“Fishtail” drill bits became obsolete after Howard Hughes Sr. of Houston, Texas, patented the dual-cone roller bit with two rotating cones. By pulverizing hard rock, his bit led to faster and deeper rotary drilling. A few months before receiving the 1909 drill patent, Hughes and Walter Sharp established the manufacturing company Sharp-Hughes Tool (see Carl Baker and Howard Hughes). (more…)
A West Coast Spanish expedition discovered natural seeps that became known as La Brea (the tar). “We debated whether this substance, which flows melted from underneath the earth, could occasion so many earthquakes,” noted the expedition’s Franciscan friar in his diary.
“Rain and groundwater have collected above the bubbling asphalt, creating a small lake,” notes the Page Museum of Los Angeles. The life-size mammoths are displayed at Rancho La Brea in Hancock Park.
The friar, Juan Crespi, was the first person to use the term “bitumen” in describing these sticky pools in southern California — where crude oil has been seeping from the ground through fissures in the coastal plain sediments for more than 40,000 years. Native Americans used the substance for centuries to waterproof baskets and caulk canoes.
Sticky pools form when crude oil seeps to the surface through fissures in the earth’s crust.
Although popularly called the tar pits, the pools at Rancho La Brea are actually asphalt — not tar, which is a by-product made by the distillation of woody materials, such as peat. Asphalt is a naturally formed substance comprised of hydrocarbon molecules (see Asphalt Paves the Way).
Learn more in Discovering the Le Brea Tar Pits.
War Emergency Pipelines Inc. began construction on the “Big Inch” line, the longest petroleum pipeline project ever undertaken in the United States. Conceived to supply wartime fuel demands — and in response to U-boat attacks on oil tankers along the eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico — the “Big Inch” and “Little Big Inch” lines were extolled as “the most amazing government-industry cooperation ever achieved.”
The longest petroleum pipeline project ever undertaken led to construction of a 24-inch pipeline from East Texas to Illinois and a 20-inch line as far as New York City.
With a goal of transporting 300,000 barrels of oil per day, the $95 million project called for construction of a 24-inch pipeline (Big Inch) from East Texas to Illinois and a 20-inch line (Little Big Inch) as far as New York and Philadelphia. The pipelines would reach more than 1,200 miles (the Trans-Alaska pipeline system is 800 miles long).
Learn more in Big Inch Pipelines of WWII.
The Crystal Oil Company completed its Wirt Franklin No. 1 well 20 miles northwest of Ardmore, Oklahoma. The wildcat well revealed the giant Healdton field, which became known as “the poor man’s field” because of its shallow depth and low cost of drilling. The area attracted many independent producers with limited financial backing.
Healdton Oil Museum exhibits include the 1920 Pierce-Arrow owned by Wirt Franklin, who in 1929 founded a national trade association of independent oil and natural gas producers.
Another oil discovery in 1919 revealed the Hewitt field, which extended production 22 miles across Carter County. The Greater Healdton-Hewitt oilfield produced “an astounding 320,753,000 barrels of crude by the close of the first half of the 20th century,” noted Kenny Franks in his 1989 book, Ragtown: A History of the Greater Healdton-Hewitt Oil Field.
A young Erle P. Halliburton perfected a new method of cementing oil wells in “the poor man’s field” (see Halliburton and the Healdton Oilfield). Wirt Franklin of Ardmore became the first president of the then Tulsa-based Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) in 1929.
President Jimmy Carter signed the Department of Energy Organization Act, establishing the twelfth cabinet-level department by consolidating a dozen federal agencies and energy programs. The Act combined the Federal Energy Administration and the Energy Research and Development Administration, making the new Department of Energy (DOE) responsible for nuclear weapon programs and national labs. James Schlesinger was sworn in as the first Secretary of Energy.
Twelve years after launching Standard Oil Company of Ohio in Cleveland (bp America), John D. Rockefeller founded the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (ExxonMobil) as a refining and marketing arm of the Standard Oil Trust, which would reorganize as Standard Oil Interests in 1892, two years after the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
“Taking advantage of New Jersey laws that allowed corporations to own stock in other corporations, Standard Oil Company of New Jersey became a holding company that effectively replaced the Standard Oil Trust. In this capacity, it provided administrative coordination to Standard Oil Interests and held stock in forty-one other oil companies,” notes the American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1911 ordered Standard Oil of New Jersey to separate from its subsidiaries.
