by Bruce Wells | Oct 16, 2024 | Petroleum Art
Advertising character became a petroleum industry award — and monuments in Texas parks.
Joe Roughneck’s rugged, square-jawed face first appeared in the 1950s as print advertisements for a tubular goods manufacturer. His helmeted visage in bronze became a petroleum industry award annually handed out to wildcatters “whose accomplishments and character represent the highest ideals of the oil and natural gas industry.”
Presented from 1955 to 2019 during conventions of a national oil and gas industry trade association, Joe’s Chief Roughneck statue symbolized the “leadership and integrity of individuals who have made a lasting impression on the energy industry.”
Torg Thompson, who in the 1950s drew the original for ads, sculpted the oilfield character “Joe Roughneck” for an annual industry award and display in Texas public parks.
The award’s bronze bust began with Texas artist Torg Thompson (1905-1998) and the Lone Star Steel Company, later U.S. Steel Tubular Products, a subsidiary of United States Steel. Thompson’s busts, sculpted from a character in newspaper and magazine ads, also would be dedicated in Texas parks.
Recipients of the pipe manufacturer’s “Chief Roughneck Award” — first presented to independent producer R.E. (Bob) Smith in 1955 — included Harold Hamm, George Mitchell, Dean McGee, H.L Hunt, and W.A. “Monty” Moncrief.
The advertising character’s battered face became popular in America’s oilfields, prompting Lone Star Steel executives to proclaim, “Joe doesn’t belong to us anymore. He’s as universal as a rotary rig.”
The advertising character began his career on the scratch pad of Thompson, also known for the 124-by-20-foot mural, “Miracle at Pentecost,” at the Biblical Arts Center in Dallas (destroyed by fire in 2005). For Lone Star Steel Company ads, Thompson portrayed Joe with the rugged countenance of a man who had spent long hours working in oilfields.
In 1959, Lone Star Steel Company, an oil field tubular goods manufacturer, produced this magazine advertisement featuring Joe Roughneck, the “Heart of the Oil and Gas Industry.”
“Joe’s jaw was squarely set to denote determination, his nose flattened as a souvenir of the rollicking life of a boom town. His eyes indicate the kindness and generosity of his breed. His mouth wore the trace of a smile, but there was a quizzical expression of one who had to see to believe,” notes a small museum in the heart of the East Texas oilfield.
“When the completed picture came into being on canvas, there was no doubt Joe was the heart of the oil patch,” the Depot Museum in Henderson adds.
Joe has been saluted by two Governors of Texas, named “Man of the Month” by a popular magazine, and has been the subject of countless newspaper articles, along with many radio and television commentaries. Joe also became the mascot of the White Oak Roughnecks, a high school football team of another East Texas oilfield community.
“Joe’s likeness has adorned the world’s largest golf trophy and once decorated an international oil exposition,” the Depot Museum concludes.
At the Gaston Museum in Joinerville, Texas, a Joe Roughneck memorial was dedicated “to the pioneers of the Great East Texas oilfield.” The October 1930, discovery well is just 1.75 miles away — and still producing for the Hunt Oil Company.
Joe still serves as a symbol for petroleum clubs that “recognize the pioneers of yesterday and today whose perseverance and courage made our nation the world’s leader in petroleum.”
Presented at the annual meeting of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, Joe’s head now sits atop oilfield monuments in Texas: Joinerville (1957), Conroe (1957), Boonsville (1970), and Kilgore (1986) – where he greets visitors to the East Texas Oil Museum.
Joe Roughneck in Joinerville
This, the first Joe Roughneck monument, was erected in Pioneer Park at the Gaston Museum in Joinerville, seven miles west of Henderson. The monument includes a time capsule sealed at the dedication on March 17, 1957, and to be opened in 2056. The capsule reportedly will tell future generations about the East Texas oilfield discovered by Columbus Marion “Dad” Joiner in early October 1930.
Joiner’s Daisy Bradford No. 3, discovery well for this prolific field, is nearby – less than two miles from the Gaston Museum. Production from the East Texas field exceeded five billion barrels of oil by 1993. Stripper wells still produce from the field.
