This Week in Petroleum History, November 18 – 24

November 18, 1847 — Manufactured Gas illuminates U.S. Capitol –

Lamps fueled by “coal gas” began replacing kerosene and whale oil lamps in the U.S. Capitol. Manufactured gas distilled beneath the Capitol flowed through newly installed pipes into light fixtures, including chandeliers in both House chambers. James Crutchett had invented the lighting system and convinced Congress to appropriate $17,500 to fund his plan, which included a lantern atop the dome.

Illustration of manufactured gas lantern atop the U.S. Capitol installed in 1847, and removed a year later.

A mast with gas lantern was erected on the U.S. Capitol dome in 1847. By 1865, the rotunda interior used 1,083 gas jets. Incandescent lighting began in 1885. Image courtesy Architect of the Capitol.

Onlookers witnessed, “one of the most splendid and beautiful spectacles we ever beheld,” according to David Rotenstein in History Sidebar. Crutchett built a gas plant in the Capitol’s northwest quadrant, placing lighting fixtures throughout the building.

Although the dome’s 80-foot mast and lantern would be removed within a year, a citywide manufactured gas system followed — similar to ones established in Philadelphia and Baltimore (see Illuminating Gaslight).

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November 19, 1861 – America exports Oil for First Time

America exported petroleum for the first time when the merchant brig Elizabeth Watts departed the Port of Philadelphia for Great Britain. The Union vessel arrived in London 45 days later carrying a cargo of 901 barrels of Pennsylvania oil and 428 barrels of refined kerosene.

A merchant brig with barrels at Port of Philadelphia circa 1870.

A merchant brig set sail from Philadelphia in 1861 with a cargo of Pennsylvania oil and refined kerosene. Photo of vinegar barrels at Massachusetts port in 1870, courtesy New Bedford Whaling Museum.

The shippers were the successful Philadelphia import-export firm of Peter Wright & Sons, which since its founding in 1818 had prospered transporting glass, porcelain and queensware china. The company hired the Elizabeth Watts to ship the petroleum to three British companies. On January 9, 1862, the brig sailed down the Thames River to arrive at London, where it took 12 days to unload the 1,329 barrels of oil and kerosene.

Learn more in America exports Oil.

November 19, 1927 – Phillips Petroleum introduces “Phillips 66” Gasoline

After a decade as an exploration and production company, Phillips Petroleum entered the business of refining and retail gasoline distribution. The Bartlesville, Oklahoma, company introduced a new line of gasoline — “Phillips 66” — at its first service station, which opened in Wichita, Kansas.

Early gasoline retail logos of the Phillips Petroleum Company.

Originally promoted as a dependable “winter gasoline,” by 1930 “Phillips 66” gasoline was marketed in 12 states.

The gasoline was named “Phillips 66” because it had propelled company officials down U.S. Highway 66 at 66 mph on the way to a meeting at their Bartlesville headquarters. The roadway became part of Phillips Petroleum marketing plans for the new product, which boasted “controlled volatility,” the result of a higher-gravity mix of naphtha and gasoline.

By 1930, Phillips 66 gasoline was sold at 6,750 outlets in 12 states. Because the composition made Phillips 66 gas easier to start in cold weather, ads enticed motorists to try the “New Winter Gasoline.” Visit the Phillips Petroleum Company Museum, which opened in 2007.

November 20, 1866 – Improved Well Torpedo patented

Col. Edward A.L. Roberts of New York City patented improvements to his Roberts Torpedo, an oilfield technology for increasing production by fracturing oil-bearing formations. “Our attention has been called to a series of experiments that have been made in the wells of various localities by Col. Roberts, with his newly patented torpedo,” noted the Titusville Morning Herald newspaper in 1865. “The results have in many cases been astonishing.”

Portrait of Civil War veteran Col. Edward A.L. Roberts, inventor of the oil well torpedo.

Portrait of Col. Edward Roberts, the Union Civil War veteran who patented well “torpedo” technologies that vastly improved oil production.

The Civil War Union Army veteran would receive many patents for his “Exploding Torpedoes in Artesian Wells” method to increase petroleum production (see Shooters – A “Fracking” History).