Although the comic strip “Alley Oop” began syndication with the Newspaper Enterprise Association, the caveman character began in Permian Basin oilfields of the 1920s. A small, West Texas oil town would proclaim itself the inspiration for cartoonist Victor Hamlin.
A 1995 stamp commemorated “Alley Oop” by Victor Hamlin, who once worked in oilfields at Yates, Texas.
Iraan (pronounced eye-rah-ann) began as a company town following the October 1926 discovery of the giant Yates oilfield. The town’s name combined the names of Ira and Ann Yates. As petroleum drilling in the Permian Basin boomed, future Alley Oop cartoonist Hamlin worked as an oil company cartographer. He developed a lifelong interest in geology and paleontology that helped inspire his popular Depression Era comic strip.
Learn more in Alley Oop’s Oil Roots.
The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act designated the Secretary of the Interior responsible for the administration of mineral exploration and development of America’s outer continental shelf. Forty-four Gulf of Mexico wells were already operating in 11 oilfields by 1949. As the offshore industry evolved in the 1950s, petroleum production became the second-largest revenue generator for the country, after income taxes.
Since 1982, the Interior Department has disbursed more than $387 billion in mineral leasing revenues. The Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR ) in 2024 reported a disbursement of $16.45 billion (down from $18.24 billion in 2023) generated from energy production on federal and tribal lands and federal offshore areas. Monthly disbursements came from the royalties, rents, and bonuses collected from energy and mineral companies operating on federal lands and waters.
Oilfield well control expert and firefighter Paul “Red” Adair died at age 89 in Houston. The son of a blacksmith, Adair was born in 1915 in Houston. He served with a U.S. Army bomb disposal unit during World War II.
Oilfield firefighter Paul “Red” Adair of Houston, Texas, in 1964. His skills were dramatized in the 1968 movie “Hellfighters.”
Adair had begun his oilfield career working for Myron Macy Kinley, who patented a technology for using charges of high explosives to snuff out well fires. Kinley, whose father had been an oil well shooter in California in the early 1900s, mentored many other firefighters, including Asger “Boots” Hansen and Edward “Coots” Mathews (Boots & Coots International Well Control).
After founding the Red Adair Company in 1959, Adair developed new techniques as his company extinguished over 2,000 well fires worldwide, onshore and offshore. The oilfield firefighter’s skills, dramatized in the 1968 film “Hellfighters,” were put to the test in 1991, when his company extinguished 117 well fires set in Kuwait by the retreating Iraqi army. Innovative oilfield firefighting technologies began as early as the 1860s.
A team led by University of Oklahoma geophysicist John C. Karcher conducted the world’s first reflection seismograph measurement of a geologic formation, pioneering the use of reflection seismic technology. The geological section measurement followed limited tests in June and July at Oklahoma City. His work led to the discovery of many of the world’s largest oil and natural gas fields.
A sign on I-35 south of Oklahoma City describes the geology of the Arbuckle Anticline. A nearby marker notes the first use of reflection seismography to find oil. Photo by Bruce Wells.
The new geophysical method recorded reflected seismic waves as they traveled through the earth, helping to define oil-bearing formations. The Arbuckle Mountains of Oklahoma were selected for testing the technique and new equipment, according to a roadside marker at the site south of Oklahoma City on I-35.
Learn More in Exploring Seismic Waves.
After drilling six dry holes near Luling, Texas, the United North & South Oil Company completed its Rafael Rios No. 1 well. Company President Edgar B. Davis remained determined to find oil in the Austin chalk geologic formation. His perseverance paid off with an oilfield 12 miles long and two miles wide. The Luling field annually produced 11 million barrels of oil by 1924.
The Luling Oil Museum in central Texas resides in a restored 1885 mercantile store near the 1922 oilfield a psychic claimed to help discover. Photo courtesy Luling Oil Museum.