Joe Roughneck in Conroe
In Conroe, about 40 miles north of Houston, Joe Roughneck rests on a monument in Candy Cane Park at the Heritage Museum of Montgomery County. He commemorates the discovery of a 19,000-acre field by George Strake in 1931 – “and others who envisioned an empire, dared to seek it, and discovered the Conroe oilfield.”
The Joe Roughneck monument in Conroe, Texas, is next to a miniature derrick protected by Plexiglas — and information about Montgomery County, where “whispers of oil discovery started in the early 1900s.”
The monument recognizes the completion of Strake’s Conroe oil field discovery well in June of 1932. The “Conroe Courier” headlines proclaimed, “Strake Well Comes In. Good for 10,000 Barrels Per Day.”
The Conroe oilfield led to major technology developments after Strake found the oil sands to be natural gas-charged, shallow – and dangerously unstable. By 1993, the 17.000-acre Conroe oilfield will have produced more than 717 million barrels of oil. Read the historical society article Technology and the Conroe Crater.
Joe Roughneck in Boonsville
Governor Preston Smith dedicated Boonsville’s Joe Roughneck on October 26, 1970 – the 20th anniversary of the Boonsville natural gas field discovery.
Joe Roughneck at the East Texas Oil Museum, which opened in 1980 in Kilgore.
The field’s 1945 discovery well, Lone Star Gas Company’s B.P. Vaught No. 1, produced 2.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas in its first 20 years. By 2001, the field – located in the Fort Worth Basin in North-Central Texas – had produced 3.1 trillion cubic feet of gas and 17 million barrels of condensate from 3,500 wells in the field.
Boonsville’s Joe Roughneck statue can be found on Farm to Market Road 920 about 13 miles southwest of Bridgeport in southwestern Wise County.
Joe Roughneck in Kilgore
Kilgore hosts a Joe Roughneck erected on March 2, 1986, in a downtown plaza, celebrating the “boomers” who settled in Kilgore during the 1930s. When Kilgore’s monument committee first approached Lone Star Steel, it learned that the Joe Roughneck cast had been destroyed in a fire. Lone Star Steel allowed use of the original mold to produce the monument.
Detail from a 1957 “Joe Roughneck” Lone Star Steel advertisement.
During the East Texas boom, Kilgore had the densest number of wells in the world. Today’s World’s Richest Acre Park displays a pumping unit and the city has restored dozens of derricks from Kilgore’s boomtown birth – a story told at the East Texas Oil Museum.
As the Depot Museum’s exhibit concluded, Joe Roughneck has remained: “Rough and tough, sage and salty, capable and reliable, shrewd but honest. Joe has throughout his lifetime symbolized the determination of the American petroleum industry, reaffirming the indomitable spirit of Chief Roughnecks the world over, past, present and future.”
Joe Roughneck’s iconic advertisement creation should also credit former Lone Star Steel Vice President L.D. “Red” Webster, according to Michael Webb, spouse of Webster’s daughter Rebel Webster (1959-2021). Webb emailed the American Oil & Gas Historical Society and explained he was categorizing unique artifacts and other historic items related to the career of his late wife’s father.
The preserved materials, including “pins, awards, tchotchkes, papers, plaques photos of Red and an original plaster bust of Joe Roughneck,” deserve a museum home, Webb noted. An original of the 12-inch bronze bust also is in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum Institution in Washington, D.C.
View all Chief Roughneck Award Winners from 1955 to 2019.
_______________________
Recommended Reading: A Wildcatter’s Trek: Love, Money and Oil (2016 by 1995 Chief Roughneck Gene Ames Jr.); 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.
_______________________
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. Copyright © 2024 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
Citation Information: Article Title: “Meet Joe Roughneck.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells, Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/petroleum-art/joe-roughneck. Last Updated: October 16, 2024. Original Published Date: March 11, 2005.
by Bruce Wells | Oct 15, 2024 | Petroleum Technology
Industry executives in 1968 recognized the public relations value of LNG fueling a land speed record.
