by Bruce Wells | Jul 18, 2025 | Energy Education Resources
A geologist tracks down the first references to petroleum.
Petroleum geologist and historian Raymond P. Sorenson has spent much of his professional career writing about the oil and natural gas exploration and production industry.
Among Sorenson’s ongoing projects is documentation of the earliest signs of oil worldwide, including references to hydrocarbons long before the 1859 first U.S. oil well drilled 69.5 feet into the Venango sands of Pennsylvania.
About three centuries earlier, a Spanish expedition in the Gulf of Mexico led by Don Luis de Moscoso landed at the mouth of the Sabine River in the future state of Texas. The New World explorers in 1543 discovered Indians had for centuries utilized natural seeps to waterproof canoes, apply to abrasions, and more.
A Spanish expedition in 1543 used brigantines to explore the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
Sorenson, retired and living in Tulsa, initially focused his research on geological surveys, reports from other exploring expeditions, and scientific journals. He then progressed to references cited by others, concentrated his efforts on North America and English language sources — the most readily available — but discovered rare sources as well.
Oil in Antiquity to Today
The petroleum geologist’s ongoing work has added more than 740 reference pages (with captured images) of his sources for the earliest signs of hydrocarbons in North America and other parts of the world.
In 2002, Sorenson shared with the American Oil & Gas Historical Society his 59-page bibliography of “Pre-Drake” publications. “For the past few years I have been engaged in a systematic study to document what was known about oil and natural gas prior to the Drake well,” he noted.
“I have an additional list of cited references that I have not yet examined of comparable size,” Sorenson added in a follow-up email to AOGHS. “The majority are in languages other than English, and I suspect that many of them will not be accessible through my library resources (or my linguistic skill set).”
A petroleum historian and consulting geologist based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Sorenson explained in his email to AOGHS that to aid researchers, he has been using images of every page that contains relevant material, posting the full reference information at the top, and outlining the relevant portion of the text.
An 1835 reference to signs of oil and natural gas in Massachusetts prior to the first commercial U.S. oil well in Pennsylvania. Image courtesy Ray Sorenson.
“So far I have found relevant information in more than 550 publications with over 3,500 net pages, covering at last count 31 states, five Canadian provinces, and many foreign countries on other continents,” Sorenson noted in January. “For several topics, I have created subsets. I expect to continue to build the collection.”
In addition to antiquity references, Sorenson’s research for his “Pre-Drake Literature Collections by Subject” has thus far included:
California, Canada, Central & South America, Early Geologists, Europe, Fiction, Humboldt, Industrial & Laboratory, Initial Reactions, Kentucky, Maps & Figures, Medicinal , Middle East Asia Africa, Midwest, New England, New York, Oil & Gas Wells Pre-Drake, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Religious, Scientific American, Shales that Burn, Southern United States, Taylor R.C., Statistics of Coal, Textbooks, Volcanoes and Earthquakes, David Wells, Annual of Scientific Discovery, and Western United States.
Although many of his discoveries were found in obscure scholarly journals, Sorenson also found petroleum references in popular 19th-century publications. For example, the April 18, 1829, issue of “Niles’ Register” reported a Kentucky salt well driller finding oil.
“We have just conversed with a gentleman from Cumberland county, who informs us that in boring through rocks for salt water, a fountain of petroleum, or volatile oil, was struck, at the depth of 180 feet,” the Baltimore publication noted on page 117.
Sorenson’s Research Gigabytes
A long-time member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) and the Petroleum History Institute (PHI), Sorenson has made many presentations and published academic papers with both. He submitted to PHI a paper on his history of oil and natural gas production from wells prior to 1859 for the journal Oil-Industry History.
The wells were drilled seeking water or brine, but Sorenson found one that flowed an estimated 2,500 barrels of oil per day in the 1820s.
In 2007, Sorenson adapted many of his contributions to AAPG for its extensive Discovery Series with “First Impressions: Petroleum Geology at the Dawn of the North American Oil Industry.” In January 2013, his “Historic New York Survey Set High Geologic Standards” was published in AAPG Explorer magazine, one of his many contributions to that publication.