On June 11, 1926, Davis sold his Luling leases to the Magnolia Petroleum Company for $12 million — the largest petroleum deal in Texas at the time. Success also produced local tales of Davis finding the Luling oilfield after consulting a psychic. Self-proclaimed clairvoyant Edgar Cayce reported he had helped Davis, but the psychic formed an exploration company that failed after drilling dry holes.
Learn more in Luling Oil Museum and Crudoleum.
An oilfield discovery in western Nebraska ended decades of unsuccessful searching and helped start the state’s modern petroleum industry. The Marathon Oil Company Mary Egging No. 1 well, five miles southeast of the town of Gurley, produced 225 barrels of oil per day from a depth of 4,429 feet. The oilfield discovery in western Nebraska came nine years after the first Nebraska oil well was completed in 1940 in the southeastern corner of the state. ConocoPhillips in 2024 acquired Marathon Oil for $22.5 billion.
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Recommended Reading: Recommended Reading: Monsters Of Old Los Angeles – The Prehistoric Animals Of The La Brea Tar Pits
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please support this website, subscribe to the monthly email newsletter, This Week in Oil and Gas History News, and help expand our historical research. Contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2026 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
America’s first concrete vessel designed to carry oil, the Socony, left its shipyard at Flushing Bay, New York. Built for the Standard Oil Company of New York, the barge was 98 feet long with a 32-foot beam and carried oil in six center and two wing compartments, “oil-proofed by a special process,” according to the journal Cement and Engineering News. (more…)
Glenn H. McCarthy struck oil 50 miles east of Houston in 1935, extending the already prolific Anahuac field. The well extended by three miles to the north of the already productive Anahuac field, which McCarthy had earlier discovered. The well was the first of many for the Texas independent producer who would discover 11 Texas oilfields by 1945. He was known as “Diamond Glenn” by 1950, when his estimated worth reached $200 million ($2.8 billion in 2026). (more…)
French tunnel engineer Rodolphe Leschot received a U.S. patent for a “Tool for Boring Rock.” His concept included a ring of industrial-grade diamonds on the end of a tubular drill rod designed to cut a cylindrical core. Water pumped through the drill rod washed away cuttings and cooled the bit. Leschot’s system proved successful in drilling blast holes for tunneling.
Rodolphe Leschot’s cutting-edge 1863 drilling technology.
At the same time, the use of diamond bits for drilling oil wells was being examined in the petroleum regions of western Pennsylvania. It is not known if there is any connection between the 1865 experimental diamond core drilling in Pennsylvania and the Leschot blast hole drilling in France.
John D. Rockefeller incorporated the Union Tank Line Company in New Jersey and transferred his fleet of several thousand oil tank cars to the Standard Oil Trust. He then systematically acquired control of all but 200 of America’s 3,200 tank cars. By 1904, the rolling fleet had grown to 10,000.
Standard Oil established the Union Tank Line Company to ship petroleum.
Union Tank Line Company shipped only Standard Oil products until 1911, when the U.S. Supreme Court mandated the dissolution of Standard Oil. The new shipping company changed its name to Union Tank Car Company (keeping Standard Oil’s UTL or UTLX markings seen today). The company introduced a 50,000-gallon tank car in 1963, the largest in rail service at the time.
After 87 days, the Deepwater Horizon offshore well was sealed by a cap after about 3.19 million barrels of oil leaked into the Gulf of Mexico, surpassing the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill as the largest ever in U.S.-controlled waters. The April 20 platform explosion, fire, and eventual sinking killed 11 workers and injured 17 others. The spill damaged more than 1,300 miles of shoreline, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It resulted in the largest environmental damage assessment settlement in U.S. history — $20.8 billion — to resolve claims for civil and criminal penalties.
After drilling wells in Kern River oilfields, R. Carlton “Carl” Baker (1872-1957) of Coalinga, California, patented the Baker well-casing shoe. His cable-tool innovation at the bottom of the casing string increased efficiency and reliability for ensuring oil flowed through a well.
Reuben Carlton “Carl” Baker of Coalinga, California, stands next to his Baker Casing Shoes in 1914. Photo courtesy the now closed R.C. Baker Memorial Museum.