Proclaiming natural gas “the fuel of the future,” the American Gas Association sponsored a sleek rocket car powered by liquified natural gas (LNG) that set a world land speed record on October 23, 1970. The speed record at Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats would remain unbroken for more than a decade.
In 1882, Mrs. Karl Benz secretly took her husband’s “Model III Patent Motorwagen” on a 65-mile road trip. The public relations stunt took 15 hours. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Oct 14, 2024 | This Week in Petroleum History
October 14, 1929 – Van Oilfield Discovery East of Dallas –
Pure Oil Company completed its Jarman No. 1 well in Van Zandt County and launched a drilling boom 60 miles east of Dallas. During its first hour, the oilfield discovery well produced 147 barrels of oil from the Woodbine sandstone at a depth of 2,700 feet. Three more wells followed as construction began on a camp for oilfield workers.
This Van Zandt County museum east of Dallas is in a warehouse originally built in 1930 by Pure Oil Company. Photo by Bruce Wells
By April 1930, the Van field produced 20,000 barrels of oil a day as companies adopted advanced production techniques. New pipelines linked the oilfield to the Pure refinery in Beaumont, Texas, and Standard Oil Company’s refinery in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Among the Van oilfield’s “Cook Camp” buildings was a sheet-metal warehouse, today home to the Van Area Oil and Historical Museum. Residents celebrate their oilfield’s discovery and the 45th Van Oil Festival will take place on October 19, 2024, in Van City Park.
October 15, 1895 – Patent for a Well Boring Machine
Oscar Benjamin of Lafayette, Louisiana, patented a compact, cable-tool drilling rig. His design for the “Well Boring Machine” used a framework mounted on wheels with a hinged derrick “adapted to swing over in transit.”
An 1895 patent for a portable cable-tool rig noted: Mounted on this framework (A) are the boiler (B) and the steam engine (C), which drives the belt (D).
Although Benjamin’s design included a boiler and steam engine mounted on the framework, any source of power could be used “independent of the portable boring machine,” he noted in his patent application (no. 548,109). The derrick could be steadied by stay-ropes and the velocity of the shaft controlled by using a band-brake (also see Making Hole — Drilling Technology).
October 15, 1966 – Johnson signs Historic Preservation Act
Recognizing the “spirit and direction of the nation are founded upon and reflected in its historic heritage,” Lyndon Johnson signed into law the National Historic Preservation Act to protect historical and archaeological sites. The Act authorized the Secretary of the Interior to maintain a National Register of Historic Places.
“The historical and cultural foundations of the nation should be preserved as a living part of our community life and development in order to give a sense of orientation to the American people,” the Act proclaimed.
October 15, 1997 – Kerosene fuels Land Speed Record
The current world land speed record was set at 763.035 miles per hour by the Thrust SSC, the British “supersonic car” fueled by a 19th-century petroleum product, kerosene. The vehicle’s twin turbofan engines burned JP-4, a fuel that first powered jet aircraft as early as 1951.
The latest SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets are fueled by highly refined kerosene rocket fuel, which also powered NASA’s Apollo moon launches. Liquefied natural gas fueled the world land speed record held from 1970 to 1983 (see Blue Flame Natural Gas Rocket Car).
October 16, 1931 – Natural Gas Pipeline sets Record
The first long-distance, high-pressure U.S. natural gas pipeline went into service during the Great Depression, linking prolific Texas Panhandle gas fields to consumers in Chicago.
A 1931 natural gas pipeline extended 980 miles from North Texas to Illinois.
A.O. Smith Corporation developed the technology for a thin-walled pipe, and Continental Construction Corporation built the 980-mile bolted flange line for the Natural Gas Pipeline Company of America (NGPL).
The $75 million pipeline consumed 209,000 tons of specially fabricated 24-inch wide steel pipe, which filled 6,500 freight cars. The project required 2,600 separate right-of-way leases (also see Big Inch Pipelines of WWII).
October 17, 1890 – Union Oil of California founded
Lyman Stewart, Thomas Bard and Wallace Hardison founded the Union Oil Company of California by merging their petroleum properties to compete with Standard Oil of California, founded 20 years earlier. Union Oil made strategic alliances with smaller oil companies to build pipelines from Kern County oilfields to the Pacific Coast.
