Protected: Oil & Gas History News, November 2023
Password Protected
To view this protected post, enter the password below:
Tulsa Producing and Refining Company
“You will feel pretty good some of these fine mornings when your shares jump to 5 or 10 for one.”
With oil booms in North Texas, especially along the Red River border with Oklahoma, Tulsa Producing and Refining Company incorporated to join the action in America’s growing Mid-Continent oil patch. In February 1919, the Texas El Paso Herald carried an advertisement for Tulsa Producing and Refining.
Stock certificate for the now defunct Tulsa Producing and Refining Company.
“A Strong, Solid Company With Two Wells Now Drilling” the advertisement proclaimed. It offered 250,000 shares of stock at $1 per share.
According to the company’s claims, the two wells were drilling in Comanche County, Texas, where Tulsa Producing and Refining reportedly held 1,000 acres under lease. Advertisements appeared in newspapers as far away as Pennsylvania, where America’s petroleum industry had begun in 1859 with the first U.S. oil well.
Frequent references were made to an oil boom in the remote region with 328,098 barrels of oil already produced. Even more enthusiastic advertisements about Texas discoveries followed in the Pittsburgh Gazette Times in May and June 1919.
“If either of these wells come in big, the shareholders of the Tulsa Producing & Refining Company will cash in strong – and do it quickly,” extolled perhaps one of the more conservative claims.
“You will feel pretty good some of these fine mornings when your shares jump to 5 or 10 for one,” added the company. “We believe this is going to happen – and happen soon, too.”
The predicted happiness apparently didn’t happen. All references to the company disappear thereafter.
Popular Certificate Vignette
Seeking investors to chase “black gold” riches led to a surge in printing scenes of derricks on stock certificates.
Drilling booms often lead to many quickly formed (and quickly failed) exploration companies. As company executives rushed to print stock certificates, they often chose this same scene of derricks and oil tanks.
In the rush to promote their drilling plans, new companies had little time or money to find original art. One oilfield vignette from print shops proved particularly popular.
Among the most often used scenes was of a panorama of derricks found on certificates issued by the Double Standard Oil & Gas Company, the Evangeline Oil Company, the Buffalo-Texas Oil Company, and many other oil exploration ventures.
More articles about the attempts to join exploration booms (and avoid busts) can be found in an the updated research at Is my Old Oil Stock worth Anything?
_______________________
Recommended Reading: The fire in the rock: A history of the oil and gas industry in Kansas, 1855-1976
_______________________
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 © 2023 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Tulsa Oil and Refining Company.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL:https://aoghs.org/old-oil-stocks/tulsa-producing-and-refining-company. Last Updated: November 14, 2023. Original Published Date: April 2, 2015.
Edwin Drake and his Oil Well
Biography explores father of U.S. oil industry to total depth.
The man who would create the American petroleum industry was down to his last few pennies in August 1859. A letter was on its way from the company that had hired him to drill for oil near in remote Titusville, Pennsylvania. The letter instructed “Colonel” Edwin L. Drake to close operations.
“As far as the company was concerned, the project was finished,” noted William Brice, PhD, in his 2009 biography of the former railroad conductor. “Fortunately that letter was not delivered until after they found oil.” (more…)
Driller from Netherlands
Seeking information about relative who worked in Texas oilfields, circa 1930.
Researching her family’s distant connection to the U.S. oil patch, Marianne Jans of the the Netherlands discovered the American Oil & Gas Historical Society website. She hopes visitors to the site’s Petroleum History Research Forum might help add to her limited information about a great-great uncle who worked in Texas oilfields. He apparently was as a driller from the 1920s until the early 1930s.
Although details are scarce, Jans seeks news about her great-great uncle Ralph “Dutch” Weges — who in 1962 reportedly returned to the Netherlands by ship. His petroleum-related career included serving on merchant vessels.
Regarding his work in Texas, she has a 1927 letter of recommendation with some clues.
Marianne Jans’ scan of the August 1927 Barry Fuel Oil Company’s letter of recommendation for her great-great uncle, Ralph Weges.
“In papers he left behind, he also had a recommendation from his employer in 1927,” according to Jans. “J. Barry Fuel Oil Co. is not in your list of historic companies, so I am sending this document.” she added.
Transcription of the great-great uncle’s letter, dated August 9, 1927:
J. Barry Fuel Oil Co.
1501 Francis Avenue
Houston, Texas
Aug 9th 1927
To whom it may concern:
This is acknowledgement that Ralph (Dutch) Weges
worked for me [&] Drilled on a number of wells
which I drilled as contractor for Humble Oil and
Refining [unreadable] Northern Field, Texas and [for] Texas Pacific
Coal & Oil [unreadable] Co, Texas.
His [unreadable] careful rig [unreadable] and was specifically good in keeping
his equipment in good shape.
His work was good, wells finished properly and time
just as good as other contractors in same fields.
RJ Barry
Not finding more information about the J. Barry Fuel Oil Company, Jans learned more about the two well-documented companies J. Barry worked with as a drilling contractor.
Humble Oil and Refining Company (now ExxonMobil) was founded in 1917. The company, which would discover many oilfields, in 1933 signed an historic lease with the King Ranch. The other company referenced in the letter was the Texas Pacific Coal and Oil Company.
In addition, Ralph Weges had other connections with the U.S. petroleum industry, according to Jan’s research. Her great-great uncle traveled overseas aboard the SS La Campine in September 1916.
Launched in 1889, La Campine was an early transatlantic oil tanker owned by the American Petroleum Company of Rotterdam and later by an Esso subsidiary in Belgium (it was sunk by a German submarine during World War I).
“What surprised me, was that Ralph Weges was anyway on board two ships that transported cargo for Esso, now Exxon Mobile,” Jans noted. “So he already worked for a petroleum/oil company on these ships. First as a 2nd cook and later petty officer. Two other vessels, the Anacortes and the SS Vigo, I must research further.”
As her investigation into family history continues from the Netherlands, Marianne Jans seeks information about her great-great uncle’s overseas career, the J. Barry Fuel Oil Company, and his role in Texas oilfields,
Please post reply in comments section below or email bawells@aoghs.org.
_______________________
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. © 2024 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Driller from Netherlands.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/oil-almanac/driller-from-netherlands. Last Updated: February 10, 2024. Original Published Date: October 24, 2023.
Protected: Oil & Gas History News, October 2023
Password Protected
To view this protected post, enter the password below:
