The Roxana Petroleum Company Wood River (Illinois) facility began refining crude oil — processing more than two million barrels of oil from Oklahoma oilfields in its first year of operation. Roxana Petroleum was the 1912 creation of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group, which also founded the American Gasoline Company in Seattle to distribute the fuel on the West Coast. (more…)
High-octane gas refined by Phillips Petroleum Company powered the “Woolaroc” monoplane to victory in a record-setting but deadly 1927 air race from California to Hawaii. (more…)
Less than a year after the “Roaring Ranger” discovered an oilfield to the south, the Fowler No. 1 well at the cotton farming community of Burkburnett, Texas, revealed a new giant field at a depth of 1,734 feet. Within three weeks 56 rigs were drilling near the Fowler Farm Oil Company site along the Red River in North Texas.
Circa 1919 photo captioned, “Burkburnett, Texas, the World’s Wonder Oil Pool,” showing eight months phenomenal development, viewed from the northwest side, opposite Fowler farm.” A. Newman Photographic Company photo courtesy Library of Congress.
Fowler’s decision to drill a well on his Wichita County farm had been called “Fowler’s Folly” until his oil discovery brought hundreds of oil companies to the county. By January 1919, Burkburnett’s population reached more than 8,000 people — with a line of derricks two-miles long greeting new arrivals.
As the “World’s Wonder Oil Pool” made national headlines, teenager Clark Gable was a 17-year-old roustabout working in Oklahoma. Gable and Spencer Tracy would star in Hollywood’s version of Burkburnett oil history, the popular 1940 movie “Boom Town.”
Learn more in Boom Town Burkburnett.
As America’s reliance on foreign oil continued to grow — discouraging domestic production — President Dwight D. Eisenhower established a Voluntary Oil Import Program with import quotas by region. The intent was to ensure adequate domestic petroleum in case of a national emergency.
Using a presidential proclamation two years later, Eisenhower made the program mandatory. By 1962, oil imports were limited to 12.2 percent of U.S. production. The program continued until suspended by President Richard Nixon in 1973 as domestic oil production reached new highs during the OPEC oil embargo.
A Navy patrol boat attacked and sank a German U-boat in the Gulf of Mexico after the submarine had torpedoed a U.S. freighter. Despite being depth charged, the U-166 was believed to have escaped — until a natural gas pipeline survey revealed it 59 years later.
The U-166’s identity was not learned until advanced geophysical survey technologies arrived in 2001, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The discovery resulted from an archaeological survey prior to construction of a natural gas pipeline by the British company BP and Shell Offshore Inc.
A natural gas pipeline survey revealed the U-166 about 45 miles off the Louisiana coast in 2011.
Remotely operating vehicles (ROVs) and an autonomous side-scan sonar revealed U-166 separated from its last victim, the Robert E. Lee, by less than a mile. BP and Shell altered their proposed pipeline to preserve the site.
With the petroleum industry the principle user of advanced underwater technologies for seafloor mapping, other World War II vessels have been discovered during oil and natural gas surveys.
Learn more in Petroleum Survey discovers U-boat.
The first large-scale delivery of natural gas by pipeline began when gas was piped to more than 250 residential and commercial customers in Titusville, Pennsylvania, home of America’s first oil well, drilled in 1859. An iron pipeline two inches wide carried the natural gas five miles from a well producing four million cubic feet of gas a day.
Investors, including the mayor of Titusville, had formed the Keystone Gas & Water Company to construct the pipeline and deliver, “the most powerful and voluminous gas well on record.” The well produced into the 1880s, according to the Drake Well Museum and Park.
Missouri became the first state to award a contract with interstate construction funding authorized two months earlier by the Federal-Aid Highway Act. The highway commission agreed to begin work on part of Route 66, now Interstate 44.
Missouri launched the U.S. interstate system after “inking a deal for work on U.S. Route 66.” Today, I-44 stretches across south central Missouri and is a major corridor linking the Midwest and the West Coast.
