by Bruce Wells | Aug 25, 2025 | This Week in Petroleum History
After years of growth thanks to discoveries at Spindletop and Sour Lake, the Texas Corporation was incorporated, acquiring all of the outstanding stock of the Texas Company, which was dissolved the next year. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Aug 21, 2025 | Petroleum Art
A centennial oil stamp commemorating the birth of the U.S. oil and natural gas industry was issued on August 27, 1959, by Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield, who proclaimed: “The American people have great reason to be indebted to this industry. It has supplied most of the power that has made the American standard of living possible.”
As the sesquicentennial of the first U.S. well drilled to produce oil approached in 2009, a special “Oil 150” committee sought U.S. Postal Service approval for a commemorative stamp. The committee and historians in more than 30 petroleum-producing states petitioned for a stamp similar to one issued for the industry’s 1959 centennial of the first commercial U.S. oil well. (more…)
