by Bruce Wells | Sep 2, 2024 | This Week in Petroleum History
September 2, 1910 – Cities Service Company incorporates –
Henry Doherty organized the Cities Services Company as a public utility holding company in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Doherty bought producing properties in Kansas and Oklahoma as he acquired distributing companies and linked them to natural gas fields.
In 1915, a Cities Service subsidiary discovered the 34-square-mile El Dorado oilfield. In 1928, another subsidiary completed the discovery well of the Oklahoma City oilfield.
Cities Service Company subsidiaries discovered major Mid-Continent oilfields.
Federal court mandates in 1940 resulted in Cities Service’s divestiture of its public utilities, and in 1959 the remaining companies were reformed as Cities Service Oil Company, which changed its marketing brand to Citgo in 1964.
After being acquired by Occidental Petroleum in 1982, Citgo was acquired by the Venezuela state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) in 1990.
Learn more in Cities Service Company.
September 2, 1918 – Desdemona Oilfield adds to North Texas Boom
A third oil boom arrived in Eastland County, Texas, when the Hog Creek Oil Company exploratory well at Desdemona blew in at 2,000 barrels of oil a day — thrilling the venture’s investors. Production from the new oilfield, which joined prolific fields at Breckenridge (1916) and “Roaring Ranger” (1917), would peak at more than 7.3 million barrels of oil in 1919.
“By 1919 the Desdemona field was probably the second largest in the oil belt, and the Hog Creek Oil Company’s stockholders were able to sell their $100 shares for $10,250 each,” noted Edwin Cox in his 1950 History of Eastland County, Texas.
Thanks to its oil leases, Eastland County’s Merriman Baptist Church would be declared the richest congregation in America.
September 2, 2009 – Gulf of Mexico Depth Record
BP discovered an oilfield 250 miles southeast of Houston in the Gulf of Mexico — and set a world depth record by drilling 30,923 feet into seabed from a platform floating more than 4,130 feet above.
The Tiber Prospect field — in 2009 estimated to contain more than three billion barrels of oil — was drilled by the Deepwater Horizon, which later was moved to a new site and destroyed in the deadly explosion and oil spill of April 2010. Learn about other ultra-deep wells in Anadarko Basin in Depth.
September 4, 1841 – “Rock Drill Jar” Patent for Percussion Drilling
Early drilling technology advanced when William Morris, a driller in West Virginia, patented a “Rock Drill Jar.” It was an innovation he had been experimenting with while drilling brine wells.
“The mechanical success of cable-tool drilling has greatly depended on a device called jars, invented by a spring pole driller,” according to historian Samuel Pees, who in 2004 noted Morris began using the technology as early as the 1830s.
Drill jar technology improved efficiency for drilling brine wells — and later, oil wells.
For more advanced cable tools, Morris patented a “manner of uniting augers to sinkers for boring,” with the upper link of the jars helping the lower link to strike the underlying auger stem on the upstroke. This upward blow could dislodge the bit if it was stuck in the rock formation. Cable-tool drillers would soon improve upon Morris’ patented jars.
Learn more in Making Hole — Drilling Technology.
September 4, 1850 – Illuminating Chicago Streets
The Chicago Gas Light & Coke Company delivered its first commercial gas processed from coal. “The gas pipes were filled, and the humming noise made by the escaping gas at the tops of the lamp-posts indicated that everything was all right,” reported the Gem of the Prairie newspaper. “Shortly afterward the fire was applied and brilliant torches flamed on both sides of Lake Street as far as the eye could see and wherever the posts were set.”
By 1855, almost 80 miles of pipeline would be installed for about 2,000 manufactured gas consumers in Chicago. The first U.S. public street lamp fueled by manufactured gas illuminated Baltimore, Maryland, in 1817 (see Illuminating Gaslight).
September 5, 1885 – Birth of the “Filling Station” Gas Pump
Modern gasoline pump design began with inventor Sylvanus F. (Freelove) Bowser, who sold his first pump to a grocery store owner in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Designed to safely dispense kerosene as well as “burning fluid, and the light combustible products of petroleum,” Bowser’s pump included a container holding 42 gallons. The pump used marble valves, a wooden plunger, and a simple, upright faucet.
The 1916 Bowser gas pump included a “clock face” dial to measure pumped gas. Photo courtesy Smithsonian Institution.
Thanks to the pump’s success at Jake Gumper’s grocery store, Bowser formed the S.F. Bowser Company and patented his invention in 1887. Within a decade — as the automobile’s popularity grew — Bowser’s company has added new pump designs. By 1905, the S.F. Bowser “Self-Measuring Gasoline Storage Pump” became known to motorists as a “filling station.”
The Bowser gas pump included a hand-levered suction pump and a hose attachment for dispensing gas. As other pump manufacturers arrived, Fort Wayne became known as the “Gas Pump Capital of the World.”
Learn more in First Gas Pump and Service Station.
September 5, 1927 – Schlumberger Brothers test Electric Logging Tool
An electric well-logging tool was first applied at Pechelbronn, France, after brothers Conrad and Marcel Schlumberger modified their surface system to operate vertically in a well.
Conrad Schlumberger, using very basic equipment, in 1912 recorded the first map of equipotential curves near Caen, France.
Conrad Schlumberger had conceived the idea of using electrical measurements to map subsurface rock formations as early as 1912. After developing an electrical four-probe surface approach for mineral exploration, the brothers created the electric downhole well log.
Conrad and Marcel Schlumberger tested their electronic logging tool in 1927, one year after founding the world’s first well-logging company. Photo and image courtesy Schlumberger Ltd.
Lowering their new 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 a well log of geologic formations. Changes in subsurface resistance readings showed variations and possible oil and natural gas-producing areas.
The brothers’ technological breakthrough would lead to Schlumberger becoming the world’s first well-logging oilfield service company.
September 5, 1939 – Young Geologist reveals Mississippi Oilfield
Union Producing Company completed its Woodruff No. 1, the first commercial oil well in Mississippi. Drilled at Tinsley, southwest of Yazoo City, the well produced 235 barrels of oil a day from a depth of 4,560 feet in a sandstone later named the Woodruff Sand. Fieldwork by geologist Frederic Mellen led to the Tinsley oilfield discovery.
Fred Mellen was elected president of the Mississippi Geological Survey in 1946.
While working on a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project, Mellen earlier found indications of a salt dome structure similar to the giant Spindletop field of 1901 in Texas. The 28-year-old geologist urged more seismographic testing, and Houston-based Union Producing Company leased about 2,500 acres at Perry Creek.
Mellen’s original WPA project had been a clay and minerals survey, “to locate a suitable clay to mold cereal bowls and other utensils for an underprivileged children’s nursery.” Instead, he launched Mississippi’s oil industry.
Learn more in First Mississippi Oil Wells.
September 7, 1917 – Oilfield Legacy of Texas Governor Hogg
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 dry holes dating back to 1901 — when former Texas Governor James “Big Jim” Hogg paid $30,000 for the lease. He also helped launch the Texas Company (Texaco).
Gov. Hogg died 11 years before the Tyndall-Wyoming Oil Company wells found oil in the giant West Columbia oilfield. Fortunately for his family, he stipulated in his will that the mineral rights should not be sold for at least 15 years after his death.
Learn more in Governor Hogg’s Texas Oil Wells.
September 7, 1923 – California Oilfield discovered at Dominguez Hills
Maj. Frederick Russell Burnham discovered oil in Dominguez Hills, an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County, California. His well produced about 1,200 barrels of oil a day from a depth of about 4,000 feet. Maj. Burnham, a decorated soldier in both the U.S. and British armies, was once known as “King of the Scouts.”
The Burnham Exploration Company and partner Union Oil Company of California opened the Dominguez Hills oilfield, “a two-square-mile, two-mile deep stack of eight producing zones.”
Maj. Frederick R. Burnham in his British Army uniform, 1901.
The region was named for a Spanish soldier who in 1784 received a land grant for grazing cattle. “But family fortunes truly took off with discovery of oil in the 1920s, first in the Torrance area and then, most resoundingly, on Dominguez Hill itself,” explained a California State University historian in 2007.
By 1933, Maj. Burnham’s petroleum exploration venture and Union Oil had paid more than $10 million to stockholders.
Learn more California history in First California Oil Wells and Discovering Los Angeles Oilfields.
September 8, 1891- Patent issued for “Flexible Driving Shafts”
The modern concept of horizontal drilling may have begun with 19th-century patents by John Smalley Campbell of London. After receiving a British patent for his “useful improvements in flexible driving shafts or cables” in 1889, Campbell received a U.S. patent (no. 459,152) for his drilling method.