November 20, 1930 – Oil Booms bring Hilton Hotels to Texas

After buying his first hotel in the booming oil town of Cisco, Texas, Conrad Hilton opened a high-rise in El Paso. While visiting Cisco in 1919, Hilton had witnessed roughnecks from the Ranger oilfield waiting for rooms. Hilton’s first hotel, the Mobley, offered 40 rooms for eight-hour periods to coincide with workers’ shifts. Thanks to booming oilfields, Hilton was firmly established in Texas. His El Paso Hilton (now the Plaza Hotel) was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

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November 20, 1980 – Texaco Well drains Louisiana Lake

Minutes after its drilling crew evacuated, a Texaco drilling platform overturned and disappeared into a whirlpool that drained Lake Peigneur, Louisiana, over the next three hours. The crew had accidentally penetrated a salt dome containing the mining operations of Diamond Crystal Salt Company.

All 50 miners working as deep as 1,500 feet below the surface escaped with no serious injuries as a maelstrom swallowed the $5 million Texaco platform — and 11 barges holding drilling supplies.

Jefferson Island Mine Inundation report photo of rig sinking in lake.

Photo from a 1981 government study of the “Jefferson Island Mine Inundation,” Texaco’s accidental drilling into a salt mine one year earlier. Photo courtesy Federal Mine Safety and Health Investigation Report.

“Texaco, who had ordered the oil probe, was aware of the salt mine’s presence and had planned accordingly; but somewhere a miscalculation had been made, which placed the drill site directly above one of the salt mine’s 80-foot-high, 50-foot-wide upper shafts,” noted a 2005 article about the Lake Peigneur vortex.

According to a 1981 government report, “Jefferson Island Mine Inundation, evidence for identifying the exact cause was washed away, but Texaco and Wilson Drilling paid $32 million to Diamond Crystal Salt Company and another $12.8 million to a nearby botanical garden. Changed from freshwater to saltwater with a depth reaching 200 feet, Lake Peigneur became the deepest lake in Louisiana.

November 21, 1925 – Magnolia Petroleum incorporates

Formerly an unincorporated joint-stock association with roots dating to an 1889 refinery in Corsicana, Texas, Magnolia Petroleum Company incorporated. The original association had sold many grades of refined petroleum products through more than 500 service stations in Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.

Magnolene Motor Oils logo for Magnolia Petroleum Company gas stations

Magnolia Petroleum operated gas stations throughout the Southeast.

Within a month of the new company’s founding, John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil of New York (Socony) purchased most Magnolia Petroleum assets and operated it as a subsidiary. Magnolia merged with the Socony Mobile Oil Company in 1959 and adopted the red Pegasus logo at gas stations. Magnolia Petroleum assets were part of the 1999 merger that created ExxonMobil.

Learn more in Mobil’s High-Flying Trademark.

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November 21, 1980 – Millions watch “Dallas” Episode

The cliffhanger episode “Who shot J.R.?” on the prime-time soap opera “Dallas” was watched by 83 million people in the United States and 350 million worldwide. The CBS show debuted in 1978 and revolved around two Texas oil families, one featuring Larry Hagman as J.R. Ewing, “the character fans loved to hate,” according to History.com. Hagman’s portrayal of a “greedy, conniving, womanizing scoundrel” and the business dealings of Ewing Oil Company would stereotype the Texas petroleum industry for seasons.

November 22, 1878 –  Tidewater Pipe Company established

Byron Benson organized the Tidewater Pipe Company in Pennsylvania. In 1879 his company would build the first oil pipeline to cross the Alleghenies from Coryville to the Philadelphia Reading Railroad 109 miles away in Williamsport. This technological achievement was considered by many as the first true oil pipeline in America, if not the world.

Illustration of workers and pipes for the 109-mile Tidewater oil pipeline in 1898.

Despite protests from teamsters, a 109-mile oil pipeline revolutionized oil transportation. Photo courtesy explorepahistory.com.

The difficult work — much of it done in winter using sleds to move pipe sections — bypassed Standard Oil Company’s dominance in transporting petroleum. Tidewater made an arrangement with Reading Railroad to haul the oil in tank cars to Philadelphia and New York. In 1879, about 250 barrels of oil from the Bradford field was pumped across the mountains and into Williamsport.

