by Bruce Wells | Nov 18, 2024 | This Week in Petroleum History
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.
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).
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Gusher. The 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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
_______________________
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.
by Bruce Wells | Nov 11, 2024 | This Week in Petroleum History
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” 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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
by Bruce Wells | Nov 4, 2024 | This Week in Petroleum History
November 6, 1860 – First Multi-Still Oil Refinery started in Pennsylvania –
As the Civil War neared, construction began on America’s first multiple-still oil refinery. William Barnsdall, who completed a oil well soon after the first U.S. oil well of August 1859, spent $15,000 to build six stills for refining kerosene one mile south of Titusville, Pennsylvania. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Oct 28, 2024 | This Week in Petroleum History
October 28, 1868 – Newspaper praises Explosive Technology –
The Titusville Morning Herald praised the results of an explosive oilfield production technology — Civil War veteran Colonel E.A.L. Roberts’ patented nitroglycerin torpedo. “It would be superfluous, at this late day, to speak of the merits of the Roberts Torpedo,” explained the first daily newspaper of the Pennsylvania oil region.
Front page of the first issue of the Titusville Morning Herald, which ceased publication in 2022 after 157 years. Photo courtesy TheDerrick.com.
“For the past three years, it has been a most successful operation and has increased the production of oil in hundreds upon hundreds of oil wells to an extent which could hardly be overestimated” (see Shooters — a “Fracking” History). The Titusville Herald ceased publication in 2022 after 157 years.
October 28, 1926 – Giant Yates Field discovered West of the Pecos
The 26,400-acre Yates oilfield was discovered in a remote area of Pecos County, Texas, in the Permian Basin. Drilled in 1926 with a $15,000 cable-tool rig, the Ira Yates 1-A produced 450 barrels of oil a day from almost 1,000 feet deep. Before the giant oilfield discovery, Ira Yates had struggled to keep his ranch on the northern border of the Chihuahua Desert.
The Permian Basin’s 1926 Yates oilfield discovery followed the 1923 gusher at Big Lake (Santa Rita No. 1) and led to giant oilfield discoveries at Hendrick and Hobbs. “Midland Comes of Age” exhibit photo courtesy of the Petroleum Museum.
“Drought and predators nearly did him in” noted one historian, until Yates convinced a San Angelo company to explore for oil west of the Pecos River. With the Pecos County well 30 miles from the nearest oil pipeline and a storage tank under construction, four more Yates wells yielded another 12,000 barrels of oil a day. On his 67th birthday, Yates received an $18 million royalty check (also see Santa Rita taps Permian Basin).
October 30, 1894 – “Golden Rule” Jones invents a Better Sucker Rod
Samuel M. Jones patented a sucker rod design for his Acme Sucker Rod Company, which he had founded in 1892 in Toledo, Ohio. With his “Coupling for Pipes or Rods,” Jones applied his oilfield experience in mechanics to solve the frequent and time-consuming problem of broken sucker rods. His innovation would soon make him a millionaire.
Samuel M. Jones, future mayor of Toledo, Ohio, worked as a potboiler, pumper, tool dresser, blacksmith, and pipe layer before starting an oilfield service company.
Jones had worked in Pennsylvania’s oil region as a potboiler, pumper, tool dresser, blacksmith, and pipe layer. He became known as “Golden Rule” Jones by establishing a better workplace for employees at his factory, where he shortened the work day and started a revenue-sharing program.
Jones ran for Toledo mayor as a progressive Republican in 1887 and was elected. He was reelected three times and served until dying on the job in 1904.
Learn more in “Golden Rule” Jones of Ohio.
October 31, 1871 – Modern Refinery Method patented
Petroleum refining would become more efficient thanks to an invention by Henry Rogers of Brooklyn, New York, who patented an “apparatus for separating volatile hydrocarbons by repeated vaporization and condensation.”
Henry Rogers patented his “improvement to distilling naphtha and other hydrocarbon liquids,” including kerosene.
Rogers introduced many elements of modern refineries, including “fractionating” towers that improved earlier processes of extracting kerosene by simple distillation in kettle stills.
“The apparatus which I use is, in many respects, similar to what is known as the column-still for distilling alcoholic spirits, but modified in all the details, so as to make it available for distilling oils,” Rogers noted in his 1871 patent application. More technological advancements would lead to giant refining operations like the Standard Oil of Indiana Whiting Refinery, which opened in 1889.
October 31, 1903 – Salt-Dome Oilfield discovered in Texas
One mile north of Batson, Texas, a discovery well drilled by W.L. Douglas’ Paraffine Oil Company produced 600 barrels of oil a day from a depth of 790 feet. A second well drilled two months later in the Batson field produced 4,000 barrels of oil a day from 1,000 feet deep. Many new ventures joined the drilling boom (see Buffalo Oil Company).
When combined with other newly discovered prolific salt-dome fields, Spindletop (1901), Sour Lake (1903), and Humble (1904), “Batson helped to establish the basis of the Texas oil industry when these shallow fields gave up the first Texas Gulf Coast oil,” noted the Texas State Historical Association in 2010.
October 31, 1913 – First Paved U.S. Highway dedicated
Towns nationwide celebrated the opening of the Lincoln Highway, a 3,389-mile-long “Main Street Across America” connecting Times Square in New York City to San Francisco’s Lincoln Park. The Lincoln Highway was the first national memorial dedicated to President Abraham Lincoln. In 1919, the Army Motor Transport Corps organized a transcontinental convoy to test vehicles and highlight the need for more paved roads.
October 31, 1924 – Olinda Oil Wells Pitcher plays Exhibition Game
Former California oilfield worker Walter “Big Train” Johnson returned to his oil patch roots in Brea for an exhibition game with famed slugger Babe Ruth, who swatted two home runs off the future Hall of Fame pitcher. Three decades earlier, Johnson began his baseball career as a 16-year-old pitcher for the Olinda Oil Wells.
The former star player for the Olinda Oil Wells pitched against Babe Ruth in a 1924 exhibition game in nearby Brea.
Playing for the Washington Senators years later, the former oilfield roustabout became major league baseball’s all-time career leader in shutouts with 110. Many oilfield towns like Brea fielded teams with names reflecting their communities’ livelihood.
Learn more in Oilfields of Dreams – Gassers, Oilers, and Drillers Baseball Teams.
October 31, 1930 – C.M. “Dad” Joiner’s Properties placed into Receivership
After it was learned that 70-year-old wildcatter Columbus Marion “Dad” Joiner had oversold his East Texas oilfield leases in Rusk County, District Judge R.T. Brown placed the properties into receivership.
The Baker Hotel in Dallas was where Columbus “Dad” Joiner, discoverer of the East Texas oilfield, met with H.L. Hunt and sold Hunt 5,580 acres for $1.34 million. Built in 1925, the hotel was torn down in 1980.
With the field’s Daisy Bradford No. 3 and other wells tied up in conflicting claims, Joiner took refuge from creditors in the Baker Hotel in Dallas, where Haroldson Lafayette (H.L.) Hunt negotiated a $1.34 million deal with him for the discovery well and 5,580 acres of leases. In the 300 lawsuits and 10 years of litigation that followed, Hunt sustained every title.
November 1, 1865 – First Railroad Oil Tank Car arrives
The first of James and Amos Densmore’s innovative railroad oil tank cars arrived at the Miller Farm, four miles south of Titusville, Pennsylvania. The inventors would be awarded a U.S. patent on April 10, 1866, for their dual tank design.
Brothers Amos and James Densmore designed and built the first successful railroad tank cars used in the Pennsylvania oilfields in 1865. Photo courtesy Drake Well Museum.
The crude oil for the iron-banded wooden tanks on a flatcar was delivered by Samuel Van Syckle’s two-inch iron pipeline (another oil industry first) from the oilfield boom town at Pithole Creek. Oil from large storage tanks on the farm filled the Densmore tanks for the Oil Creek Railroad, which connected to lines reaching Pittsburgh, New York City, and other markets.
Learn more in Densmore Brothers Oil Tank Car.
November 2, 1902 – First Gas-Powered Locomobile delivered
Known for building luxury steam-powered automobiles, the Locomobile Company of America delivered its first gasoline-powered auto to a buyer in New York City. The company had hired Andrew Riker, a self-taught engineer and racecar driver, to create the four-cylinder, 12-horsepower vehicle, which sold for $4,000.
The four-cylinder gasoline engine of Locomobile “Old 16” racing car on display in the Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Michigan.
In 1908, a Locomobile “Old 16,” a four-cylinder, 16-liter, two-seater, won America’s first international racing victory — the Vanderbilt Cup at the Long Island Motor Parkway, one of the first paved parkways. The Locomobile Company would “reign supreme in the niche category of luxury American cars for decades,” according to Today in Connecticut History.
November 3, 1878 – Haymaker Natural Gas Well lights Pittsburgh
While drilling for oil in 1878, a well drilled by Michael and Obediah Haymaker erupted with natural gas from a depth of almost 1,400 feet. “Every piece of rigging went sky high, whirling around like so much paper caught in a gust of wind. But instead of oil, we had struck gas,” Michael Haymaker recalled.
Eighteen miles east of Pittsburgh, the out-of-control well in Murrysville, Pennsylvania, produced an estimated 34 million cubic feet of natural gas daily. It was considered the largest natural gas well ever drilled up to that time.
“A sight that can be seen in no other city in the world,” noted Harper’s Weekly in 1885.
Given oilfield technologies of the late 1880s, there was no way to cap the well and no pipeline to exploit commercial possibilities. The Haymaker well drew thousands of curious onlookers to a flaming torch that burned for 18 months and was visible miles away.
“Outlet of a natural gas well near Pittsburgh — a sight that can be seen in no other city in the world,” noted Harper’s Weekly. When finally brought under control, the Haymaker well provided inexpensive gas light to Pittsburgh for many years.
Learn more in Natural Gas is King in Pittsburgh.
November 3, 1900 – New York City hosts First U.S. Auto Show
America’s first gathering of the latest automotive technologies attracted thousands to New York City’s Madison Square Garden. Manufacturers presented 160 different vehicles and conducted driving and maneuverability demonstrations on a 20-foot-wide wooden track that encircled the exhibits.
The Winton Motor Carriage of 1898 was the first American automobile advertisement.
Almost 50,000 visitors paid 50 cents each to witness autos driving up a 200-foot ramp to test hill-climbing power. The most popular models proved to be electric, steam, and gasoline…in that order. New Yorkers welcomed the new models as a way to reduce the 450,000 tons of manure, 21 million gallons of urine, and 15,000 horse carcasses that had to be removed from city streets every year.
Of the 4,200 automobiles sold in 1900, less than a thousand were powered by gasoline. But within five years, consumer preference established the dominance of gasoline-powered autos.
Learn more in Cantankerous Combustion — 1st U.S. Auto Show and First Gas Pump and Service Station.
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Recommended Reading: The Boom: How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World
(2015); Wildcatters: Texas Independent Oilmen
(1984); Holy Toledo: Religion and Politics in the Life of “Golden Rule” Jones
(1998); The Bradford Oil Refinery, Pennsylvania, Images of America
(2006); Early Texas Oil: A Photographic History, 1866-1936
(2000); The Lincoln Highway: Coast to Coast from Times Square to the Golden Gate
(2011); Oil on the Brain: Petroleum’s Long, Strange Trip to Your Tank
(2008); The Extraction State, A History of Natural Gas in America (2021); A History of the New York International Auto Show: 1900-2000
(2000). 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.
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by Bruce Wells | Oct 21, 2024 | This Week in Petroleum History
October 21, 1921 – First Natural Gas Well in New Mexico –
The New Mexico natural gas industry began when the newly established Aztec Oil Syndicate’s State No. 1 well found a gas field about 15 miles northeast of Farmington in San Juan County. The drilling crew used a tree trunk with a two-inch pipe and shut-off valve to control the well until a wellhead could be shipped from Colorado. The well produced 10 million cubic feet of natural gas a day.
New Mexico’s first commercial natural gas service began after a 1921 discovery near Aztec. Oil discoveries followed in the southeast.
By the end of December 1921, a pipeline reached two miles into the town of Aztec, where citizens enjoyed New Mexico’s first commercial natural gas service. In 1922, natural gas could be purchased in Aztec at a flat rate of $2 a month (for a gas heater) and $2.25 (for a gas stove). Learn more about the state’s petroleum history in First New Mexico Oil Wells.
October 23, 1908 – Salt Creek Well launches Wyoming Boom
Wyoming’s first oil boom began when the Dutch company Petroleum Maatschappij Salt Creek completed its “Big Dutch” well about 40 miles north of Casper.
The “Big Dutch” No. 1 well, above, launched a Wyoming drilling boom in 1908. Photo courtesy U.S. Geological Survey.
Salt Creek’s potential had been known since the 1880s, but the area’s central geological salt dome received little attention until Italian geologist Cesare Porro recommended drilling there in 1906. Another salt dome formation had been revealed with the 1901 Spindletop oilfield discovery in Texas.
At Salt Creek, the Oil Wells Drilling Syndicate, a British company, drilled the “Big Dutch” well, which produced 600 barrels of oil a day from a depth of 1,050 feet deep and launched a Wyoming drilling boom. By 1930, about one-fifth of all U.S. oil came from the Salt Creek oilfield. Production continued in the 1960s with water-flooding technologies and the use of carbon dioxide injection beginning in 2004.
Learn more in First Wyoming Oil Wells.
October 23, 1948 – “Smart Pig” advances Pipeline Inspection
Northern Natural Gas Company recorded the first use of an X-ray machine for internal testing of petroleum pipeline welds. The company examined a 20-inch diameter pipe north of its Clifton, Kansas, compressor station. The device — today known as a “smart pig” — traveled up to 1,800 feet inside the pipe, imaging each weld.
A pipeline worker inspects a “smart pig.” Photo courtesy Pacific L.A. Marine Terminal.
As early as 1926, U.S. Navy researchers had investigated the use of gamma-ray radiation to detect flaws in welded steel. In 1944, Cormack Boucher patented a “radiographic apparatus” suitable for many large pipelines. Modern inspection tools employ magnetic particle, ultrasonic, eddy current, and other methods to verify pipeline and weld integrity.
October 23, 1970 – LNG powers World Land Speed Record
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) powered the Blue Flame to a new world land speed record of 630.388 miles per hour. A rocket motor combining LNG and hydrogen peroxide fueled the 38-foot, 4,950-pound Blue Flame, which set the record at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. The rocket motor could produce up to 22,000 pounds of thrust — about 58,000 horsepower.
In 1970, the Blue Flame achieved, “the greenest world land speed record set in the 20th century.”
Sponsored by the American Gas Association (AGA) and the Institute of Gas Technology, the Blue Flame design came from three Milwaukee, Wisconsin, automotive engineers: Dick Keller, Ray Dausman, and Pete Farnsworth. Building a record-setting rocket dragster in 1967 got the attention of AGA executives.
The American Oil & Gas Historical Society interviewed Dick Keller in 2013 to help produce a YouTube video using his 8mm home movies.
Interviewed by the American Oil & Gas Historical Society in 2013, Keller explained how the growing environmental movement of the late 1960s encouraged AGA “suits” to see value in supporting a new racer fueled by LNG. Keller in 2020 published Speedquest: Inside the Blue Flame, noting natural gas powered “the greenest world land speed record set in the 20th century.”
Learn more in Blue Flame Natural Gas Rocket Car.
October 25, 1929 – Cabinet Member guilty in Teapot Dome Scandal
Albert B. Fall, appointed Interior Secretary in 1921 by President Warren G. Harding, was found guilty of accepting a bribe while in office, becoming the first cabinet official in U.S. history to be convicted of a felony. An executive order from President Harding had given Fall full control of the Naval Petroleum Reserves.
Wyoming’s Teapot Dome oilfield was named after Teapot Rock, seen here circa 1922 (the “spout” later fell off). Photo courtesy Casper College Western History Center.
Fall was found guilty of secretly leasing the Navy’s oil reserve lands to Harry Sinclair of Sinclair Oil Company and to Edward Doheny, discoverer of the Los Angeles oilfield.
The noncompetitive leases were awarded to Doheny’s Pan American Petroleum Company (reserves at Elk Hills and Buena Vista Hills, California), and Sinclair’s Mammoth Oil Company (reserve at Teapot Dome, Wyoming). Fall received more than $400,000 from the two oil companies.
It emerged during Senate hearings that cash was delivered to Secretary Fall in a Washington, D.C., hotel. He was convicted of taking a bribe, fined $100,000, and sentenced to one year in prison. Sinclair and Doheny were acquitted, but Sinclair spent six-and-a-half months in prison for contempt of court and the U.S. Senate.
October 26, 1970 – Joe Roughneck Statue dedicated in Texas
Texas Governor Preston Smith dedicated a “Joe Roughneck” memorial in Boonsville to mark the 20th anniversary of a giant natural gas field discovery in East Texas.
In 1950, the Lone Star Gas Company Vaught No. 1 well discovered the Boonsville field, which produced 2.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas over the next 20 years. By 2001 the field reached production of 3.1 trillion cubic feet of gas from more than 3,500 wells.
“Joe Roughneck” in Boonsville, Texas. Photo, courtesy Mike Price.
Joe Roughneck began as a character in Lone Star Steel Company advertising in the 1950s. Until discontinued in 2020, the bronze bust was presented each year during the Chief Roughneck Award ceremony of the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA).
In addition to the Boonsville monument, Joe’s bust sits atop three different Texas oilfield monuments: Joinerville (1957), Conroe (1957) and Kilgore (1986).
Learn more in Meet Joe Roughneck.
October 27, 1763 – Birth of Pioneer American Geologist
William Maclure, who would become a renowned American geologist and “stratigrapher,” was born in Ayr, Scotland. He created the earliest geological maps of North America in 1809 and later earned the title, “Father of American Geology.”
After settling in the United States in 1797, Maclure explored the eastern part of North America to prepare the first geological map of the United States. His travels from Maine to Georgia in 1808 resulted in the map’s sequence of rock layers.
“Map of the United States of America, Designed to Illustrate the Geological Memoir of Wm. Maclure, Esqr.” This 1818 version is more detailed than the first geological map he published in 1809. Image courtesy the Historic Maps Collection, Princeton Library.
“Here, in broad strokes, he identifies six different geological classes,” a Princeton geologist reported. “Note that the chain of the Appalachian Mountains is correctly labeled as containing the most primitive, or oldest, rock.”
In the 1850s, a chemist at Yale analyzed samples of Pennsylvania “rock oil” for refining into kerosene; his report led to the drilling of the first U.S. oil well in 1859 (also see Rocky Beginnings of Petroleum Geology).
October 27, 1923 – Refining Company founded in Arkansas
Lion Oil Company was founded as a refining Company in El Dorado, Arkansas, by Texan Thomas Harry Barton. He earlier had organized the El Dorado Natural Gas Company and acquired a 2,000-barrel-a-day refinery in 1922.
Founded in 1923 in El Dorado, Arkansas, Lion Oil will operate about 2,000 service stations in the south in the 1950s. Photo courtesy Lion Oil.
Production from the nearby Smackover oilfield helped the Lion Oil Refining Company’s refining capacity grow to 10,000 barrels a day. By 1925, the company acquired oil wells producing 1.4 million barrels of oil. A merger with Monsanto Chemical in 1955 brought the gradual disappearance of the once familiar “Beauregard Lion” logo.
Learn more Arkansas history in Arkansas Oil and Gas Boom Towns.
October 27, 1938 – DuPont names Petroleum Product Nylon
DuPont chemical company announced that Nylon would be the name of its newly invented synthetic fiber yarn made from petroleum. Discovered in 1935 by Wallace Carothers at a DuPont research facility, nylon is considered the first commercially successful synthetic polymer. Carothers would become known as the father of the science of man-made polymers (see Nylon, a Petroleum Polymer).
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Recommended Reading: Oil in West Texas and New Mexico
(1982); The Salt Creek Oil Field: Natrona County, Wyoming, 1912
(2017); Oil and Gas Pipeline Fundamentals (1993); The Reluctant Rocketman: A Curious Journey in World Record Breaking
(2013); Speedquest: Inside the Blue Flame (2020); The Bradford Oil Refinery, Pennsylvania, Images of America 2006); Early Louisiana and Arkansas Oil: A Photographic History, 1901-1946
(1982); Du Pont Dynasty: Behind the Nylon Curtain
(1984). 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 © 2024 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
(2017); 
(1997); 
(2016). Your Amazon purchase benefits the American Oil & Gas Historical Society. As an Amazon Associate, AOGHS earns a commission from qualifying purchases.