Sorenson, who also has assisted with AOGHS articles (see Rocky Beginnings of Petroleum Geology), noted in his email that he has no plans to provide this collection in searchable form on a website, but will work with anyone who is conducting similar research.
Everything in the Sorenson collection is preserved in hard copy and digital (PDF) form, adding up to 11 feet of shelf space — about 27 gigabytes of computer memory.
Sorenson intends to give his full collection of research to the Drake Well Museum and Park in Titusville, at the site where Edwin L. Drake first found oil in the upper Venango sands.
Today, the Oil Region Alliance of Business, Industry and Tourism proclaims that historic part of northwestern Pennsylvania, “The Valley that Changed the World.”
For more information about Ray Sorenson’s on-going oil history projects and resources, post a comment below.
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1859 Pennsylvania Well
The beginning of the science of petroleum geology might be traced to 1859 when a new industry began in western Pennsylvania. An oil well drilled in 1859 by former railroad conductor Edwin L. Drake along Oil Creek at Titusville sought oil for making kerosene, a new lamp fuel at the time made from coal.
Slowed by delays in receiving funds for what locals called “Drake’s Folly” and drilling with a steam-powered cable-tool rig, it took Drake more than a year to find oil at a depth of 69.5 feet. He also made his own innovations along the way, including adding a 10-foot cast iron pipe to the bore hole — a first.
To the relief of company founder George Bissell and investors in the Seneca Oil Company of New Haven, Connecticut, Drake completed the first U.S. oil well drilled specifically for oil. The August 27, 1859, discovery came in a geologic formation that would be called the Venango sands.
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Recommended Reading: Trek of the Oil Finders: A History of Exploration for Petroleum (1975); The Birth of the Oil Industry (1936); The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power
(2008); Myth, Legend, Reality: Edwin Laurentine Drake and the Early Oil Industry
(2009). 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 (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please become an AOGHS annual supporter and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. © 2025 Bruce A. Wells.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Sorenson Oil History Project.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/energy-education-resources/exploring-the-earliest-signs-of-oil. Last Updated: July 18, 2025. Original Published Date: August 5, 2020.
by Bruce Wells | Jul 17, 2025 | Petroleum Technology
America’s first unsuccessful well drilled for oil still achieved many petroleum industry “firsts.”
Modern oil and natural gas exploration and production technologies began with19th-century wells drilled in northwestern Pennsylvania. Just four days after America’s first commercial oil well, a second attempt nearby resulted in the first “dry hole” for the new U.S. petroleum industry.
Edwin L. Drake drilled the first U.S. oil well specifically seeking oil on August 27, 1859, at Titusville, Pennsylvania. His historic feat included inventing the method of driving a pipe downhole to protect the integrity of the wellbore. The former railroad conductor borrowed a kitchen water pump to produce the first barrel of oil.
(more…)
by Bruce Wells | Jul 16, 2025 | Petroleum Pioneers
The Texas independent producer who “rocketed into the national imagination in the late 1940s.”
As giant oilfield discoveries created Texas millionaires after World War II, people started calling “Diamond Glenn” McCarthy the reigning King of the Wildcatters. Some historians have said a $21 million hotel McCarthy opened in 1949 put Houston on the map.
Glenn H. McCarthy’s petroleum career began with a 1935 well 50 miles east of Houston when he and partner R.A. Mason completed their No. 1 White well with production of almost 600 barrels of oil a day. The well extended by three miles to the north the already productive Anahuac field — which McCarthy had earlier discovered.
After discovering 11 Texas oil fields, Glenn McCarthy appeared on the February 13, 1950, cover of TIME.
By 1945, McCarthy had gone on to discover 11 new oilfields and extend others. In Brazoria County one year later, he drilled the highest-pressure gas well drilled to that time. Described as a “bombastic, plucky Irishman best known for building the famous Shamrock Hotel,” the Texas independent oilman would be featured on the February 13, 1950, cover of TIME. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Jul 15, 2025 | Energy Education Resources
Petroleum industry women convened in 1952 at the Shamrock Hotel in Houston.