More than 80 percent of America’s oil soon would come from Pennsylvania oilfields, according to Floyd Hartman Jr. in a 2009 article, “Birth of Coryville’s Tidewater Pipe Line.”

November 22, 1905 – Glenn Pool Field discovered in Indian Territory

Two years before Oklahoma statehood, the Glenn Pool (or Glenpool) oilfield was discovered in the Creek Indian Reservation south of Tulsa. The greatest oilfield in America at the time, it would help make Tulsa the “Oil Capital of the World.” Many independent oil producers, including Harry F. Sinclair and J. Paul Getty, got their start during the Glenn Pool boom.

Oil derrick monument in Glenpool, Oklahoma.

An oilfield pioneers monument was dedicated in April 2008 at Glenpool, Oklahoma. Photo by Bruce Wells.

With production exceeding 120,000 barrels of oil a day, Glenn Pool exceeded Tulsa County’s earlier Red Fork GusherThe giant oilfield even exceeded production from Spindletop Hill in Texas four years earlier. The Ida Glenn No. 1 well, drilled to about 1,500 feet deep, led to more prolific wells in the 12-square-mile Glenn Pool.

By the time of statehood in 1907, Tulsa area oilfields made Oklahoma the biggest U.S. oil-producing state. Learn more in Making Tulsa “Oil Capital of the World.” 

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November 22, 2003 – Smithsonian Museum features Transportation

A permanent exhibit about U.S. transportation history opened at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. “Get your kicks on 40 feet of Route 66,” the Smithsonian exhibit noted on opening day of the $22 million renovation of the museum’s Hall of Transportation.

Route 66 exhibit in Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Photo by Bruce Wells.

Opened in 2003 after a $22 million renovation, the Transportation Hall of the National Museum of American History exhibits 340 historic objects in 26,000 square feet. Photo by Bruce Wells.

Hundreds of artifacts are displayed in chronological order, allowing visitors “travel back in time and experience transportation as it changed America,” the hall today includes examples of the first models of Oldsmobile, Franklin, and Cadillac. Also preserved is the Duryea brothers’ 1893-1994 model considered to be the first American car driven by an internal combustion engine.

Learn more in America on the Move.

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November 23, 1947 – World’s First LPG Ship

The first U.S. seagoing Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) ship went into service as Warren Petroleum Corporation of Tulsa, Oklahoma, sent the Natalie O. Warren from the Houston Ship Channel to Newark, New Jersey. The vessel had an LPG capacity of 38,053 barrels in 68 vertical pressure tanks.

first U.S. seagoing Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) ship.

The Natalie O. Warren, a converted freighter, had an LPG capacity of 38,053 barrels in 68 vertical pressure tanks.

The one-of-a-kind ship was the former Cape Diamond dry-cargo freighter before being converted by the Bethlehem Steelyard in Beaumont, Texas. The experimental design led to innovative maritime construction standards for such vessels.

Warren Petroleum became the largest producer and marketer of natural gasoline and propane in the world by the early 1950s, according to an exhibit at the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum. LPG tankers today carry 20 times the capacity of the early vessels.

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Recommended Reading: The Extraction State, A History of Natural Gas in America (2021); Oil Man: The Story of Frank Phillips and the Birth of Phillips Petroleum (2016); History Of Oil Well Drilling (2007); Be My Guest (1957); Magnolia Oil News Magazine (January 1930); Oil and Gas Pipeline Fundamentals (1993); Glenn Pool…and a little oil town of yesteryear (1978); The American Highway: The History and Culture of Roads in the United States (2000); CONOCO: The First One Hundred Years Building on the Past for the Future (1975); Natural Gas: Fuel for the 21st Century (2015). 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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he 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.

This Week in Petroleum History, November 11 – 17

November 11, 1884 – Gas Companies merge into Con Edison – 

The largest U.S. gas utility company at the time was created in New York City when six gas-light companies — using manufactured coal gas — combined to form the Consolidated Gas Company. The Consolidated Edison Company, “Con Ed,” began six decades earlier as the New York Gas Light Company, which received a charter from the state legislature in 1823.