While Campbell described the patent as ideal for dental engines, “the patent also carefully covered use of his flexible shafts at much larger and heavier physical scales,” reported oil historian Stephen Testa in a 2015 article for Pacific Petroleum Geology. “The modern concept of non-straight line, relatively short-radius drilling dates back at least to September 8, 1891.”
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Recommended Reading: The fire in the rock: A history of the oil and gas industry in Kansas, 1855-1976
(1976); Early Texas Oil: A Photographic History, 1866-1936
(2000); History Of Oil Well Drilling
(2007); Street Lights of the World
(2015); Vertical Reefs: Life on Oil and Gas Platforms in the Gulf of Mexico
(2015); Drilling Technology in Nontechnical Language
(2012); An Illustrated Guide to Gas Pumps
(2008); Schlumberger: The History of a Technique
(1978); Oil in the Deep South: A History of the Oil Business in Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, 1859-1945
(1993); California State University, Dominguez Hills
(2010). 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 annual AOGHS supporter today. Help us 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 | Aug 23, 2024 | Petroleum Pioneers
The U.S. petroleum industry began in 1859 to meet demand for “Coal Oil” — the popular lamp fuel kerosene.
American oil history began in a valley along a creek in remote northwestern Pennsylvania. Today’s exploration and production industry was born on August 27, 1859, near Titusville when a well specifically drilled for oil found it.
Although crude oil had been found and bottled for medicine as early as 1814 in Ohio and in Kentucky in 1818, these had been drilled seeking brine. Drillers often used an ancient technology, the “spring pole” Sometimes the salt wells produced small amounts of oil, an unwanted byproduct.
Considered America’s first petroleum exploration company – the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company of New York – incorporated in 1854. It reorganized as Seneca Oil Company of New Haven Connecticut in 1858.
The advent of cable-tool drilling introduced the wooden derrick into the changing American landscape. The technology applied same basic idea of chiseling a hole deeper into the earth.
Using steam power, a variety of heavy bits, and clever mechanical engineering, cable-tool drillers continued to become more efficient. (Learn more Making Hole – Drilling Technology.) (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Jan 1, 2024 | This Week in Petroleum History
January 1, 1973 – Esso becomes Exxon –
After one year of test marketing the new name, Standard Oil of New Jersey became Exxon, officially replacing U.S. Esso brands and subsidiary Humble Oil and Refining’s Enco brands. The nationwide rebranding applied to 28,600 Esso and Humble Enco stations, costing $100 million in research, product relabeling, and advertising, according to TIME magazine.
“Plans call for Humble to be renamed Exxon U.S., and for Standard Oil of New Jersey to become Exxon Inc.,” TIME reported in 1971, adding the company recognized existing brands could become global. The Enco name was discarded because it means “stalled car” in Japanese. Exxon would become ExxonMobil in 1999 after merging with Mobil Oil.
January 2, 1866 – Patent describes Early Rotary Rig
Peter Sweeney of New York City received a U.S. patent for an “Improvement in Rock Drills” design that included basic elements of the modern rotary rig. The inventor described his idea as a “peculiar construction particularly adapted for boring deep wells.”
Peter Sweeney’s innovative 1866 “Stone Drill” patent included a roller bit using “rapid rotary motion” similar to modern rotary drilling technologies.
Sweeney’s drilling patent, which improved upon an 1844 British patent by Robert Beart, used a roller bit with replaceable cutting wheels such “that by giving the head a rapid rotary motion the wheels cut into the ground or rock and a clean hole is produced.”
The rig’s “drill-rod” was hollow and connected with a hose through which “a current of steam or water can be introduced in such a manner that the discharge of the dirt and dust from the bottom of the hole is facilitated.” The petroleum industry soon improved upon Sweeney’s 1866 rotary rig.
January 2, 1882 – Rockefeller organizes the Standard Oil Trust
John D. Rockefeller continued to expand his Standard Oil Company empire by reorganizing his assets into the Standard Oil Trust, which controlled much of the U.S. petroleum industry through 40 producing, refining and marketing affiliates. The trust also operated all of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s tank cars (also see Densmore Oil Tank Cars) until a U.S. Supreme Court ruling broke it up in 1911.
January 2, 1932 – Birth of Union “76” Brand
The Union Oil Company “76” brand was launched at service stations in western states. The brand’s orange circle with blue type logo was adopted in the 1940s, and the “76” orange orb first appeared at the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle. A smaller version of the ball proved so popular that millions would be given away as bright attachments to car antennas.
The Union 76 ball debuted in 1962.
