Alaska’s petroleum history began long before statehood in 1959 and the major oilfield discovery two years earlier.
The first Alaskan oil well with commercial production was completed in 1902 in rugged, coastal territory where oil seeps had been known for years. (more…)
Summertime brings new visitors to community oil and gas museums, including teachers and students anticipating the return of field trips and K-12 programs as the school year approaches. The American Oil & Gas Historical Society advocates visiting these frontline energy educators.
Whether visited on vacation or during the school year, petroleum museums in Texas, Oklahoma, California, and Pennsylvania offer earth science and other petroleum-related exhibits. Visitors to all oil and gas museums often are met by volunteer docents — retired petroleum geologists, engineers, or other oilfield professionals.
Petroleum exhibits educate visitors to the Texas Energy Museum in Beaumont, where a 1901 oil discovery at Spindletop Hill launched the modern petroleum industry. Photo by Bruce Wells.
In Texas, the Petroleum Museum in Midland includes many educational summer programs for kids, as does the Ocean Star, an offshore rig museum in Galveston. Many community museums also are part of annual “derrick festivals,” which take place in Taft, California (West Kern Oil Museum), and other states with oil and gas production.
Alabama has a small county museum in Gilbertown with an “old Hunt oil rig” similar to the one that discovered the first oilfield in Alabama in 1944.
Further, many oil patch communities celebrate their petroleum heritage every summer with parades, special events, and museum tours.
Visitors to the Drake Well Museum at Oil Creek in Titusville, Pennsylvania, can tour a replica of Edwin L. Drake’s cable-tool derrick and steam enginehouse among other outdoor exhibits. Photo by Bruce Wells.
For those interested in the industry’s exploration and production history and traveling this summer, check out these exhibits chronicling the nation’s discoveries.
Western New York boasts a museum in Bolivar with some of the nation’s earliest petroleum artifacts. While dairying and livestock have become the cash crops, the region still produces a small amount of very high-quality oil and natural gas, says Director Kelly Lounsberry. This museum tells the story of oil and natural gas production in the region.
Exhibits at a museum in Bolivar, N.Y., include oilfield engines, models, and tools. L. Frank Baum once owned a petroleum products company there — and sold oil cans. Photo by Bruce Wells.
The first U.S. well specifically intended to obtain natural gas was dug near Fredonia by William Hart, who had noticed gas bubbles on the surface of a creek. In 1821, he dug a 27-foot well and built a “log pipe” to bring gas to nearby houses for lighting.
Hart’s work led to the formation of the Fredonia Gas Light and Water Works Company — the first U.S. natural gas company, according to the American Gas Association, Washington, D.C., which was founded in 1918.
Further, thanks to the region’s oilfield production, L. Frank Baum opened a petroleum products business in Syracuse, New York, in 1883. The future author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz once sold buggy wheel axle grease — and oil cans (learn more in Oil in the Land of Oz).
South of Bolivar, there are more petroleum-related museums and historic attractions in the state where the modern industry began: Pennsylvania.
East of I-79 in northwestern Pennsylvania, the Drake Well Museum in Titusville exhibits “Colonel” Edwin Drake’s famous August 27, 1859, discovery well — today recognized as the first U.S. oil producer.
The Drake Well Museum’s outdoor exhibits include a recreation of the original cable-tool derrick Drake used. Among the most popular summer attractions for students is a “Nitro” well-fracturing reenactment that demonstrates use of “go-devils” at an oil well.
Visitors also can stop by the museum gift shop to find a reprint of The Early Days of Oil, by Dr. Paul Giddens, considered to be the “Bible” of information about the birth of the U.S. petroleum industry. Many images in the book are from originals made by photographer John A. Mather and preserved at the museum.
Located on 270 Seneca Street in Oil City – in a Beaux Arts building listed in the National Register of Historic Places – the Venango Museum of Art, Science & Industry preserves the oil region’s industrial heritage. Its exhibits include a 1928 Wurlitzer theater organ.
Once a world-famous Pennsylvania boom town, visitors today can walk the grassy paths of Pithole’s former streets. Photo by Bruce Wells.
Another must-see oil history spot is the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission’s Pithole Visitors Center — the site of a vanished 1865 oil boom town now managed by Drake Well Museum. The once infamous boom town is in Oil Creek State Park.
