Oilfield discovered in May 1940 — after 57 years of unsuccessful searches for a “vein of petroleum.”
Pawnee Royalty Company completed a successful wildcat oil well in Nebraska’s Richardson County on May 1940, after lawmakers in Lincoln, eager for petroleum tax revenue, offered offered a $15,000 bounty.
After more than a half century of drilling expensive “dry holes,” Nebraska’s first commercial oil well was completed on May 29, 1940, in the far southeastern corner of the state. The Pawnee Royalty Company made the discovery west of Falls City. The company had drilled two unsuccessful wells near Falls City in 1939.
Nebraska’s oil production reached more than 2.51 million barrels of oil in 2012 (above), but declined to about 1.71 million barrels of oil by 2021, according to the Nebraska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.
An historical marker in Richardson County reports the earliest “publicized report of oil in Nebraska had been an 1883 newspaper account of a ‘vein of petroleum’ discovered in the same county.”
“Over the next 57 years the search for oil consumed thousands of dollars, and hundreds of wells were drilled throughout Nebraska,” adds the marker, erected by the Nebraska Petroleum Council. “Traces of oil were reported at various locations across the state, but Nebraska did not have a producing well until 1940.”
Oil Discovery Bounty
Eager to become an oil-producing state, the Nebraska legislature had offered a $15,000 bonus for any oil well in Nebraska to produce 50 barrels daily for 60 consecutive days. Florida lawmakers, also eager for oil revenue, would do the same (see First Florida Oil Well).
Circa 1940s postcard depicts “pool of oil” produced by the Bucholz Well No. 1 near Falls City, Nebraska.
Although unsuccessful, the two earlier Pawnee Royalty Company wells had shown encouraging signs near Falls City. A third well, Bucholz No. 1, began drilling on April 22, 1940.
“On May 29, 1940, the well began producing and averaged 169-1/2 barrels daily for the first 60 days,” notes the historic marker. “Bucholz Well No. 1 thus easily qualified for a $15,000 bonus.”
Richardson County enjoyed an drilling boom for three years. The state’s first successful oil well was completed five miles east of the the county’s “vein of petroleum” first reported in 1883.
SW Nebraska Oilfields
Modern Nebraska petroleum production would come from the southwestern panhandle, where a 1949 discovery well produced 225 barrels of oil a day from a depth of 4,429 feet. Marathon Oil completed the well, the Mary Egging No. 1, five miles southeast of Gurley in Cheyenne County.
The Marathon oil discovery in western Nebraska ended 60 years of drilling expensive “dry holes” in that part of the state, according to a roadside marker on U.S. 385 between Sidney and Gurley.
According to the marker, interest in finding oil in western Nebraska began in 1889, near Crawford, in the northwest corner of the Nebraska Panhandle, and “drilling there took place in 1903 near Chadron, also in the northern part of the Panhandle.”
Prior to 1950, Nebraska had no office to report production for record keeping. Oil production from 1939 to 1949 is estimated by the Geological Survey to have been almost six million barrels.
A 1917 exploratory well, “drilled in the southwest Panhandle, near Harrisburg, failed,” the marker adds. “Oil searchers sunk many other dry test wells in western Nebraska until success came in 1949.”
By 1966, wells in the western Nebraska oilfields produced more than 216 million barrels of oil. “The pioneer efforts in this area have resulted in a major contribution to the economy of the state,” concludes the Nebraska State Historical Society.
New technologies, including horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, brought renewed activity to Nebraska in the 2000s. Exploration company geologists began testing the Niobrara Shale in southwestern part of the state.
Learn about the earliest oilfield discoveries in other U.S. producing states in First Oil Discoveries.
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please become an AOGHS annual supporter and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. © 2024 Bruce A. Wells.
Citation Information – Article Title: “First Nebraska Oil Well.” Author: Aoghs.org Editors. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL:https://aoghs.org/petroleum-pioneers/first-nebraska-oil-well. Last Updated: May 24, 2024. Original Published Date: May 26, 2013.
