by Bruce Wells | May 12, 2025 | This Week in Petroleum History
May 12, 2007 – Oil Museums open in Oklahoma –
ConocoPhillips opened two petroleum museums as part of the 2007 Oklahoma statehood centennial celebrations (see ConocoPhillips Petroleum Museums). The company reportedly spent $10 million on state-of-the-art museums in Bartlesville and Ponca City.
Conoco began in the 1880s as the Continental Oil Company, a grease and kerosene distributor in Utah, before merging with Ponca City-based Marland Oil Company in 1929. Conoco merged with Phillips Petroleum Company of Bartlesville in 2002. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | May 8, 2025 | Petroleum Pioneers
Pennsylvania drillers kept oil production from the 1882 Warren County well a closely guarded secret.
Every year in densely wooded Cherry Grove, Pennsylvania, community members celebrate a 19th-century oil well and its place in American petroleum history. Led by local and visiting oil patch historians in June 2024, the Cherry Grove Old Home and Community Day featured tours of the well that once shook global petroleum markets.
When daily oil production from the “Mystery Well” was revealed in 1882, oil prices plunged worldwide. The discovery well drilled on lot 646 in the wilderness of Warren County had been a closely guarded secret. (more…)