“This gave the independent producers an alternative to what they perceived as the low prices paid by Standard Oil and the high freight rates charged by the railroads to move crude oil,” noted the American Institute of Mining in 1914. Union Oil moved the company headquarters from Santa Paula to Los Angeles in 1901.
After becoming the Union Oil Museum in 1950, the company’s Santa Paula headquarters building in 1990 was restored to its original appearance and reopened as the California Oil Museum.
In 1910, Union Oil lost control of its Midway-Sunset field’s Lakeview No. 1 well, which would take 18 months to control. The purchase of Pennsylvania-based Pure Oil in 1965 made the Unocal Union 76 brand a nationwide company. Chevron acquired Unocal in 2005.
Union Oil’s original Santa Paula headquarters building, a California Historical Landmark, became home to the California Oil Museum in 1990.
October 17, 1917 – “Roaring Ranger” launches Texas Drilling Boom
A wildcat well drilled between Abilene and Dallas launched the Texas drilling boom that helped fuel the Allied victory in World War I. The J.H. McCleskey No. 1 well erupted oil about two miles south of the small town of Ranger, which had been founded in the 1870s near a Texas Ranger camp in Eastland County.
The 1917 McCleskey No. 1 oil gusher in Texas made headlines as the “Roaring Ranger” that helped win World War I.
William Knox Gordon of the Texas and Pacific Coal Company completed the oilfield discovery well at a depth of 3,432 feet. It initially produced 1,600 barrels a day of quality, high-gravity oil. Within 20 months the exploration company’s stock value jumped from $30 a share to $1,250 a share.
“Roaring Ranger” launched a drilling boom that extended to nearby towns. More gushers followed, some producing up to 10,000 barrels of oil every day, and Ranger’s population grew from 1,000 to 30,000.
Eastland County discoveries included oil wells near Cisco, where Conrad Hilton bought his first hotel.
Petroleum proved essential in World War I. After the armistice was signed in 1918, a member of the British War Cabinet declared, “The Allied cause floated to victory upon a wave of oil.”
After the war, a veteran named Conrad Hilton visited Eastland County intending to buy a bank at Cisco. When his deal fell through, Hilton — at the Cisco train station ready to leave — noticed a small hotel with a line of roughnecks waiting for a room (see Oil Boom Brings First Hilton Hotel).
Learn more in “Roaring Ranger” wins WWI.
October 17, 1973 – OPEC Embargo brings Gas Lines, Recession
Fifty years ago, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) implemented what it called “oil diplomacy,” prohibiting any nation that had supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War from buying the cartel’s oil. The embargo brought an end to years of cheap gasoline and caused the New York Stock Exchange to drop by almost $100 billion. It also created one of the worst recessions in U.S. history. The United States became the world’s top petroleum producer in 2017, surpassing Russia and Saudi Arabia.
October 18, 2008 – Derrick dedicated at First Oklahoma Well
A re-enactment of the dramatic moment that changed Oklahoma history highlighted the 2008 dedication of a 84-foot replica derrick at Discovery 1 Park in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Events included roughneck reenactors and a water gusher from an 84-foot derrick that replaced one dedicated in 1948.
Discovery 1 Park in Bartlesville includes a replica derrick on the original site of Oklahoma’s first oil well.
In 1897, a cable-tool drilling rig at the site of Oklahoma’s first commercial oil well had thrilled another group of spectators when Jenny Cass, stepdaughter of Bartlesville founder George W. Keeler, was given the honor of “shooting” the well in what today is Discovery 1 Park.
October 19, 1990 – First Emergency Use of Strategic Petroleum Reserve
As world oil prices spiked after the August 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi troops, the first presidentially mandated emergency use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve was authorized by George H. W. Bush, who ordered the sale of five million barrels of SPR oil as a test to “demonstrate the readiness of the system under real life conditions,” according to the Department of Energy.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve’s four oil storage facilities are grouped into three geographical pipeline distribution systems
in Texas and Louisiana. Map courtesy U.S. Department of Energy, Report to Congress, December 2018.