“There is no question that the creation of the interstate highway system has been the most significant development in the history of transportation in the United States,” proclaimed the Missouri Department of Transportation.
Learn more transportation and oil history in America on the Move.
A Spanish expedition discovered what would be called La Brea (the tar) pits on the West Coast. “We debated whether this substance, which flows melted from underneath the earth, could occasion so many earthquakes,” noted the expedition’s Franciscan friar in his diary.
Outside the Page Museum of Los Angeles, life-size replicas of several extinct mammals are featured at the Rancho La Brea in Hancock Park. Although called the “tar pits,” the pools are actually asphalt.
The friar, Juan Crespi, was the first person to use the term “bitumen” in describing these sticky pools in southern California — where crude oil has been seeping from the ground through fissures in the coastal plain sediments for more than 40,000 years. Native Americans used the substance for centuries to waterproof baskets and caulk canoes.
Sticky pools form when crude oil seeps to the surface through fissures in the earth’s crust.
Although popularly called the tar pits, the pools at Rancho La Brea are actually asphalt — not tar, which is a by-product made by the distillation of woody materials, such as peat. Asphalt is a naturally formed substance comprised of hydrocarbon molecules (see Asphalt Paves the Way).
Learn more in Discovering the Le Brea Tar Pits.
War Emergency Pipelines Inc. began construction on the “Big Inch” line — the longest petroleum pipeline project ever undertaken in the United States. Conceived to supply wartime fuel demands — and in response to U-boat attacks on oil tankers along the eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico, the “Big Inch” and “Little Big Inch” lines were extolled as “the most amazing government-industry cooperation ever achieved.”
The longest petroleum pipeline project ever undertaken led to construction of a 24-inch pipeline from East Texas to Illinois, and a 20-inch line as far as New York City.
With a goal of transporting 300,000 barrels of oil per day, the $95 million project called for construction of a 24-inch pipeline (Big Inch) from East Texas to Illinois, and a 20-inch line (Little Big Inch) as far as New York and Philadelphia. The pipelines would reach more than 1,200 miles (the Trans-Alaska pipeline system is 800 miles long).
Learn more in Big Inch Pipelines of WWII.
The Crystal Oil Company completed its Wirt Franklin No. 1 well 20 miles northwest of Ardmore, Oklahoma. The well revealed the giant Healdton field, which became known as “the poor man’s field,” because of its shallow depth and low cost of drilling. The area attracted many independent producers with limited financial backing.
Exhibits at the Healdton Oil Museum include the 1920 Pierce-Arrow owned by Wirt Franklin, founder of the Independent Petroleum Association of America.
Another oil discovery in 1919 revealed the Hewitt field, which extended production in 22 miles across Carter County. The Greater Healdton-Hewitt oilfield produced, “an astounding 320,753,000 barrels of crude by the close of the first half of the 20th century,” reported historian Kenny Franks.
Erle P. Halliburton perfected his method of cementing oil wells in “the poor man’s field” (see Halliburton and the Healdton Oilfield). Wirt Franklin of Ardmore in 1929 became the first president of the then Tulsa-based Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA).
President Jimmy Carter signed the Department of Energy Organization Act, establishing the twelfth cabinet-level department by consolidating a dozen federal agencies and energy programs. The Act combined the Federal Energy Administration and the Energy Research and Development Administration, making the new Department of Energy (DOE) responsible for nuclear weapon programs and national labs. James Schlesinger was sworn in as first Secretary of Energy.
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Recommended Reading: Early Texas Oil: A Photographic History, 1866-1936
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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. Copyrihttp://homeght © 2024 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
Many oil and natural gas discoveries followed the Indian Territory’s first oil well drilled at Bartlesville in 1897, and especially after statehood came a decade later. None of Oklahoma’s 1920s oilfields compared to the economic impact of the greater area Seminole 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.
