by Bruce Wells | Jan 4, 2025 | Petroleum Pioneers
As drillers and speculators rushed to Spindletop Hill, the Texas Company was organized in 1902.
A series of oil and natural gas discoveries at Sour Lake, Texas — near the famous 1901 gusher at Beaumont — helped launch the major oil company Texaco.
Originally known as Sour Lake Springs because of sulfurous spring water popular for its healing properties, a series of oil discoveries brought wealth and new petroleum companies to Hardin County in southeastern Texas.
“A forest of oil well derricks at Sour Lake, Texas,” is from the W.D. Hornaday Collection, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, Austin. Oil discoveries at the resort town northwest of the world-famous Spindletop gusher of 1901 would transform the Texas Company.
As the science of petroleum exploration and production evolved, some geologists predicted oil was trapped at a salt dome at Sour Lake similar to that of Beaumont’s Spindletop Hill formation, which was producing massive amounts of oil.
According to Charles Warner in Texas Oil & Gas Since 1543, in November 1901 an exploratory well found “hot salt water impregnated with sulfur between 800 and 850 feet…and four oil sands about 10 feet thick at a depth of approximately 1,040 feet.”
Warner noted that the Sour Lake Springs field’s discovery well came four months later when a second attempt by the Great Western Company drilled “north of the old hotel building” in the vicinity of earlier shallow wells.
“This well secured gusher production at a depth of approximately 683 feet on March 7, 1902,” Warner reported. “The well penetrated 40 feet of oil sand. The flow of oil was accompanied by a considerable amount of loose sand, and it was necessary to close the well in from time to time and bail out the sand, after which the well would respond with excellent flows.”
A monument marks the site where in 1903 the Fee No. 3 well flowed at 5,000 barrels of oil a day, launching the Texas Company into becoming Texaco.
As more discoveries followed, Joseph “Buckskin Joe” Cullinan and Arnold Schlaet were among those who rushed to the area from their offices in Beaumont.
The Texas Company
The most significant company that started during the Spindletop oil boom was The Texas Company, according to historian Elton Gish.
“Cullinan worked in the Pennsylvania oil industry and later went to Corsicana, Texas, about 1898 when oil was first discovered in that district where he became the most prosperous operator in the field,” reported Gish in his “History of the Texas Company and Port Arthur Works Refinery.”
Cullinan formed the Petroleum Iron Works, building oil storage tanks in the Beaumont area — where he was introduced to Schlaet. “When the Spindletop boom came in January 1901, Mr. Cullinan decided to visit Beaumont,” Gish noted. Schlaet managed the oil business of two brothers, New York leather merchants.
Named after its New York City telegraph address, the Texaco brand became official in 1959. Postcard of a Texaco service station next to a cafe in Kingman, Arizona.
“Schlaet’s field superintendent, Charles Miller, traveled to Beaumont in 1901 to witness the Spindletop activity and met with Cullinan, whom he knew from the oil business in Pennsylvania. He liked Cullinan’s plans and asked Schlaet to join them in Beaumont.”
According to Texaco, Cullinan and Schlaet formed the Texas Company on April 7, 1902, by absorbing the Texas Fuel Company and inheriting its office in Beaumont. Texas Fuel had organized just one year earlier to purchase Spindletop oil, develop storage and transportation networks, and sell the oil to northern refineries.
By November 1902, the new Texas Company was establishing a new refinery in Port Arthur as well as 20 storage tanks, building its first marine vessel, and equipping an oil terminal to serve sugar plantations along the Mississippi River.
Fee No. 3 Discovery
The Texas Company struck oil at Sour Lake Springs in January 1903, “after gambling its future on the site’s drilling rights,” the company explained. “The discovery, during a heavy downpour near Sour Lake’s mineral springs, turned the company into a major oil producer overnight, validating the risk-taking insight of company co-founder J.S. Cullinan and the ability of driller Walter Sharp.”
A Texaco station was among the 2012 indoor exhibits featured at the National Route 66 Museum in Elk City, Oklahoma. Photo by Bruce Wells.
Their 1903 Hardin County discovery at Sour Lake Springs — the Fee No. 3 well — flowed at 5,000 barrels a day, securing the Texas Company’s success in petroleum exploration, production, transportation and refining. Sharp founded the Sharp-Hughes Tool Company in 1908 with Howard Hughes Sr.
High oil production levels from the Sour Lake field and other successful wells in the Humble oilfield (1905), secured the company’s financial base, according to L. W. Kemp and Cherie Voris in Handbook of Texas Online.