The California Oil Museum in Santa Paula is in the original Union Oil headquarters of the 1890s.
January 2, 1974 – President Nixon sets 55 mph Speed Limit
Although setting speed limits earlier had been left to each state, when OPEC cut U.S. oil supplies in October 1973, President Richard Nixon signed the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act to reduce gas consumption. As a national speed limit of 55 mph became law, the embargo’s higher gas prices boosted sales of smaller, more fuel-efficient cars from Japan.
In 1995, President Bill Clinton repealed the federal limit, returning the power to the states. In 2023, the highest U.S. posted speed limit was 85 mph — only on Texas State Highway 130.
January 4, 1948 – Deep Discovery in Permian Basin
Exploration of the Permian Basin in Texas intensified when a wildcat well found oil and natural gas in a deep geologic formation. The Slick-Urschel Oil Company drilled the well after partnering with Michael Late Benedum, a renowned geologist who had discovered Pennsylvania and West Virginia oilfields as early as the 1890s.
Tom Slick Jr. of Oklahoma helped Michael Benedum of Pennsylvania discover a deep Permian Basin field in Texas. Image from February 16, 1948, LIFE magazine.
The Permian Basin discovery, the Alford No. 1 well, 50 miles south of Midland, was completed at 12,011 feet. A famous West Texas well completed two decades earlier, Santa-Rita No. 1, had produced oil from just 440 feet deep. The Slick-Urschel Oil well reached a depth of 10,000 feet in less than five months; it took another seven months to penetrate 384 feet.
Help came from Tom Slick Jr., the son of Oklahoma’s King of the Wildcatters, who branched off the well using a “whipstock” and reached the prolific limestone formation. The field was named in 1950 by the Texas Railroad Commission in honor of Benedum, “who devoted 69 of his 90 years to the oil business.”
January 7, 1864 – Discovery at Pithole Creek creates Oil Boom Town
The once famous Pithole Creek
oilfield was discovered in Pennsylvania. The United States Petroleum Company’s well reportedly had been located with a witch-hazel dowser. It initially produced 250 barrels of oil a day. The “black gold” rush to boom town Pithole made headlines five years after the first U.S. oil well drilled at nearby Titusville.
Tourists can explore oil history in a Pennsylvania park where they walk the grass paths of former streets in boom town Pithole. Photo by Bruce Wells.
Adding to the boom were Civil War veterans eager to invest in the new industry. Newspapers stories added to the oil fever — as did the Legend of “Coal Oil Johnny.”
Tourists today can visit Oil Creek State Park and its education center on the grassy expanse that was once Pithole.
January 7, 1905 – Humble Oilfield Discovery rivals Spindletop
C.E. Barrett discovered the Humble oilfield in Harris County, Texas, with his Beatty No. 2 well, which brought another Texas oil boom four years after a gusher at Spindletop Hill launched the modern petroleum industry. Barrett’s well produced 8,500 barrels of oil per day from a depth of 1,012 feet.
The population of Humble jumped from 700 to 20,000 within months as production reached almost 16 million barrels of oil, the largest in Texas at the time. The field directly led to the 1911 founding of the Humble Oil Company by a group that included Ross Sterling, a future governor of Texas.
An embossed postcard circa 1905 from the Postal Card & Novelty Company, courtesy the University of Houston Digital Library.
“Production from several strata here exceeded the total for fabulous Spindletop by 1946,” notes a local historic marker. “Known as the greatest salt dome field, Humble still produces and the town for which it was named continues to thrive.” Another giant oilfield discovery in 1903 at nearby Sour Lake helped establish the Texaco Company.
Humble Oil, renamed Humble Oil and Refining Company in 1917, consolidated operations with Standard Oil of New Jersey two years later, eventually leading to ExxonMobil.
January 7, 1957 – Michigan Dairy Farmer finds Giant Oilfield
After two years of drilling, a wildcat well on Ferne Houseknecht’s Michigan dairy farm discovered the state’s largest oilfield. The 3,576-foot-deep well produced from the Black River formation of the Trenton zone.
After 20 months of on again, off again drilling, Ferne Houseknecht’s well revealed a giant oilfield in the southern Michigan basin.
The Houseknecht No. 1 discovery well at “Rattlesnake Gulch” revealed a producing region 29 miles long and more than one mile wide. It prompted a drilling boom that led to production of 150 million barrels of oil and 250 billion cubic feet of natural gas from the giant Albion-Scipio field in the southern Michigan basin.