President Ford established the SPR in 1975 as a protection against severe supply interruptions. By 2020, four underground salt dome sites along the Gulf Coast stored 735 million barrels of oil — the largest stockpile of government-owned emergency oil in the world.
October 20, 1924 – First Tubular Goods Standards
Shortages of equipment and drilling delays during World War I revealed the petroleum industry’s struggle with a lack of uniformity of pipe sizes, threads and coupling. Founded in 1919, the American Petroleum Industry (API) gathered experts to develop industry-wide standards to promote equipment compatibility. “After bringing these experts together to agree upon design and requirements, the first standard Specifications for Steel and Iron Pipe for Oil Country Tubular Goods was published on October 20, 1924,” notes API, which has since published more than 800 standards and guidelines.
October 20, 1944 – Liquefied Natural Gas Tank explosion in Ohio
An explosion and fire from liquefied natural gas tanks in Cleveland, Ohio, killed 131 people and caused more than $10 million in damage. Temperatures inside of one of the East Ohio Gas Company’s tanks had been allowed to fall below minus 250 degrees, which caused the steel plates to contract and rupture. Investigators never discovered a cause for the explosion, but witnesses reported a leak in one of the tanks, according to Ohio History Central. “Some spark must have then ignited the gas, although, with World War II currently raging, some residents initially suspected a German saboteur.”
October 20, 1949 – Maryland produces Some Natural Gas
The first commercially successful natural gas well in Maryland was drilled by the Cumberland Allegheny Gas Company in the town of Mountain Lake Park, Garrett County. The Elmer Beachy well produced about 500 thousand cubic feet of natural gas per day.
No oil has been produced in Maryland.
The discovery well prompted a rush of competing companies and high-density drilling (an average of nine wells per acre), which depleted the field. Twenty of 29 wells drilled within the town produced natural gas, but overall production from the field was low. No oil has been found in Maryland.
_______________________
Recommended Reading: Early Texas Oil: A Photographic History, 1866-1936
(2000); Oil and Gas Pipeline Fundamentals
(1993); The 76 bonanza: The fabulous life and times of the Union Oil Company of California
(1966); Ranger, Images of America
(2010); Desert Kingdoms to Global Powers: The Rise of the Arab Gulf
(2016); Bartlesville, Oklahoma, Postcard History Series 
(2000); The Extraction State, A History of Natural Gas in America (2021). 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. Please become an AOGHS annual supporter and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2024 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
by Bruce Wells | Oct 9, 2024 | Petroleum Pioneers
After months of drilling, a 1917 oil well roared in at Ranger, Texas.
As World War I continued in Europe, the “Roaring Ranger” oilfield discovery well of October 1917 in Eastland County, Texas, revealed a giant oilfield that would help fuel the Allied victory.
Residents of the town of Ranger — about halfway between Dallas and Abilene — had been eager to find oil, especially after reading newspaper accounts of an oilfield discovery on April Fool’s Day 1911 at Electra in neighboring Wichita County. A decade earlier in southeastern Texas, the “Lucas Gusher” at Spindletop Hill had launched the modern U.S. petroleum industry.
A detail from an image of the “Roaring Ranger” oilfield discovery well of October 1917. The gusher created an oil boom across Eastland County, Texas. Photo courtesy Ranger Historical Preservation Society.
As the area’s cotton farmers struggled with severe drought, Ranger town officials hoped to strike “black gold” with the help of William K. Gordon, vice president of the Texas and Pacific Coal Company in Thurber.
McCleskey No. 1
After one failed test with a shallow well, Gordon agreed to drill the second attempt up to 3,500 feet deep. Drilling with a cable-tool rig, Gordon and contractor Warren Wagner spudded the exploratory wildcat well on July 2, 1917, on the McCleskey farm, two miles south of Ranger.
After more than three months of drilling, the J.H. McCleskey No. 1 well erupted a geyser of oil on October 17, 1917, from a depth of 3,432 feet.
