by Bruce Wells | May 6, 2024 | This Week in Petroleum History
May 7, 1920 – Halliburton founds Well Cementing Company in Oklahoma –
As mid-continent oil and gas discoveries continued, Erle Palmer Halliburton founded the Halliburton Company as an oilfield well service and cementing company. The Wilson, Oklahoma, venture succeeded his New Method Oil Cementing Company, established a year earlier during the Burkburnett oil boom in North Texas.
An Erle P. Halliburton statue was dedicated in 1993 in Duncan, Oklahoma.
In 1922, Halliburton patented an innovative “jet-cement” mixer that increased the speed and quality of the mixing process. By the end of the year, 17 Halliburton trucks were cementing wells in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Arkansas. Cement injection protects the well casing, seals off water formations from the oil, and minimizes the danger of blowouts.
The company introduced cement pumps powered by truck motors (instead of steam from the rig boiler) and a device that allowed testing of a formation without setting casing. Halliburton was the first to offer self-contained cementing units operating under their own power. More advances in cementing technology followed.
Learn more in Halliburton cements Wells.
May 8, 1918 – Shreveport Gassers go Extra Innings
As baseball became America’s favorite pastime, the Texas League’s Shreveport Gassers played 20 innings against the Fort Worth Panthers before the game was declared a tie. The Gassers were just one of many oilfield-related teams in the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, today known as Minor League Baseball.
Former Olinda Oil Wells pitcher Walter Johnson joined Babe Ruth for a 1924 exhibition game at Brea, California.
At the time, the leagues’ 96 teams included the Okmulgee Drillers, the Tulsa Oilers, the Independence Producers, the Beaumont Exporters, the Corsicana Oil Citys, the Wichita Falls Spudders, and the Iola Gasbags. In Oklahoma oilfields, the Okmulgee Drillers for the first time in baseball history had two players who combined to hit 100 home runs in a single season of 160 games.
Learn more in Oilfields of Dreams.
May 8, 1920 – Burbank field discovered in Oklahoma
Drilling for natural gas 20 miles east of Ponca City, Oklahoma, the Kay County Gas Company’s Bertha Hickman No. 1 well revealed a giant oilfield. Marland Oil & Refining Company assumed control of the discovery well, which produced 150 barrels of oil a day from a depth of about 3,000 feet. The Burbank field would extend over 33 square miles, mostly in Osage County, and produce between 20 million barrels and 31 million barrels annually for the next four years.
E.W. Marland in 1928 built his Ponca City mansion, now a museum. Fellow Oklahoman Will Rogers was a frequent guest.
With Oklahoma production booming since the Red Fork Gusher of 1901, independent producers agreed to using 10-acre well spacing for oil conservation purposes. Ernest W. Marland’s company also applied new seismographic technologies to discover the Tonkawa oilfield. Learn more about the Oklahoma governor (1935 to 1939) by visiting the Marland Estate in Ponca City.
May 9, 1863 – Confederate Cavalry raids Oilfield
A brigade of Confederate cavalry attacked a thriving oil town near the Ohio River in what would soon become West Virginia. Confederate Gen. William “Grumble” Jones led the cavalry attack on Burning Springs oilfield storage facilities containing thousands of barrels of oil.
Rebels attacked the Burning Springs oilfield on the banks of the Little Kanawha River, just a few miles southeast of Parkersburg and the Ohio River. Heritage district map courtesy Oil & Gas Museum, Parkersburg, West Virginia.
The Confederate raid’s destruction and fire along the Kanawha River marked the first time an oilfield was targeted in war. About 1,300 Confederate troopers raided Burning Springs, destroying cable-tool drilling rigs and 150,000 barrels of oil.
Economic growth created by the early petroleum industry prior to the Civil War helped lead to statehood for West Virginia in June 1863. Almost a century earlier, George Washington had acquired 250 acres in the region because it contained natural oil seeps.
Learn more in Confederates attack Oilfield.
May 11, 1880 – Dresser patents Oil Well Device
Solomon R. Dresser of Bradford, Pennsylvania, patented a rubber “packer” for sealing downhole pressure in wells. The technology behind the patent (no. 227419) helped confine gas, “which enters the well from the lower rocks and utilize its force or pressure to expel the oil from the well.”
