A Chronology of U.S. Oil & Gas

This Week in Petroleum History

This Week in Petroleum History: March 18 – 24

March 18, 1937 - New London School Explosion Tragedy -  With just minutes left in the school day, a natural gas explosion destroyed the New London High School in Rusk County, Texas. Odorless gas (a residual natural gas called casing-head gas) had leaked into the...

This Week in Petroleum History: March 11 – 17

March 11, 1829 - Kentucky Salt Well Driller discovers Oil - Boring for brine with a simple spring-pole method on a farm near Burkesville, Kentucky, Martin Beatty found oil at a depth of 171 feet. Disappointed, he searched elsewhere. Beatty drilled brine wells to meet...

This Week in Petroleum History: March 4 – 10

March 4, 1918 - West Virginia Well sets World Depth Record - Hope Natural Gas Company completed an oil well at a depth of 7,386 feet on the Martha Goff farm in Harrison County, West Virginia. The well, drilled northeast of Clarksburg using cable-tools, was the world's...

This Week in Petroleum History: February 26-March 3

  February 27, 1925 - Congress passes Osage Indians Act -  As a result of murders and a "reign of terror" in the Osage Nation, the U.S. Congress passed the Osage Indians Act of 1925, prohibiting non-Osages from inheriting headrights of tribal members possessing more...

This Week in Petroleum History: February 19 – 25

February 19, 1863 - First Pipeline Attempt to link Oilfield to Refinery - With teamsters dominating oil transportation in Pennsylvania, independent producer James L. Hutchings designed and constructed a pipeline to transport oil from a well on a farm at Oil Creek to a...

This Week in Petroleum History: February 12 – 18

February 12, 1954 - First Nevada Oil Well - After hundreds of dry holes (the first drilled near Reno in 1907), Nevada became a petroleum-producing state. Shell Oil Company's second test of its Eagle Springs No. 1 well in Nye County produced commercial amounts of oil....

This Week in Petroleum History: February 5 – 11

February 5, 1873 - Death of an Illegal Oil Well Shooter - Andrew Dalrymple, allegedly a frequent "moonlight oil well shooter" in the Tidioute, Pennsylvania, region, was killed in a nitroglycerin explosion at his home on Dennis Run, the Titusville Morning Herald...

This Week in Petroleum History: January 29 – February 4

January 29, 1850 – Kerosene Inventor patents Gasification Process -  Canadian geologist Abraham Gessner received a U.S. patent for a gas manufacturing process, "to enable others skilled in the art...for obtaining of illuminating gas from compact and fluid bitumen...

This Week in Petroleum History: January 22 – 28

January 22, 1861 - Pennsylvania Refinery produces Kerosene -  The first U.S. multiple-still refinery was brought on-stream one mile south of Titusville, Pennsylvania, by William Barnsdall, who had drilled the second successful well after Edwin Drake's first U.S. oil...

This Week in Petroleum History: January 15 – 21

January 17, 1911 - Oilfield Discovery leads to North Texas Boom - The Producers Oil Company discovered the Electra oilfield in North Texas, bringing the first commercial oil production to Wichita County. The Waggoner No. 5 well produced 50 barrels per day from a depth...

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