by Bruce Wells | Sep 7, 2026 | This Week in Petroleum History
After drilling 20 “dry holes,” the Tyndall-Wyoming Oil Company completed the No. 1 Hogg well 50 miles south of Houston. Within four months, a second well was producing about 600 barrels a day. The discoveries ended a succession of attempts dating back to 1901, when former Texas Governor James “Big Jim” Hogg paid $30,000 for the lease. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Sep 3, 2026 | Petroleum Pioneers
Lyne Taliaferro Barret completed the first Texas oil well on September 12, 1866. Barret had intended to drill before the Civil War but paused exploration to serve as a captain in the Quartermaster Corps, Confederate States of America, for the Nacogdoches district. His 1866 well west of the Sabine River did not produce commercial quantities of oil, so it lay dormant for nearly two decades.
In December 1859, less than four months after Edwin L. Drake’s first U.S. oil well in Pennsylvania, a similarly determined petroleum-drilling pioneer named Lyne (Lynis) Taliaferro Barret began searching in East Texas. He looked in an area southeast of Nacogdoches known as Oil Springs. (more…)