“Bird’s-eye view” illustration of New York and Brooklyn in 1873.

“Bird’s-eye view” illustrates New York and Brooklyn in 1873. The Brooklyn Bridge, then under construction, can be seen at the right. Image courtesy Library of Congress.

Like most early manufactured gas companies, New York Gas Light focused early efforts on public street lighting (see Illuminating Gaslight), replacing whale oil lamps installed by the city beginning in the 1760s.

Prior to the 1884 merger of the competing companies, streets often were being torn up by competing workmen installing or repairing their own company’s lines — and removing those of a rival. “Sometimes these work crews would meet on the same street and brawl, giving rise to the term “gas house gangs.”

Learn more in History of Con Edison.

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November 11, 1926 – Route 66 officially commissioned

Five years after the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1921, U.S. Highway 66 was commissioned as a major thoroughfare in the national highway system. America’s “Mother Road” from Chicago to Los Angeles connected rural and urban communities along its almost 2,500 miles — until the interstate system incrementally replaced it.

Extended from Los Angeles to Santa Monica in 1935, Route 66 lost its highway status 50 years later when the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials officially decertified it. In 2019, Oklahoma established the Route 66 Centennial Commission, assisted by the Oklahoma Historical Society, to plan events celebrating the historic highway’s centennial in 2026.

November 12, 1899 – New York World features Mrs. Alford and her Nitro Factory

An 1899 article in the New York World profiled Mrs. Byron Alford — the “Only Woman in the World who Owns and Operates a Dynamite Factory.”

Newspaper page from 1899 featuring nitro factory owner Mrs. Alford.

A laminated (though wrinkled) newspaper page from 1899 was part of a school project of a Mrs. Alford descendant, according to the Penn-Brad Oil Well Park and Museum in Bradford, Pennsylvania.

Mrs. Alford’s dangerous business operated on five acres outside of Bradford, Pennsylvania, with a daily production of 3,000 pounds of nitroglycerin and 6,000 pounds of dynamite. Local drillers used the explosives for “shooting” wells to boost production.

The article noted “the astute businesswoman” manufactured her volatile mixtures in 12 separate buildings, all made of wood and unpainted.

Learn more in Mrs. Alford’s Nitro Factory.

November 12, 1916 – Forest Oil Company formed

Forest Oil Company incorporated and began operations in the Bradford oilfield of northern Pennsylvania. The company, after adopting a “yellow dog” lantern logo, launched an important new technology: water-flooding (injecting water into oil-bearing formations) to stimulate production from depleted wells.

The Forest Oil Company's "yellow dog" logo.

Forest Oil’s “yellow dog” lantern logo beside the oilfield lantern.

Water-flooding technology for enhanced recovery spread throughout the petroleum industry – and extended many wells’ lives by as much as a decade. 

After merging in 1924 with four independent oil companies (January Oil Company, Brown Seal Oil, Andrews Petroleum, and Boyd Oil), Forest Oil was headquartered in Denver before being acquired in 2014 by a privately held Houston company.

November 12, 1999 – Plastics designated Historic Landmark

The American Chemical Society designated the discovery of a high-density polyethylene process as a National Historic Chemical Landmark in a ceremony at the Phillips Petroleum Company in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. The oil company had entered the plastics business in 1951 after discovering a catalyst for creating solid polymers.

“The plastics that resulted — crystalline polypropylene and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) — are now the core of a multibillion-dollar, global industry,” the society noted. Among the first customers for Phillips Petroleum plastics was Wham-O, which used it to make Hula Hoops and Frisbees in the 1950s.

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November 13, 1943 – Death during Secret WWII Drilling Project

Derrickhand Herman Douthit of Caddo Mills, Texas, died from a fall at Well Number 148 in England’s Sherwood Forest, where he was part of a top-secret group of Americans drilling to expand production from the Eakring field. The roughnecks of Sherwood Forest increased production faster than their British counterparts while working 12-hour shifts in four crews. “Rigs shut down for one shift for his funeral, then back to work,” recalled Lewis Dugger of Louisiana. Forty-one of the volunteers returned safely in March 1944. Douthit was buried near Cambridge with full military honors.