Following the October 1917 oilfield discovery, the Texas and Pacific Railroad played an important part in getting people, equipment and oil in and out of Ranger. A circa 1920 postcard shows the depot, today home of the Roaring Ranger Museum.
When completed, “Roaring Ranger” initially produced 1,600 barrels of oil a day of high gravity oil. Later oil gushers yielded up to 10,000 barrels of oil daily.
Within 20 months, Texas and Pacific Coal Company stock jumped from $30 a share to $1,250 a share. The company reorganized as the Texas Pacific Coal and Oil Company.
“Almost over-night, you couldn’t even see the homes for the derricks,” says Ranger historian Jeane B. Pruett. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.
Eastland County oil discoveries brought economic booms to Ranger, Cisco, Desdemona (today a ghost town) and Eastland.
The Abilene Reporter-News reported Ranger’s population swelled from less than 1,000 to more than 30,000 — mostly men. Opportunities for illicit financial gain also attracted notorious oilfield hucksters like J.W. “Hog Creek” Carruth (see Exploiting North Texas Oil Fever).
The 2016 Roaring Ranger Day Parade took place on the 99th birthday of the town’s famous oil gusher. Photo courtesy Ranger Historical Preservation Society.
Eastland County’s drilling and production boom grew rapidly as petroleum companies rushed to Ranger to develop the giant oilfield, according to historian Damon Sasser.
By 1919, the Texas Pacific Coal and Oil Company had 22 oil wells — and eight refineries open or under construction. More freight was unloaded in Ranger by the railroad than at any other place upon its line, including stations in Fort Worth, Dallas and New Orleans.
The J.H. McCleskey No. 1 discovery well of October 1917 created a mammoth oil boom at Ranger and across Eastland County, Texas. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.
The flood of people also brought Texas Rangers to enforce laws. When jails in Ranger overflowed, the lawmen handcuffed prisoners to telephone poles. Texas Rangers earlier had led to the town’s establishment as a Ranger camp.
Independent and major oil companies soon opened other nearby oilfields, including the Parsons, Sinclair-Earnest and Lake Sand fields.
Photos courtesy Sarah Reveley and Barclay Gibson, who have photographed Texas Historical Commission markers and helped locate hundreds of historic sites from Louisiana to New Mexico.
Production from the Breckenridge oilfield in neighboring Stephens County was 10 million barrels of oil by 1919. It peaked at more than 31 million barrels of oil in 1921.
“Wave of Oil” wins WWI
“Roaring Ranger” and the region’s production had proved essential to the Allied victory in World War I. When the armistice was signed in 1918, a member of the British War Cabinet declared, “The Allied cause floated to victory upon a wave of oil.”
Ranger’s boom ended in the early 1920s when excess oil production caused wells to fail, but the discoveries confirmed existence of a large petroleum-producing region, the Mid-Continent with hundreds of oilfields stretching from Texas into Oklahoma and Kansas.
Among the veterans visiting booming Eastland County after the war was a young Conrad Hilton, who visited Cisco intending to buy a bank. When he witnessed the long line of roughnecks waiting for a room at the Mobley Hotel, he decided to buy the hotel (learn more in Oil Boom Brings First Hilton Hotel).
Eastland County oil discoveries, which began with the “Roaring Ranger” well of 1917, brought economic booms to Ranger, Cisco, and Desdemona. Photo courtesy Jeane B. Pruett and the family of W.K Gordon Jr.
Established by the Ranger chamber of commerce in 1982, the “Roaring Ranger” Museum — inside the original Texas and Pacific Railway’s depot — exhibits drilling equipment, historic photos and a vintage cable-tool rig.
Ranger residents annually celebrate their 1917 oilfield discovery with a festival and parade down Main Street. When the parade crosses the historic train depot’s tracks, participants pass a small, gray granite marker dedicated to the “First Oil Well Drilled in Eastland County.”
The 1936 Texas Centennial marker remains “a highly cherished monument that Ranger should be very proud of,” according to Eastland County resident Sarah Reveley, who documented many Texas Historical Commission sites.