A dedicated group of railroad enthusiasts maintains the Oil Creek & Titusville Railroad, a nonprofit group that offers trips through the historic oil region. Near the railroad is the refurbished home of “Coal Oil” Johnny. Read his fascinating tale in the Legend of “Coal Oil Johnny.”
The Penn-Brad Oil Museum — and Historical Oil Well Park — is located three miles south of Bradford, Pennsylvania, on Route 219, near Custer City. Photo by Bruce Wells.
At nearby Oil City is a center dedicated to the study of the oil heritage region at Clarion University, Venango Campus. The Barbara Morgan Harvey Center for the Study of Oil Heritage contains hundreds of rare books of the region, newspaper clippings from the early 1900s, and even minutes from the meetings of early companies, maps, and photographs.
About 70 miles to the east of Titusville, the Penn-Brad Oil Museum (and historical oil well park) at Bradford takes visitors back to the early boom times of “The First Billion Dollar Oil Field.” Guided tours are conducted by retired geologists or petroleum engineers who volunteer their time to relate exciting first-hand experiences.
The museum in Custer City is three miles south of Bradford, along Rt. 219. Nearby is a refinery built in 1881 and still operated by the American Refining Group. The facility is considered the oldest continuously operating refinery in America.
The museum maintains stationary internal combustion engines for education and enjoyment. Photo by Bruce Wells.
Before leaving Pennsylvania, visit one of the world’s largest collections of oilfield engines. Century old “hit and miss” gas engines, vintage oilfield equipment, and early electric generators are among the permanent exhibits at a unique “power museum” in Coolspring.
With perhaps the largest 19th-century engine collection in the world, the museum is housed in 13 buildings with about 250 engines — many of them operational.
The Coolspring Power Museum is located east of Pittsburgh just off Route 36 midway between Punxsutawney to the south and Brookville to the north. According to a 2004 interview with Founding Director Dr. Paul E. Harvey (1944-2025), the collection presents an illuminating history of the evolution of internal combustion technology that put an end to the steam-powered era.
Twice a year engine collectors from around the country gather on the extensive grounds – and the “barking” of hundreds of antique engines lasts several days. AOGHS promotes Coolspring and other museum events and K-12 education efforts featured alongside stories of America’s petroleum heritage.
_______________________
Recommended Reading: The Birth of the Oil Industry (1938); Trek of the Oil Finders: A History of Exploration for Petroleum (1975); History of Oil Well Drilling
_______________________
The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Support this energy education website, subscribe to our monthly email newsletter, and help expand historical research. Contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2026 Bruce A. Wells.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Summer Travels to Oil Museums” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/energy-education-resources/pennsylvania-petroleum-vacation. Last Updated: July 9, 2026. Original Published Date: May 7, 2013.
Many oil and natural gas discoveries followed the Indian Territory’s first oil well drilled at Bartlesville in 1897, and even more after statehood arrived a decade later. None of Oklahoma’s 1920s oilfields compares to the economic impact of the Greater Seminole Area oil boom.
Although oil from the 1897 discovery in Indian Territory could not get to refineries for two years (lacking transportation infrastructure), the first Oklahoma oil well brought a surge in exploratory drilling.
More oilfield discoveries followed, including the Red Fork Gusher of 1901, which helped in making Tulsa “Oil Capital of the World.” The 1920 Burbank field in Osage County would prove to extend more than 33 square miles (see Million Dollar Auctioneer). But petroleum production from the Greater Seminole Area Field eclipsed them all. (more…)
A 19th-century petroleum product made America’s 1969 moon landing possible. On July 16, 1969, kerosene rocket fuel powered the first stage of the Saturn V of the Apollo 11 mission.
Four days after the Saturn V launched Apollo 11, astronaut Neil Armstrong announced, “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” His achievement rested on new technologies — and tons of fuel first refined for lamps by a Canadian in 1848.
Powered by five first-stage engines fueled by “rocket grade” kerosene, the Saturn V was the tallest, heaviest, and most powerful rocket ever built until the SpaceX Starship. Photos courtesy NASA.
During launch, five Rocketdyne F-1 engines of the massive Saturn V’s first stage burn “rocket grade kerosene propellant” at 2,230 gallons per second — generating almost eight million pounds of thrust. A Saturn V first stage is on exhibit at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Four Rocketdyne F-1 engines were 19 feet tall with nozzles about 12 feet wide. Photo courtesy Nasa.