“In 1905 the Texas Company linked these two fields by pipelines to Port Arthur, ninety miles away, and built its first refinery there. That same year the company acquired an asphalt refinery at nearby Port Neches,” the authors noted.
“In 1908 the company completed the ambitious venture of a pipeline from the Glenn Pool, in the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), to its Southeast Texas refineries,” added Kemp and Voris. “As early as 1905 the Texas Company had established marketing facilities not only throughout the United States, but also in Belgium, Luxembourg, and Panama.”
The Texas Company registered “Texaco” as a trademark in 1909.
The telegraph address for the company’s New York office is “Texaco” — a name soon applied to its products. The company registered its first trademark, the original red star with a green capital letter “T” superimposed on it in 1909. The letter remained an essential component of the logo for decades.
The Texas Corporation in August 1926 incorporated in Delaware (from Texas) and by an exchange of shares acquired outstanding stock of The Texas Company (Texas), which was dissolved the next year.
The new corporation became the parent company of numerous “Texas Company” — Texaco — entities and other subsidiaries, according to Jim Hinds of Columbus, Indiana (see Histories of Indian Refining, Havoline, and Texaco). By 1928, Texaco operated more than 4,000 gasoline stations in 48 states. It already was a major oil company when it officially renamed itself Texaco in 1959.
1987 Bankruptcy
Texaco lost a 1985 court battle following its purchase of Getty Oil Company. In February 1987 a Texas court upheld the decision against Texaco for having initiated an illegal takeover of Getty Oil after Pennzoil had made a bid for the company. Texaco filed for bankruptcy in April 1987.
The companies settled their historic $10.3 billion legal battle for $3 billion when Pennzoil agreed to drop its demand for interest. The Los Angeles Times reported the compromise was vital for Texaco emerging from bankruptcy, a haven sought to stop Pennzoil from enforcing the largest court judgment ever awarded at the time.
On October 9, 2001, Chevron and Texaco agreed to a merger that created ChevronTexaco — renamed Chevron in 2005. Although the Sour Lake Springs oil boom was surpassed by other Texas discoveries, it has remained the birthplace of Texaco.
Learn more about southeastern Texas petroleum history in Spindletop creates Modern Petroleum Industry and Prophet of Spindletop.
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Recommended Reading: The Texaco Story, The First Fifty Years 1902 – 1952 by Texas Company (1952). Texaco’s Port Arthur Works, A Legacy of Spindletop and Sour Lake (2003); Giant Under the Hill: A History of the Spindletop Oil Discovery
(2008). 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 maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2025 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Sour Lake produces Texaco.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/petroleum-pioneers/sour-lake-produces-texaco. Last Updated: January 3, 2025. Original Published Date: April 5, 2014.
by Bruce Wells | Dec 20, 2024 | Petroleum Pioneers
Oil discovery on widow’s farm in East Texas confirmed existence of largest oilfield in the lower-48 states.
Some people claimed a gypsy told Malcolm Crim he would discover oil in East Texas three days after Christmas. Others said it was because his mother, Lou Della “Mama” Crim, was a pious woman.
On December 28, 1930, the exploratory well Lou Della Crim No. 1 began producing an astonishing 20,000 barrels of oil a day. Even then, few appreciated the true significance of the Rusk County well drilled by Mrs. Crim’s eldest son, Malcolm. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Dec 14, 2024 | Petroleum Art
Cartographer visited petroleum boom towns to draw popular bird’s-eye views.
Thaddeus M. Fowler created detailed, panoramic maps of America’s earliest petroleum boom towns during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His popular cartographic depictions of oil patch communities in Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and Texas offered “aero views” seemingly drawn from great heights.
More than 400 Thaddeus Fowler panoramas have been identified. There are 324 in the Library of Congress, including this one of Oil City, Pennsylvania, in 1896. Source: Library of Congress Geography and Map Division, Washington, D.C.
Fowler has the largest number of panoramic maps in the collection of the Library of Congress (LOC) in Washington, D.C. His hand-drawn lithographs have fascinated viewers since the Victorian Age. Being depicted in one of Fowler’s maps, also known as “bird’s-eye views,” was a matter of civic pride for many community leaders. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Dec 9, 2024 | This Week in Petroleum History
December 9, 1921 – Scientists discover Anti-Knock Properties of Leaded Gas –
Working for General Motors, scientists Thomas Midgely Jr. and Charles Kettering discovered the antiknock properties of tetraethyl lead. They had spent years examining properties of knock suppressors such as bromine and iodine, but when tetraethyl lead (diluted to a ratio of one part per thousand) was added to the gasoline of a one-cylinder engine, the knocking abruptly disappeared.
Public health concerns would lead to phase-out of tetraethyl lead in gasoline.
GM’s leaded compound went on sale for the first time on February 2, 1923, at a service station in Dayton, Ohio. High-octane leaded gas would prove vital during World War II — even as concerns about tetraethyl lead’s serious health dangers continued to grow. These concerns resulted in its phase-out for use in cars beginning in 1976. Tetraethyl lead has continued to be used in aviation fuel.
Learn more in Ethyl “Anti-Knock” Gas.
December 9, 1924 – Oklahoma Oil Boom at Seminole
Drilling in the Greater Seminole area of Oklahoma, Amerada Petroleum Corporation discovered the Bethel oilfield and its highly pressurized producing zone, the Wilcox sand. The discovery launched another drilling boom in an area where one year earlier independent producer Joe Cromwell had found the Seminole oilfield at a depth of about 3,500 feet. By 1926, yet another discovery opened the Earlsboro field, followed within days by a discovery well that produced 1,100 barrels of oil a day from the Seminole City field.
Learn more in Seminole Oil Boom.
December 10, 1844 – Future “Coal Oil Johnny” adopted in Pennsylvania
A baby who would grow up to become famously known as “Coal Oil Johnny” was adopted by Culbertson and Sarah McClintock. John Steele was brought home to the McClintock farm on the banks of Oil Creek in Venango County, Pennsylvania.
John Washington Steele
The petroleum drilling boom prompted by Edwin L. Drake’s discovery 15 years later — America’s first commercial oil well — would lead to the widow McClintock making a fortune in oil royalties. She left the money to Johnny when she died in 1864. At age 20, he inherited $24,500 and $2,800 a day in royalties.
“Coal Oil Johnny” Steele earned his name in 1865 after such a legendary year of extravagance that the New York Times later reported: “In his day, Steele was the greatest spender the world had ever known…he threw away $3 million ($50 million in 2021 dollars) in less than a year.”
Learn more in Legend of “Coal Oil Johnny.“
December 10, 1955 – LIFE features Stella Dysart’s Uranium Well
Mrs. Stella Dysart spent decades fruitlessly searching for oil in New Mexico. Some questionable business dealings led to bankruptcy in the late 1930s, but in 1955, a radioactive uranium sample from one of her failed oil wells made her a very wealthy woman.
LIFE magazine featured Stella Dysart in December 1955.
Dysart was 78 years old when LIFE magazine featured her picture with the caption: “Wealthy landowner, Mrs. Stella Dysart, stands before an abandoned oil rig which she set up on her property in a long vain search for oil. Now uranium is being mined there and Mrs. Dysart, swathed in mink, gets a plump royalty.”
Just three years before the article, Dysart had been $25,000 in debt when cuttings from one of her “dusters” in McKinley County registered strong Geiger counter readings. Test wells confirmed that she owned the world’s richest deposit of high-grade uranium ore.
Learn more in Mrs. Dysart’s Uranium Well.
December 10, 1967 – Project Gasbuggy tests Nuclear Fracturing
Government scientists detonated a 29-kiloton nuclear warhead in a natural gas well about 60 miles east of Farmington, New Mexico. It was “fracking” late 1960s style, designed to test the feasibility of using nuclear explosions to stimulate release of gas trapped in shale deposits.
Scientists in December 1967 lowered a 29-kiloton nuclear device into a New Mexico gas well. Photo courtesy Department of Energy.
Project Gasbuggy included experts from the Atomic Energy Commission, the Bureau of Mines, and El Paso Natural Gas Company. Near three low-production natural gas wells, the team drilled to a depth of 4,240 feet and lowered a 13-foot by 18-inch diameter nuclear device into the borehole.
The experimental explosion was part a series of federal projects known as “Plowshare,” created in the late 1950s to explore peaceful uses of nuclear devices. The Project Gasbuggy downhole detonation created a molten glass-lined cavern 160 feet wide and 333 feet tall that collapsed within seconds. The well produced 295 million cubic feet of natural gas, but the gas was radioactive and useless.
Learn more in Project Gasbuggy tests Nuclear “Fracking.”
December 11, 1950 – Federal Offshore grows beyond Cannon Shot
After decades of controversy and a 1947 U.S. Supreme Court decision, the federal government’s “paramount rights” offshore were established beyond a three nautical mile limit, an 18th century precedent based on the theoretical maximum range of a smooth-bore cannon. The nation’s highest court prohibited any further offshore development without federal approval. In 1954, the Bureau of Land Management held the first Outer Continental Shelf lease sale, earning the government almost $130 million.