Other dedicated advocates for preserving local petroleum history included Jeane B. Pruett (1935-2022), a longtime friend of the American Oil & Gas Historical Society.
_______________________
Recommended Reading: Ranger, Images of America (2010); The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power
(2008); 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.
_______________________
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. Copyright © 2024 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Roaring Ranger wins WWI.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/petroleum-pioneers/roaring-ranger-wins-wwi. Last Updated: October 11, 2024. Original Published Date: July 1, 2004.
by Bruce Wells | Oct 8, 2024 | Petroleum Pioneers
Conrad Hilton saw a line of roughnecks waiting outside a Texas hotel — and recognized an opportunity.
Hilton Hotels began in 1919 after Conrad Hilton witnessed a crowd of roughnecks waiting in front of a small hotel in Cisco, Texas. He had intended to buy a bank in the booming Ranger oilfield. “He can keep his bank!” declared the businessman before buying the Mobley Hotel.
On October 17, 1917, the McCleskey No. 1 well hit an oil-bearing sand at 3,432 feet deep and launched the world-famous Ranger oilfield boom. Thanks to this “Roaring Ranger,” in just 20 months the Texas Pacific Coal and Oil Company — whose stock had skyrocketed from $30 to $1,250 a share — was drilling 22 wells in the area.
Conrad Hilton visited Cisco, Texas, intending to buy a bank. When the deal fell through, he went from the train station across the street to a two-story red brick building called the Mobley Hotel. He noticed roughnecks from the Ranger oilfield waiting in line for a room.
Eight Eastland County refineries were soon open or under construction, and Ranger’s four banks added $5 million in deposits. The Ranger oilfield and other nearby North Texas discoveries gained international fame by eliminating critical oil shortages during World War I — allowing the Allies to “float to victory on a wave of oil.”
Ranger’s Main Street in the 1920s. The North Texas town’s petroleum boom came at a time when the industrialized world depended more and more on oil.
Investment capital and aspiring millionaires soon overwhelmed the little town of Ranger as well as nearby Cisco, where the Texas Central Railroad crossed the Texas & Pacific.
The new Texas oilfield gave birth to countless stories of fortunes made with gushers and good luck. But one tale endures of a fortune made because oil was easier to find than a good place to sleep.
The McCleskey No. 1 well struck oil in October 1917, reached a daily production of 1,700 barrels — and launched an economic boom in Eastland County, Texas.
Conrad Hilton learned the banking business in his hometown of San Antonio, New Mexico (still a territory when he was born there in 1887). As a young man with only $2,900 capital, he founded the New Mexico State Bank of San Antonio. His tenacity in pursuit of investors and deposits paid off.
In two years, Hilton built his bank’s assets to $135,000. He believed he had found his life’s work. World War I interrupted his plans, prompting Hilton to sell his bank and serve his country.
A postcard provides a view of downtown Cisco, Texas, in the 1920s.
Upon returning from France after the Armistice, Hilton began anew. He set out for Albuquerque, determined to start again in the banking business. But times had changed and banking opportunities had dried up. Despite Hilton’s best efforts, he couldn’t break back into the business.
Then a longtime Albuquerque friend, Emmett Vaughey, suggested Texas, where the Ranger oilfield was making millionaires. Persuaded and confident, Hilton boarded the train bound for Wichita Falls.
However, just as Hilton had discovered in Albuquerque, there was no room for a “new guy” in the solidly locked-up banking community of Wichita Falls. The same was true even further south, in Breckenridge.
Disappointed but determined, Hilton continued down the Texas Central Railroad to the Cisco railway station, just east of Ranger’s booming oilfield in Eastland County. He was 31 years old and determined to build a banking empire.
Conrad Hilton described his first hotel as “a cross between a flophouse and a gold mine.”
With $5,011 in his pockets, Hilton walked to the first bank he saw in Cisco and found to his delight that it was for sale — asking price — $75,000. Accustomed to finding financial backers and undeterred by the $70,000 shortfall, he wired the absentee Kansas City owner to close the deal.