The massive moon rocket fuel burned a highly refined kerosene RP-1 (Rocket Propellant-1 or Refined Petroleum-1), which, while conforming to stringent performance specifications, was essentially the same “coal oil” invented in the mid-19th century.
Canadian physician and geologist Abraham Gesner began refining an illuminating fuel from coal in 1846. “I have invented and discovered a new and useful manufacture or composition of matter, being a new liquid hydrocarbon, which I denominate Kerosene,” he noted in his patent.
The father of American rocketry, Robert Goddard, in 1926 used gasoline to fuel the world’s first liquid-fuel rocket, seen here in its launch stand. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.
By 1850, Gesner had formed a company that installed lighting in the streets in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 1854, he established the North American Kerosene Gas Light Company at Long Island, New York.
Although he had coined the term “kerosene” from the Greek word “keros” (wax), because his fluid was extracted from coal, most consumers called it “coal oil” as often as they called it kerosene.
By the time of the first U.S. oil well drilled by Edwin Drake in 1859, a Yale scientist (hired by the well’s investors) reported oil to be an ideal source for making kerosene, far better than refined coal. Demand for kerosene refined from petroleum launched the nation’s exploration and production industry.
Electricity replaced kerosene lamps and gasoline dominated 20th-century demand for transportation fuel, but kerosene remained a powerful fuel choice.
Nathan Ostrich built the first jet car in 1962 using an engine originally designed for the North American F-86 Sabre jet fighter. Powered by a General Electric J47 at Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats, his Flying Caduceus set a world record of more than 330 mph.
On November 7, 1965, California race car driver Art Arfons increased the land-speed record to 576.553 miles per hour on the famous one-mile strip. The Ohio drag racer’s home-made Green Monster was powered by JP-4 fuel (a 50-50 kerosene-gasoline blend), in an afterburner-equipped F-104 Starfighter turbojet jet engine.
A kerosene-gasoline blend powered the F-104 jet engine of the Green Monster to world records in the 1960s.
Arfons set the world land-speed record three times between 1964 and 1965, in what became known as “The Bonneville Jet Wars.”
Record challenger Craig Breedlove’s Spirit of America Sonic 1 in 1965 used a jet engine from an F-4 Phantom II to defeat the Green Monster and set a record of 600.601 mph, which lasted until 1970, when the Blue Flame Natural Gas Rocket Car reached 630.388 mph.
Kerosene’s ease of storage and stable properties attracted early rocket scientists like America’s Robert H. Goddard and Germany’s Wernher von Braun. During World War II, Nazi Germany’s notorious V-2 ballistic missiles were fueled by kerosene.
Decades of post-war rocket engine research and testing led to the Saturn V’s five Rocketdyne F-1 engines. The F-1 was the most powerful single-combustion chamber engine ever developed, according to David Woods, author of How Apollo Flew to the Moon, 2008.
The Rocketdyne F-1 engines, 19 feet tall with nozzles about 12 feet wide, include fuel pumps delivering 15,471 gallons of RP-1 per minute to their thrust chambers. The Saturn V’s upper stages burn highly volatile liquid hydrogen (and liquid oxygen in all three stages).
Kerosene fueled the Saturn V’s five main engines for about 2.5 minutes. Detail from NASA photo.
The five-engine main booster held 203,400 gallons of RP-1. After firing, the engines can empty the massive fuel tank in 165 seconds.
The Apollo 11 landing crowned liquid-rocket fuel research in America dating back to Goddard and his 1914 “Rocket Apparatus” powered by gasoline. In 1926, he launched the world’s first liquid-fuel rocket from his aunt’s farm in Auburn, Massachusetts.
Although gasoline will be replaced with other propellants, including the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen used in the space shuttle’s external tank, RP-1 kerosene continues to fuel spaceflight.
Cheaper, easily stored at room temperature, and far less of an explosive hazard, the 19th-century petroleum product has fueled first-stage boosters for the Atlas, Delta, Antares, and SpaceX rockets. The reusable SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets use nine Merlin engines to generate 1.7 million pounds of thrust.
Last launched in 1972, the Saturn V was the most powerful rocket ever built until it was surpassed by SpaceX’s Starship — fueled by liquid oxygen and liquid methane.