The formation represented a classic “fracture-controlled dolomite reservoir,” according to petroleum geologists. “The story of the discovery well of Michigan’s only ‘giant’ oil field, using the worldwide definition of having produced more than 100 million barrels of oil from a single contiguous reservoir is the stuff of dreams,” noted Michigan historian Jack Westbrook
.
Learn more in Michigan’s “Golden Gulch” of Oil.
January 7, 1913 – “Cracking” Patent improves Refining
William Burton of the Standard Oil Company’s Whiting, Indiana, refinery received a patent for a process that doubled the amount of gasoline produced from each barrel of oil refined. Burton’s invention came as demand for gasoline was rapidly growing with the popularity of automobiles. His thermal cracking concept was an important refining advancement, although the process would be superseded by catalytic cracking in 1937.
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Recommended Reading: History Of Oil Well Drilling (2007); Sign of the 76: The fabulous life and times of the Union Oil Company of California
(1977); The Great Wildcatter
(1953); Cherry Run Valley: Plumer, Pithole, and Oil City, Pa., Images of America
(2000); Early Texas Oil: A Photographic History, 1866-1936
(2000); Humble, Images of America
(2013); Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund 1976-2011: A 35-year Michigan Oil and Gas Industry Investment Heritage in Michigan’s Public Recreation Future
(2011); Handbook of Petroleum Refining Processes
(2016).
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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. Copyright © 2024 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
by Bruce Wells | Dec 28, 2023 | Petroleum Technology
Early rig design patent for a hollow “drill-rod” and roller bit for “making holes in hard rock.”
An “Improvement in Rock Drills” patent issued to a New Yorker after the Civil War included the basic elements of the modern petroleum industry’s rotary rig.
On January 2, 1866, Peter Sweeney of New York City was granted U.S. patent No. 51,902 for a drilling system with many innovative technologies. His rotary rig design, which improved upon an 1844 British patent by Robert Beart, applied the rotary drilling method’s “peculiar construction particularly adapted for boring deep wells.”
Peter Sweeney’s innovative 1866 “Stone Drill” patent included a roller bit using “rapid rotary motion” similar to modern rotary drilling technologies.
More efficient than traditional cable-tool percussion bits, Sweeney’s patent provided for a roller bit with replaceable cutting wheels such “that by giving the head a rapid rotary motion the wheels cut into the ground or rock and a clean hole is produced.”
Deeper Drilling
The Sweeney design utilized a roller bit with replaceable cutting wheels such “that by giving the head a rapid rotary motion the wheels cut into the ground or rock and a clean hole is produced.”
In another innovation, the “drill-rod” was hollow and connected with a hose through which “a current of steam or water can be introduced in such a manner that the discharge of the dirt and dust from the bottom of the hole is facilitated.”
Better than commonly used steam-powered cable-tools, which used heavy rope to lift and drop iron chisel-like bits, Sweeney claimed his drilling apparatus could be used with great advantage for “making holes in hard rock in a horizontal, oblique, or vertical direction.”
Drilling operations could be continued without interruption, Sweeny explained in his patent application, “with the exception of the time required for adding new sections to the drill rod as the depth of the hole increases. The dirt is discharged during the operation of boring and a clean hole is obtained into which the tubing can be introduced without difficulty.”
A 1917 rotary rig in the Coalinga, California, oilfield. Courtesy of the Joaquin Valley Geology Organization.
Foreseeing the offshore exploration industry, Sweeney’s patent concluded with a note that “the apparatus can also be used with advantage for submarine operations.”
With the U.S. oil industry’s growth after the first commercial well in 1859, drilling contractors quickly improved upon Sweeney’s idea. A device was fitted to the rotary table that clamped around the drill pipe and turned. As this “kelly bushing” rotated, the pipe rotated and with it the bit downhole. The torque of the rotary table was transmitted to the drill stem.
Thirty-five years after Sweeney’s patent, rotary drilling revolutionized the petroleum industry after a 1901 oil discovery by Capt. Anthony Lucas launched a drilling boom at Spindletop Hill in Texas.
Learn more at Making Hole – Drilling Technology.
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Recommended Reading: History Of Oil Well Drilling (2007); The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power (1991); 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.
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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. Copyright © 2024 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Sweeney’s 1866 Rotary Rig.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/technology/1866-patent-rotary-rig. Last Updated: December 28, 2024. Original Published Date: January 2, 2013.