November 14, 1947 – First Oil Well drilled Out of Sight of Land

The modern offshore oil and natural gas industry began in the Gulf of Mexico with the first oil well successfully completed out of sight of land. Brown & Root Company built the experimental freestanding platform 10 miles offshore for Kerr-McGee and partners Phillips Petroleum and Stanolind.  The platform, Kermac 16, was designed to withstand winds as high as 125 miles per hour.

Kermac 16 platform featured in a 1954 Bell Helicopter ad.

The Kermac 16 platform was featured in a 1954 Bell Helicopter advertisement encouraging use of helicopters for offshore transportation.

After investing $450,000, Kerr-McGee completed the well in about 20 feet of water off Louisiana’s gradually sloping Gulf coast. The Kermac No. 16 well initially produced 40 barrels of oil per hour.

Kerr-McGee had purchased World War II surplus utility freighters and materials to provide supplies, equipment, and crew quarters for the drilling site at Ship Shoal Block 32. Sixteen 24-inch pilings were sunk 104 feet into the ocean floor to secure a 2,700-square-foot wooden deck. The Kermac No. 16 platform withstood several 1947 hurricanes and tropical storms.

Learn more about offshore technologies in Offshore Drilling History.

November 14, 1947 – WW II “Big Inch” and “Little Big Inch” Pipelines Sold

Texas Eastern Transmission Corporation, a company established 11 months earlier to acquire the World War II surplus 24-inch “Big Inch” and 20-inch “Little Big Inch” pipelines, won ownership of them with a bid of $143,127,000. It was America’s largest sale of war surplus material to the private sector.

Welding a section of the Big Inch pipe by the “stove pipe” method in 1942.

War Emergency Pipelines, Inc., in 1942 began construction of the longest U.S. petroleum pipeline construction ever undertaken in the United States — two pipelines spanning 1,200 miles. Photo Courtesy Library of Congress.

By the 1950s, Texas Eastern Transmission converted both oil product pipelines to natural gas, which was needed for the Appalachian region. By the 2000s, transmission would become bi-directional for carrying natural gas from the Marcellus and Utica shale to mid-west markets. The Big Inch Pipelines of WW II were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.

November 15, 1906 – Justice Department seeks Breakup of Standard Oil

U.S. Attorney General Charles Bonaparte filed suit to compel dissolution of Standard Oil of New Jersey. Despite an 1892 court decision ordering the Standard Oil Trust to be dissolved, John D. Rockefeller reorganized it and continued to operate from New York. The Justice Department won the latest suit and Standard Oil appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which affirmed the lower court’s decision on May 15, 1911, and mandated dissolution of Standard Oil into 34 separate companies.

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November 15, 1952 – Williston Basin produces Millionth Barrel of Oil 

The Williston Basin produced its millionth barrel of oil, which came from five fields in three counties in North Dakota, where Amerada Petroleum had launched a 1951 drilling boom northeast of Williston (see First North Dakota Oil Well). By the end of 1952, the Williston Basin’s production reached 356,000 barrels of oil a month. 

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Recommended Reading: Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919 (2017); The Bradford Oil Refinery, Pennsylvania, Images of America (2006); Offshore Pioneers: Brown & Root and the History of Offshore Oil and Gas (1997); Oil and Gas Pipeline Fundamentals (1993); The Bakken Goes Boom: Oil and the Changing Geographies of Western North Dakota (2016). 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 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.

Wham-O and Petroleum Product Hoopla

Phillips Petroleum chemists invented a new plastic in 1951. Getting from lab to market proved difficult. Enter Wham-O.

 

In 1954, two research scientists at an Oklahoma-based oil and natural gas company invented a high-density polyethylene. The company’s marketing executives named the new petroleum product Marlex, but searched in vain for buyers of the plastic. Then the Wham-O toy company found the durable plastic ideal for making hoops and flying platters.

Prompted by a post World War II boom in demand for plastics, Phillips Petroleum Company invested $50 million to bring its own miracle product — Marlex — to market in 1954. With a high melting point and tensile strength, the synthetic polymer would stand out from the company’s thousands of patents.

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