Since its founding a few years after World War II, a national association of women in the petroleum business has “ebbed and flowed with the tides of the energy and allied industries.”
The organization began when a secretary at Humble Oil & Refining Company organized a 1949 meeting in New Orleans. Three years later, representatives from other cities gathered there to establish the Association of Desk and Derrick Clubs (ADDC) of North America.
Secretaries in 1941 founded the first Desk and Derrick Club in New Orleans.
Articles of association were signed on July 23, 1951, by the president of the New Orleans club and the presidents of clubs founded in Jackson, Mississippi, Los Angeles, California, and Houston, Texas. The newly organized group of businesswomen began promoting energy education in the United States and Canada.
Greater Knowledge
“Greater Knowledge — Greater Service” became the ADDC motto of women working primarily as secretaries in the oil and natural gas industry. Many began organizing clubs in dozens of other oil-producing states.
ADDC got its start thanks to the Humble Oil secretary, who established the first club in New Orleans. A company secretary, Inez Awty (later Schaeffer), frustrated from writing reports about things she knew little about, “believed women working for oil companies wanted to see and know more about a derrick and other aspects of the industry,” noted a 2012 article in the Permian Basin Petroleum Association’s PB Oil & Gas.
Awty worked for Humble Oil & Refining Company, founded in 1911, thanks to a giant oilfield discovery at Humble, Texas, four years after the famous 1901 Spindletop gusher. Production from the Humble field exceeded the total for Spindletop by 1946.
By 1951, there were 1,500 Desk and Derrick members in the United States and Canada. Photo courtesy Permian Basin Petroleum Association.
“Miss Awty thought if men in the oil industry could be organized and know other men outside their own company, then the women could do likewise,” the Midland Reporter-Telegram reported in 1951.
The charter clubs dedicated themselves to “the education and professional development of individuals employed in or affiliated with the petroleum, energy and allied industries and to educate the general public about these industries.”
The PB Oil & Gas article added that in April 1957, the club’s guest speakers included a young Midlander named George H.W. Bush, who reviewed offshore drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico.
“Bit of Fun”
Educating youth about the earth sciences and how the modern petroleum industry works is part of the Desk and Derrick mission. In 1957, the organization’s members adopted a motto, “Greater Knowledge — Greater Service.”
Since 2004, the group has published (in English and Spanish) “Bit of Fun with PetroMolly and PetroMack,” an energy activity book designed for third and fourth graders.
In 1982, ADDC established The Desk and Derrick Educational Trust, “for the purpose of awarding scholarships to students pursuing a degree in a major field of study related to the petroleum, energy, or allied industries, with the objective of obtaining full-time employment in the industry.”
In addition, ADDC began to assist members in developing new educational projects and programs.
In 2018, about 1,200 women and men employed in or affiliated with the energy and allied industries comprised 48 clubs in seven regions. Membership numbers fluctuate in close relation to the state of the oil and gas industry — and oil prices.
ADDC has since continued to promote its energy education mission using a variety of programs, including seminars, field trips, and individual clubs hosting the annual national convention.
“Thousands of hours of education have been provided for members through monthly programs on the many facets of this industry and given by speakers ranging from company CEOs to oil-well-fire fighters.”
ADDC Milestones
1949 – The first club is founded in New Orleans by Inez Awty Schaeffer.
July 23, 1951 – Articles of association are signed by presidents of the clubs founded earlier in New Orleans, Los Angeles, Houston and Jackson, Mississippi.
December 1-2, 1951 – First Board of Directors meeting in New Orleans.
ADDC published its first “Bit of Fun” Energy Activity Book in 2004.
1952 – A newsletter is published (today’s The Desk and Derrick Journal) after Josephine Nolen of Odessa, Texas, wins a contest for its name: The Oil and Gal Journal.
1952 – The first convention is held at the Shamrock Hotel in Houston, led by the first association president, Lee Wilson Hoover. Forty member clubs are represented by almost 1,000 registrants. The Shamrock Hotel became the largest in the United States at the time. Independent producer Glenn H. “Diamond Glenn” McCarthy spent $21 million to build it.
1957 – “Greater Knowledge — Greater Service” is adopted as a motto.