_______________________
Recommended Reading: Stages to Saturn: A Technological History of the Apollo/Saturn Launch Vehicles
_______________________
The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Support this energy education website, subscribe to our monthly email newsletter, and help expand historical research. Contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2026 Bruce A. Wells.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Kerosene Rocket Fuel.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL:https://aoghs.org/products/kerosene-rocket-fuel. Last Updated: July 10, 2026. Original Published Date: July 12, 2015.
As the U.S. petroleum industry expanded following the January 1901 “Lucas Gusher” at Spindletop Hill in Texas, service company pioneers like Carl Baker and Howard Hughes Sr. brought new technologies to oilfields.
Baker Oil Tools and Hughes Tools specialized in maximizing petroleum production, as did oilfield service company competitors Schlumberger, a French company founded in 1926, and Halliburton, which began in 1919 as a well-cementing company.
Baker Oil Tool Company (later Baker International) was founded by Reuben Carlton “Carl” Baker Sr., who among other inventions patented a cable-tool drill bit in 1903 after founding the Coalinga Oil Company in Coalinga, California.
A 1919 portrait of Baker Tools Company founder R.C. “Carl” Baker (1872 – 1957).
The oil wells Carl Baker had drilled near Coalinga encountered hard rock formations that caused problems with casing, so he developed an offset cable-tool bit allowing him to drill a hole larger than the casing. He also patented a “Gas Trap for Oil Wells” in 1908, a “Pump-Plunger” in 1914, and a “Shoe Guide for Well Casings” in 1920.
Coalinga was “every inch a boom town and Mr. Baker would become a major player in the town’s growth,” according to the R.C. Baker Memorial Museum. He also organized several small oil companies and the local power company and established a bank.
After drilling wells in the Kern River oilfield, Baker added to his technological innovations on July 16, 1907, when he was awarded a patent for his Well Casing Shoe (No. 860,115), a device ensuring uninterrupted flow of oil through a well. His invention revolutionized oilfield production.
R.C. “Carl” Baker standing next to Baker Casing Shoes in 1914. Photo courtesy R.C. Baker Memorial Museum.
In 1913, Baker organized the Baker Casing Shoe Company (renamed Baker Tools two years later). He opened his first manufacturing plant in Coalinga.
When Baker Tools headquarters moved to Los Angeles in the 1930s, the building remained a company machine shop. It was donated by Baker to Coalinga in 1959. Two years later, the original machine shop and office of Baker Casing Shoe reopened as the R.C. Baker Memorial Museum.
By the time Carl Baker Sr. died in 1957 at age 85, he had been awarded more than 150 U.S. patents in his lifetime. “Though Mr. Baker never advanced beyond the third grade, he possessed an incredible understanding of mechanical and hydraulic systems,” reported the former Coalinga museum.
Baker Tools became Baker International in 1976 and Baker Hughes after the 1987 merger with Hughes Tool Company.
The Houston manufacturing operations of Sharp-Hughes Tool at 2nd and Girard Streets in 1915. The site is on the campus of the University of Houston–Downtown. Photo courtesy Houston Metropolitan Research Center, Houston Public Library.
The Hughes Tool Company began in 1908 as the Sharp-Hughes Tool Company, founded by Walter Benona Sharp (1870–1912) and Howard R. Hughes, Sr.
Sharp, born in Tipton County, Tennessee, moved to Texas and began drilling oil wells in 1893 with a test well for the Gladys City Oil and Gas Manufacturing Company near Beaumont. The well on Spindletop Hill did not find oil, but it helped lead to the giant oilfield’s discovery in 1901, according to Texas State Historical Association (TSHA).
In 1896, Sharp was one of the drillers at Corsicana when the state’s first commercial oilfield was developed. While there, he met Joseph “J.S.” Cullinan, who became a lifelong friend. Cullinan in 1902 founded the Texas Company (see Sour Lake produces Texaco). That same year, Sharp joined Hughes to form Moonshine Oil Company, laying the groundwork for their partnership in the Sharp-Hughes Tool Company.
Sharp and Hughes in 1907 drilled test wells at Goose Creek. “When both wells had to be abandoned because of the hard rock encountered, the two men began to consider the possibility of developing a roller rock bit. They eventually arranged for Hughes to proceed with the design and construction of a bit, with capital provided equally by Sharp and Cullinan.