First Hilton Hotel
Conrad Hilton was poised to build the banking empire he had long dreamed of when the Cisco bank seller sent him a telegram tersely raising the sale price to $80,000.
In his autobiography, Be My Guest, Conrad Hilton recalled telling the startled telegraph operator, “He can keep his bank! Then I strode out of the station and across the street to a two-story red brick building boosting itself as the ‘Mobley Hotel.’”
Henry Mobley, the hotel’s owner, was making the most he could off of the Ranger oilfield boom. His lobby was constantly packed with tired workers, maneuvering for space and impatiently awaiting their turn to rent a room. Mobley rented the hotel’s 40 beds in eight-hour blocks corresponding to shifts.
The Mobley Hotel, purchased by Conrad Hilton in 1919, today serves as a community center — and tourist attraction.
Hilton joined the crowd in line, suddenly alert to an unanticipated opportunity. He approached Henry Mobley, who was convinced that the real money was in oil, not in the “glorified boarding house” business. Before long, they closed a $40,000 deal and Conrad Hilton had his first hotel. He would never return to banking.
Later in the year, with profits earned from the Mobley Hotel, Hilton bought the Melba Hotel in Fort Worth, and the following year the Waldorf in Dallas.
Although petroleum production from the Ranger field collapsed in 1921, taking with it scores of businesses and a number of failed banks, Hilton’s business continued to expand.
By 1923. Hilton owned five Texas hotels; the Dallas Hilton in 1925 became the first to use the Hilton name. By 1930, he was the largest hotel operator in the region.
The Depression and the years that followed brought Hilton many challenges. While memories of the Ranger boom slipped away, his business grew to dominate the hotel marketplace.
The Mobley building endures as a Cisco landmark and museum. Two of the hotel’s original rooms have been restored.
According to a National Register of listed sites narrative about the Mobley Hotel, Hilton considered his purchase the “ideal hotel to practice on.” Two principles now basic to all Hilton hotels were first tried in the Mobley: maximum reduction of wasted space and “esprit de corps” among the employees.
Hilton is remembered not as a banker but as a preeminent hotelier…and an oilfield entrepreneur. The restored and renovated Mobley Hotel, which Hilton once referred to as “a cross between a flophouse and a gold mine,” has become home to the Cisco Chamber of Commerce and serves as a community center, museum, and park.
Hilton later said he regarded his oil boom town purchase as his “first love” and “a great lady.”
In the years after World War I, as more “motor hotels” opened for automobile travelers, Hilton’s hotel competitors coined the term motel by 1925.
Learn more North Texas oil and gas history in Pump Jack Capital of Texas.
Bad Santa of Cisco
Adding to the lore of Cisco, Texas — in addition to being near the 1917 “Roaring Ranger” oilfield and home of Hilton’s first hotel — on December 23, 1927, a man disguised as Santa Claus made an ill-fated attempt to rob a bank two days before Christmas.
Marshall Ratliff donned a Santa Claus disguise and tried to rob the First National Bank with three armed accomplices. A running gun battle with police and citizens ensued before Ratliff was captured.
The mortal wounding of a guard during an escape attempt sealed bank-robbing Santa’s fate.
“After the gun smoke cleared, six people were dead, eight others wounded, two little girls and a young man had been kidnapped, and two bloody gun battles had been fought, launching the largest manhunt in Texas history,” explained Damon C. Sasser in “The Bloody Cisco Santa Claus Christmas Caper.”
In November 1928, Ratliff attempted to escape from the Eastland County jail and mortally wounded a guard before being subdued. The next morning, enraged citizens dragged Ratliff from the jail and strung him up from a nearby utility pole. When the first rope broke, they got a new one that did not.
Organized in 1992, the Eastland County Museum & Historical Society maintains an archive of period photographs and other memorabilia related to the county.
_______________________
Recommended Reading: Be My Guest
(1957); Ranger, Images of America (2010). 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. Please become an AOGHS annual supporter and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2024 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Oil Boom Brings First Hilton Hotel.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/petroleum-pioneers/first-hilton-hotel. Last Updated: October 10, 2024 Original Published Date: July 1, 2005.