1977 – “of North America” is deleted from the association’s name and the acronym ADDC becomes common usage.
1982 – ADDC established The Desk and Derrick Educational Trust for awarding scholarships to students pursuing a degree in a major field of study related to the petroleum, energy, or allied industries.
1987 – Foundation is established, and the first issue of The Desk and Derrick Journal published, replacing the Oil and Gal Journal.
1988 – Delegates at the annual convention approve equitable membership in the association, opening membership to men.
1996 – The first association website goes online in September.
2001 – Celebration of the association’s 50th anniversary year.
2004 – ADDC publishes its first “Bit of Fun” energy activity book.
2010 – Website is improved.
2025 Regions & Clubs
The 73rd annual ADDC Convention and Education Conference, is planned for September 16 – 21 at the Estancia del Norte in San Antonio, Texas. The 2024 gathering took place in Dallas.
Map of Association of Desk & Derrick Clubs courtesy ADDC.org.
Central Region Clubs: Graham, Great Bend, Liberal, Lone Star Club of Dallas, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Wichita, and Wichita Falls.
Northeast Region Clubs: Three Rivers, Tri-State, and Tuscarawas Valley.
Southeast Region Clubs: Baton Rouge, Lafayette, New Orleans, Red River, San Antonio, Victoria, and Westbank.
West Region Clubs: Abilene, Amarillo, Artesia, Farmington, Grande Prairie, Midland, Pampa, and Roswell.
Oil Patch Field Trips
The association’s conventions often have included field trips to onshore and offshore drilling platforms, refineries, drill-bit manufacturing plants, pipeline facilities, and other petroleum industry locations.
During the 62nd convention in 2013 at Charleston, West Virginia, coordinator Melinda Johnson managed a theme of “Autumn in Appalachia.” The local club included 95 oil and natural gas companies. The convention program offered seminars — and the choice of five day-long field trips.
Among the 62nd convention seminars were Five Traits of Professionalism; Intro to Petroleum Engineering; Hot Oil and Gas Plays in the Appalachian Basin; Formulas and More — Excel Training; and Leadership and Effective Communication.
Further, on one of the field trips, service company representatives from Nabors Services provided a seminar and demonstration on fracturing treatments in the Marcellus Shale. Convention attendees learned the steps in performing a hydraulic fracturing treatment and the difference between how a conventional reservoir and an unconventional reservoir is fractured.
Another field trip visited a Halliburton oilfield service yard for education on coil tubing — with a “snubbing” unit demonstration. Still another trip toured a Baker Hughes center in Clarksburg, where visitors learned about directional drilling and viewed downhole motors, rotary steerable subs, and different kinds of drill bits.
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please become an AOGHS annual supporter and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. © 2025 Bruce A. Wells.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Desk and Derrick Educators.” Author: AOGHS.ORG Editors. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/energy-education-resources/desk-derrick-educators. Last Updated: July 20, 2025. Original Published Date: July 21, 2014.
by Bruce Wells | Jul 13, 2025 | Petroleum History Almanac
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 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.
R.C. “Carl” Baker Sr.
Baker Oil Tool Company (later Baker International) had been 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.
Howard Hughes and Walter Sharp
The Hughes Tool Company began in 1908 as the Sharp-Hughes Tool Company, founded by Walter B. Sharp (1870–1912) and Howard R. Hughes, Sr.
Sharp was an experienced Texas oilfield pioneer who in 1893 drilled for the Gladys City Oil and Gas Manufacturing Company at Beaumont, Texas. The exploratory 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).
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. It was eventually arranged for Hughes to proceed with the designing 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.
Hard Rock at Goose Creek
“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. Rotary drilling “fishtail ” bits of the time were “nearly worthless when they hit hard rock.”
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.
Hughes Tool
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.
Oilfield Service Competition
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 the 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).
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Recommended Reading: History Of Oil Well Drilling
(2007); Trek of the Oil Finders: A History of Exploration for Petroleum (1975). 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 (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please become an AOGHS annual supporter and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. © 2025 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 17, 2025. Original Published Date: December 17, 2017.