Rotary drilling bits shaped like fishtails became obsolete in 1909 when the two inventors introduced a dual-cone roller bit. They created a bit “designed to enable rotary drilling in harder, deeper formations than was possible with earlier fishtail bits,” according to a Hughes historian. Secret tests took place on a drilling rig at Goose Creek, south of Houston.
“In the early morning hours of June 1, 1909, Howard Hughes Sr. packed a secret invention into the trunk of his car and drove off into the Texas plains,” noted Gwen Wright of History Detectives in 2006. The drilling site was near Galveston Bay.
The new technology would soon bring faster and deeper drilling worldwide, helping to find previously unreachable oil and natural gas reserves. The dual-cone bit also created many Texas millionaires, explained Don Clutterbuck, one of the PBS show’s sources.
“When the Hughes twin-cones hit hard rock, they kept turning, their dozens of sharp teeth (166 on each cone) grinding through the hard stone,” he added.
Although several inventors tried to develop better rotary drill bit technologies, Sharp-Hughes Tool Company was the first to bring it to American oilfields. Drilling times fell dramatically, saving petroleum companies huge amounts of money.
Howard Hughes Sr. (1869 – 1924) on August 10, 1909, was awarded a U.S. patent for a dual-cone drill bit that could crush hard rock.
The Society of Petroleum Engineers has noted that about the same time Hughes developed his bit, Granville A. Humason of Shreveport, Louisiana, patented the first cross-roller rock bit, the forerunner of the Reed cross-roller bit.
Biographers have noted that Hughes met Granville Humason in a Shreveport bar, where Humason sold his roller bit rights to Hughes for $150. The University of Texas Center for American History Collection includes a 1951 recording of Humason talking about that chance meeting. He recalled spending $50 of his sale proceeds at the bar that evening.
After Walter Sharp died in 1912, his widow Estelle Sharp sold her 50 percent share in the company to Hughes. It became Hughes Tool in 1915. Despite legal action between Hughes Tool and the Reed Roller Bit Company in the late 1920s, Hughes prevailed and his oilfield service company prospered.
By 1934, Hughes Tool engineers designed and patented the three-cone roller bit, an enduring design that remains much the same today. Hughes’ exclusive patent lasted until 1951, which allowed his Texas company to grow worldwide. More innovations (and mergers) would follow.
A February 1914 advertisement for the Sharp-Hughes Tool Company in Fuel Oil Journal.
Frank Christensen and George Christensen had developed the earliest diamond bit in 1941 and introduced diamond bits to oilfields in 1946, beginning with the Rangley field of Colorado. The long-lasting tungsten carbide tooth came into use in the early 1950s.
After Baker International acquired Hughes Tool Company in 1987, Baker Hughes acquired the Eastman Christensen Company three years later. Eastman was a world leader in directional drilling.
When Howard Hughes Sr. died in 1924, he left three-quarters of his company to Howard Hughes Jr., then a student at Rice University. The younger Hughes added to the success of Hughes Tool while becoming one of the richest men in the world. His many legacies include founding Hughes Aircraft Company and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Learn more in Making Hole – Drilling Technology.
A major competitor for any energy service company, today’s Schlumberger Limited can trace its roots to Caen, France. In 1912, brothers Conrad and Marcel began making geophysical measurements that recorded a map of equipotential curves (similar to contour lines on a map). Using very basic equipment, their field experiments led to the invention of a downhole electronic “logging tool” in 1927.
After developing an electrical four-probe surface approach for mineral exploration, the brothers lowered another electric tool into a well. They recorded a single lateral-resistivity curve at fixed points in the well’s borehole and graphically plotted the results against depth – creating first electric well log of geologic formations.
Meanwhile, another service company in Oklahoma, the Reda Pump Company had been founded by Armais Arutunoff, a close friend of Frank Phillips. By 1938, an estimated two percent of all oil produced in the United States with artificial lift, was lifted by an Arutunoff pump.
Learn more in Inventing the Electric Submersible Pump (also see All Pumped Up – Oilfield Technology).
_______________________
Recommended Reading: History Of Oil Well Drilling
_______________________
The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Support this energy education website, subscribe to our monthly email newsletter, and help expand historical research. Contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2026 Bruce A. Wells.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Carl Baker and Howard Hughes.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/oil-almanac/carl-baker-howard-hughes. Last Updated: July 12, 2026. Original Published Date: December 17, 2017.