Detail from Solomon R. Dresser 1880 patent for a rubber “packer” to seal downhole pressure in wells.
With the success of his Dresser Cap Packer in the Bradford oilfield, the inventor founded the S.R. Dresser Manufacturing Company in 1885. Within one year he would patent a widely adopted pipeline coupling method using rubber for tight seals, which permitted long-range transmission of natural gas.
After expanding into manufacturing oilfield pumps, engines and compressors, Dresser’s company went public in 1928, moving its headquarters to Dallas in 1950. Dresser Industries merged with oilfield supply rival Halliburton for about $7.7 billion in stock in 1998.
May 12, 2007 – Two Oil Museums open in Oklahoma
ConocoPhillips opened petroleum museums in Ponca City and Bartlesville as part of the 2007 Oklahoma statehood centennial celebrations.
Exhibits at the Conoco Museum In Ponca City educate visitors about the company, which began in Utah as Continental Oil Company, a distributor of coal, grease, and kerosene. Continental Oil merged with Ponca City-based Marland Oil Company in 1929; Conoco merged with Phillips Petroleum Company of Bartlesville in 2002.
Conoco, founded in 1875 as the Continental Oil and Transportation Company, delivered kerosene to retail stores in Ogden, Utah. A circa 1880s tank wagon now welcomes visitors to the Conoco Museum. Photo by Bruce Wells.
Frank and L.E. Phillips drilled 81 wells without a “dry hole” prior to establishing their company in 1917. The Phillips Petroleum Company Museum preserves the their oil patch legacy, the history of high-octane gasoline, and the company’s thousands of U.S. patents — including for plastic products like Marlex. Frank Phillips served as president until 1938.
Learn more in ConocoPhillips Petroleum Museums.
Recommended Reading: Erle P. Halliburton, Genius with Cement
(1959); Oil in Oklahoma
(1976); Textile League Baseball: South Carolina’s Mill Teams, 1880-1955
(2004); The Civil War and Northwestern Virginia
(2004); Conoco: 125 Years of Energy
(2000); Phillips, The First 66 Years
(1983). Your Amazon purchase benefits the American Oil & Gas Historical Society. As an Amazon Associate, AOGHS earns a commission from qualifying purchases.
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please become an AOGHS annual supporter and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. Contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2024 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
by Bruce Wells | May 3, 2024 | Petroleum in War
Rebel cavalry destroyed Burning Springs in 1863 — the first attack on an oilfield in war.
After raiding an oilfield and burning its facilities along a creek in northwestern Virginia (soon to be West Virginia), a rebel cavalry general reported to Gen. Robert E. Lee about the oilfield attack: “Men of experience estimated the oil destroyed at 150,000 barrels. It will be many months before a large supply can be had from this source…”
On May 9, 1863, the booming oilfield community at Burning Springs fell to Confederate raiders led by Gen. William “Grumble” Jones. His four regiments of Virginia cavalry burned cable-tool drilling derricks, production equipment, storage tanks, and thousands of barrels of oil.
“The First Virginia (Rebel) cavalry at halt. Sketched from nature by Mr. A. R. Waud.” From Harper’s Weekly, September 27, 1862. Gen. Jones’ Brigade consisted of the 6th, 7th, 11th, 12th Virginia Cavalry Regiments and the 35th Virginia Cavalry Battalion. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.
The surprise attack south of Parkersburg along the Kanawha River by Gen. Jones marked the first time an oilfield was targeted in war, “making it the first of many oilfields destroyed in war,” proclaimed oil historian and author David L. McKain (1934-2014) in Where it All Began: The story of the people and places where the oil & gas industry began: West Virginia and southeastern Ohio.
The Burning Springs oilfield (near Elizabeth) was destroyed by Confederate raiders in May 1863 when Gen. William “Grumble” Jones and 1,300 troopers attacked in what some call the first oilfield destroyed in a war. Map courtesy Oil & Gas Museum, Parkersburg, West Virginia.
According to McKain’s 1994 book, after the oilfield attack, Gen. Jones reported his cavalry troops left rows of burning oil tanks, a “scene of magnificence that might well carry joy to every patriotic hear.”
Making West Virginia
“After the Civil War, the industry was revived and over the next fifty years the booms spread over almost all the counties of the state,” explained McKain, who from 1970 to 1991 was president of Acme Fishing Tool Company, founded by his grandfather at the height of West Virginia’s oil and natural gas boom in 1900.