Other oilfield discoveries soon followed, including the Red Fork Gusher of 1901, which helped in Making Tulsa “Oil Capital of the World.” The Seminole oil boom eclipsed them all. (more…)
In 1901, six years before Oklahoma statehood, discovery of the Red Fork oilfield south of Tulsa began the town’s journey to becoming “Oil Capital of the World.” Discovery of the giant Glenn Pool in 1905 helped.
Attracted to Indian Territory following an 1897 discovery at Bartlesville (see First Oklahoma Oil Well) two experienced drillers from the Pennsylvania fields found oil in the Creek Indian Nation on June 25, 1901. They drilled using steam boilers powering cable-tool derricks, the technology used to drill the first U.S. oil well in 1859 along Oil Creek in Titusville, Pennsylvania.
Dedicated during the 2007 Oklahoma centennial, a circa 1950s derrick commemorates the June 25, 1901, Red Fork oilfield discovery well. Photo courtesy Route 66 Historic Village.
After leasing thousands of acres in the Creek Nation, John S. Wick and Jesse A. Heydrick spudded their remote wildcat well near the village of Red Fork, across the Arkansas River from Tulsa. The attempt to find oil was not easy for the Pennsylvanians.
At the time, “Oklahoma Indian lands were in the process of being transferred from communal tribal ownership to individual tribal member holdings,” noted Bobby D. Weaver in a 2010 article for the Oklahoma Historical Society.
“This process, which made legal access to Indian property very uncertain, kept most oilmen away from areas under Indian control,” Weaver added. The well was almost never drilled when the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway station agent at Red Fork, “refused to accept a draft on their Pennsylvania backers to release their drilling equipment.”
The exploratory well was saved by a loan from two local doctors, John C. W. Bland and Fred S. Clinton. Drilling began at Red Fork on the tribal allotment of Sue A. Bland, a Creek citizen and wife of Dr. Bland.
Oil and natural gas exploration, production and service companies rushed to open offices in Tulsa following the 1901 oilfield discovery — and another in 1905.
Although the Sue A. Bland No. 1 well erupted an oil geyser high into the air, the discovery soon settled into production of just 10 barrels of oil a day from a depth of 537 feet. Despite the low production, the Oklahoma Territory well attracted a lot of national attention, drawing large numbers of exploration companies to the Tulsa area.
The Tulsa Democrat newspaper exclaimed, “Geyser of Oil Spouts at Red Fork” and “Oil Well Gusher Fifteen Feet High.” Within a week, Red Fork – once a quiet town of 75 people – was overrun by people clamoring for leases.
Tulsa County’s 1901 oilfield discovery was followed in 1905 by a well drilled deeper than the Red Fork production sands revealed the far bigger Glenn Pool field (above in 1909). Photo courtesy Tulsa Historical Society & Museum.
Many of the newcomers settled in Tulsa, which in 1904 constructed its first bridge across the Arkansas River to accommodate wagonloads of oilfield workers and equipment.
“The Red Fork discovery never produced a great amount of oil, with most of the wells being in the fifty-barrel-per-day range, but it did produce excitement and drilling activity,” concluded Weaver.
“The discovery also prompted Tulsa citizens to begin a strong promotional campaign, with the result that by 1904 a much needed bridge had been built across the Arkansas River,” he added. “This gave Tulsa access to the Red Fork Field and beyond and started that community on the road to becoming the predominant oil city in Oklahoma.”
The city’s petroleum industry future was assured in 1905 when a well drilled deeper than the Red Fork production sands revealed a truly massive oilfield. The Glenn Pool’s production far exceeded Tulsa County’s earlier Red Fork discovery.
Learn more in Making Tulsa the Oil Capital.
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Recommended Reading: Tulsa Oil Capital of the World, Images of America
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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. Copyright © 2024 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
Citation Information: Article Title: “Red Fork Gusher.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/petroleum-pioneers/oklahoma-red-fork-oilfield. Last Updated: June 21, 2024. Original Published Date: June 23, 2014.