Learn more in Offshore Petroleum History.
December 11, 1972 – First Geologist walks on Moon
Astronaut and geologist Harrison “Jack” Schmitt stepped on the moon, joining Apollo 17 mission commander Eugene Cernan. Lunar experiments included a surface gravimeter to measure buried geological structures near the landing site. Schmitt also returned with the largest lunar sample ever collected.
Geologist Harrison “Jack” Schmitt examined a boulder at the Apollo 17 Taurus-Littrow Valley lunar landing site in December 1972. Photo courtesy NASA.
Schmitt, who in 1964 received a PhD in geology from Harvard, was the first and last scientist on the moon, according to Cernan. When they left the Taurus-Littrow Valley landing site on December 14, 1972, he and the lunar geologist were the last of 12 men to walk on the moon. The 19th century petroleum product kerosene fueled all of the launches.
December 13, 1905 – Hybrids evolve with Gas Shortage Fears
“The available supply of gasoline, as is well known, is quite limited, and it behooves the farseeing men of the motor car industry to look for likely substitutes,” proclaimed the monthly journal Horseless Age.
An early hybrid, this 1902 Porsche used a gas engine to generate electricity to power motors mounted on the front wheel hubs.
The magazine, first published in 1895, described early motor technologies, including the use of compressed air propulsion systems, electric cars, steam, and diesel power — as well as hybrids.
About the time of the first American auto show in November 1900, engineer Ferdinand Porsche introduced his gas-electric “Mixte” in Europe. The hybrid used a four-cylinder gasoline engine to generate electricity. The engine powered two three-horsepower electric motors mounted on the front wheel hubs. The car could achieve a top speed of 50 mph.
December 13, 1931 – Oilfield discovered in Conroe, Texas
Independent producer George Strake Sr. completed the South Texas Development Company No. 1 well eight miles southeast of Conroe, Texas, where he had leased 8,500 acres. By the end of 1932 the oilfield was producing more than 65,000 of barrels of oil a day. But disaster struck in the Conroe field in 1933 when derricks and equipment collapsed into a burning crater of oil. The fire would be put out thanks to relief wells drilled by George Failing and his newly patented truck-mounted drilling method (see Technology and the Conroe Crater).
December 13, 1985 – Route 66 decertified
Route 66, the “Mother Road” of modern highways since 1926, was decertified by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), which also voted to remove all Route 66 signs. Once stretching more than 2,400 miles from Illinois to California, the historic route was trailblazed in 1857 by a War Department expedition that included camels as pack animals.
By World War II, automobiles and trucks on the iconic roadway “helped to facilitate the single greatest wartime mobilization of labor in the history of the nation,” according to the National Park Service (NPS). By 1985, Route 66’s narrow asphalt paving and antiquated structure had been bypassed by the interstate system.
Learn more U.S. transportation history in America on the Move.
December 14, 1981 – Dowsing No Help in finding Minnesota Oil
Seeking oil investors, a Minnesota promoter proclaimed that dowsing with copper wires had located petroleum deposits in Nobles County, according to the Minneapolis Tribune, which reported the promoter had hired, “a Texas oilman and evangelist to lead a prayerful search for oil.” Despite no geological evidence, local investors paid $175,000 to drill a well that found no indication of oil or natural gas after reaching a depth of 1,500 feet.
Minnesota is one of 17 states without any oil or natural gas production, according to the Independent Petroleum Association of America.
The Minnesota Geological Survey had reported in 1980 that of the state’s 17 exploratory wells drilled, “in suitable geologic settings,” none discovered commercial quantities of oil. The survey concluded, “the geologic conditions for significant deposits of oil and gas do not exist in Minnesota.”
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Recommended Reading: Fill’er Up!: The Great American Gas Station
(2013); A History of the Greater Seminole Oil Field (1981); The Legend of Coal Oil Johnny
(2007); Project Plowshare: The Peaceful Use of Nuclear Explosives in Cold War America
(2012); Stella Dysart of Ambrosia Lake: Courage, Fortitude and Uranium in New Mexico
(1959); Apollo and America’s Moon Landing Program: Apollo 17 Technical Crew Debriefing
(2017); Electric and Hybrid Cars: A History
(2010); Down the Asphalt Path: The Automobile and the American City
(1994).
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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.
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.
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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.