A drilling boom began at Burning Springs when an 1861 well produced 100 barrels of oil a day.
McKain, who established an oil museum in Parkersburg, spent decades collecting artifacts on display in the former company warehouse, He often was seen driving his black truck loaded with historic oilfield engines and other equipment.
Almost a century before the Civil War, George Washington had acquired 250 acres in the region because it contained oil and natural gas seeps. “This was in 1771, making the father of our country the first petroleum industry speculator,” he noted. The Parkersburg historian authored of several books, including a detailed history of the West Virginia petroleum industry.
Detail from an 1864 “Map of the oil district of West Virginia,” including Burning Springs (at Elizabeth) in Wirt County. Image courtesy Norman B. Leventhal Map Center Collection, Boston Public Library.
As early as 1831, natural gas was moved in wooden pipes from wells to be used as a manufacturing heat source by the Kanawha salt manufacturers.
Rathbone Well and Statehood
Modern West Virginia’s petroleum industry began when it was part of Virginia. John Castelli ”Cass” Rathbone produced oil from an 1861 well drilled near Burning Springs Run in what today is West Virginia. His well had reached 300 feet and began producing 100 barrels of oil a day.
Rathbone drilled more wells along the Kanawha River south of Parkersburg — beginning the first petroleum boom to take place outside the Pennsylvania oil regions
In 1861, at Burning Springs, Rathbone had used a spring-pole — an ancient drilling technology — to drill to a depth of 303 feet, and the well began producing 100 barrels of oil a day. Soon, a commercial oil industry began in the towns of Petroleum and California near Parkersburg, which later became a center for oilfield service and supply companies.
The Rathbone well and commercial oil sales at Petroleum marked the true beginnings of the oil and gas industry in the United States, according to McKain.
David L. McKain established the Oil and Gas Museum at 119 Third Street in Parkersburg, West Virginia. As early as 1831, local salt manufacturers used natural gas as a heat source. Photo by Bruce Wells.
McKain, the founder of the Oil and Gas Museum in Parkersburg, maintained that the wealth created by petroleum was the key factor for bringing statehood to West Virginia during the Civil War.
“Many of the founders and early politicians were oil men — governor, senator and congressman — who had made their fortunes at Burning Springs in 1860-1861,” McKain explained.
President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation admitting the state on June 20, 1863.
Grumble burns an Oilfield
When Confederate Gen. William “Grumble” Jones and 1,300 troopers attacked Burning Springs in the spring of 1863, they destroyed equipment and thousands of barrels of oil.
Confederate cavalry Gen. William “Grumble” Jones.
“The wells are owned mainly by Southern men, now driven from their homes, and their property appropriated either by the Federal Government or Northern men,” said Gen. Jones of his raid on this early oil boom town.
Gen. Jones officially reported to Gen. Robert E. Lee: All the oil, the tanks, barrels, engines for pumping, engine-houses, and wagons — in a word, everything used for raising, holding, or sending it off was burned. Men of experience estimated the oil destroyed at 150,000 barrels. It will be many months before a large supply can be had from this source, as it can only be boated down the Little Kanawha when the waters are high.
The West Virginia Oil and Gas Museum was established thanks to David McKain, who added a small museum at the site of Burning Springs and an oil history park at California (27 miles east of Parkersburg on West Virginia 47). In addition to his Where It All Began, McKain in 2004 published The Civil War and Northwestern Virginia.
Learn more about petroleum’s strategic roles in articles linked at Oil in War.
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Recommended Reading: The Civil War and Northwestern Virginia — The Fascinating Story Of The Economic, Military and Political Events In Northwestern Virginia During the Tumultuous Times Of The Civil War (2004). Where it All Began: The story of the people and places where the oil & gas industry began: West Virginia and southeastern Ohio
(1994). Your Amazon purchase benefits the American Oil & Gas Historical Society. As an Amazon Associate, AOGHS earns a commission from qualifying purchases.
_______________________
The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Become an AOGHS annual supporting member 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: “Confederates attack Oilfield.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL:https://aoghs.org/oil-almanac/confederates-attack-oilfield. Last Updated: May 14, 2024. Original Published Date: May 5, 2013.
