004. Download it as a PDF.
 
October 4, 1917 – Early California Oilfield
 
The Montebello field in the Baldwin Hills of Southern California is discovered when Standard Oil of California’s Baldwin No. 3 oil well comes in with a flow of 7,500 barrels per day from an oil-rich sand at 3,755 feet. It will become one of the Los Angeles County’s top 10 and longest producing fields with 106 wells still producing 648,000 barrels of oil in 2008.

October 6, 1915 – Kansas Oilfield brings in Mid-Continent Production

A large collection of drilling rigs -- and a recreated boom town -- are featured at the Butler County Historical Center and Kansas Oil Museum in El Dorado.

Cities Service Company drilling contractors Golden and Obins bring in the Stapleton No. 1 — discovery well for the 34-square-mile El Dorado oilfield east of Wichita, Kansas. Using scientific geological survey methodology for the first time, Cities Service had identified a promising anticline and leased 30,000 acres near the town of El Dorado in Butler County.
 
The Stapleton well’s first show of oil was at about 600 foot depth, but drilling continued to 2,500 feet into a pay zone yielding 175 barrels a day, prompting Gulf Oil, Standard Oil, and other companies to secure leases.
 
When the United States enters World War I, development of the field escalates and in 1918, the El Dorado oilfield produces almost 29 million barrels of oil. The Stapleton No. 1 well, which produces until 1967, today is visited by tourists — as is the Kansas Oil Museum. The Butler County History Center’s oil museum in El Dorado includes 20 acres of oil industry equipment exhibits, models of the region’s refinery history, and a recreated 1920s oil boom town’s main street. 
 
October 7, 1929 – Teapot Dome Bribe brings Jail Time

Wyoming's Teapot Dome was a Naval Petroleum Reserve established by President William Taft in 1910.

Secretary of Interior Albert B. Fall, begins serving a one-year sentence in New Mexico’s Santa Fe Penitentiary for taking a $100,000 bribe in the Teapot Dome scandal. Almost 30,000 acres of public lands in Natrona County, Wyoming, had been established as a Naval Petroleum Reserve by President William Taft in 1910; in May 1921, President Warren G. Harding’s executive order gave Fall complete control of all Naval Reserves.
 
In 1922, without competitive bidding, Fall leased Teapot Dome fields to Harry Sinclair of Sinclair Oil Company and Elk Hills, California, fields to Edward Doheny. In subsequent Senate hearings, it emerged that cash was delivered to Fall in his apartment at the Wardman Park Hotel in Washington. Fall was convicted for taking a bribe; Sinclair and Doheny were acquitted.

October 8, 1923 – Tulsa hosts First Oil Expo

Beginning in 1923, Tulsa, Oklahoma, will host the International Petroleum Exposition for more than five decades.

Five thousand visitors brave torrents of rain for opening day of the first annual International Petroleum Exposition and Congress in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma.

More than 200 exhibitors display the most complete line of oil country goods ever assembled and it is midnight before the last guest leaves the grounds.  In subsequent years, attendance grows to over 120,000 and the Exposition moves first to the old Tulsa circus grounds, and then to a permanent home at the Tulsa State Fairgrounds.

The trademark Golden Driller statue is added in 1966 as attendance peaks. Economic shocks beginning with the 1973 OPEC oil embargo depress the industry and after 57 years, the International Petroleum Exposition closes for good in 1979 as a result of growing competition from the annual Offshore Technology Conference in Houston.

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