Baker, who in 1903 founded the Coalinga Oil Company, by 1913 had established the Baker Casing Shoe Company (renamed Baker Tools two years later). The inventor opened his first manufacturing plant in Coalinga before moving headquarters to Los Angeles in the 1930s. The company became Baker International in 1976 and Baker Hughes after a 1987 merger with the Hughes Tool Company.
Learn more in Baker, Sharp, and Hughes.
Three years after an oilfield discovery near Bowlegs, Oklahoma, a gusher south of Seminole revealed the true petroleum potential of Seminole County. The Fixico No. 1 well penetrated the prolific Wilcox Sands formation at a depth of 4,073 feet.
“Oil workers working on lowered traveling block” at well in Seminole oilfield, August 1939. Photo by Russell Lee as part of the Federal Art Project, 1935 to 1943, courtesy Library of Congress.
Drilled by R.F. Garland and his Independent Oil Company, the well was among more than 50 Greater Seminole Area oil reservoirs discovered; six were giants that produced more than one million barrels of oil each. With the Oklahoma City oilfield added in 1928, Oklahoma became the largest supplier of oil in the world by 1935.
Learn more in Seminole Oil Boom.
As the booming Oklahoma City oilfield added to the congestion of cars downtown, the world’s first parking meter was installed at the corner of First Street and Robinson Avenue. Carl C. Magee, publisher of the Oklahoma News, designed the Park-O-Meter No. 1, today preserved by the Oklahoma Historical Society.
Students helped Carl Magee design his Park-O-Meter for Oklahoma City retailers who wanted a quick turnover of customers. Photo courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society.
“The meter charged five cents for one hour of parking, and naturally citizens hated it, viewing it as a tax for owning a car,” noted historian Josh Miller in 2012. “But retailers loved the meter, as it encouraged a quick turnover of customers.”
Park-O-Meters were manufactured by the MacNick Company of Tulsa, maker of timing devices used to detonate nitroglycerin in wells — and an oilfield services competitor of Zebco, the Zero Hour Bomb Company.
A 19th-century petroleum product made America’s 1969 moon landing possible. Kerosene powered the first-stage rocket engines of the Saturn V when it launched the Apollo 11 mission on July 16. Four days later, astronaut Neil Armstrong announced, “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”
Powered by five first-stage engines fueled by “rocket grade” kerosene, the Saturn V was the tallest, heaviest, and most powerful rocket ever built until the SpaceX Starship. Photos courtesy NASA.
Five engines of the Saturn V’s first stage burned “Rocket Grade Kerosene Propellant” at 2,230 gallons per second, generating almost eight million pounds of thrust. The fuel was a highly refined kerosene RP-1 (Rocket Propellant-1) that began as “coal oil” for lamps.
When Canadian Abraham Gesner (1797-1864) first refined the lamp fuel from coal in 1846, he coined the term “kerosene” from the Greek word “keros” (wax), but many people simply called it “coal oil.” A highly refined version of his product now fuels rockets, including the SpaceX Falcon 9.
Learn more in Kerosene Rocket Fuel.
With initial production of 1,000 barrels of oil a day, the Texas Company No. 1 Dallas Wilson well revealed a new West Texas oilfield at Darst Creek in Guadalupe County, about five miles from the southwestern edge of the Luling oilfield. The field would be developed by Humble Oil and Refining (later Exxon), Gulf Production Company, Magnolia Petroleum (later Mobil), and the Texas Company (later Texaco).
The Petroleum Museum of Midland, Texas, erected in 2019 a circa-1930 derrick used in the Darst Creek oilfield. Photo courtesy the Petroleum Museum.
By December 1931, the Darst Creek field produced more than 19.7 million barrels of oil from an average depth of 2,650 feet — with only 19 “dry holes” of the 291 wells drilled. “To avoid the risks of unregulated production with a resulting loss of reservoir pressure, water encroachment, and cheap crude prices, the operators agreed to voluntary proration in the field,” notes the Petroleum Museum, adding, “voluntary proration proved to be difficult to maintain.”
Chevron announced completion of its $53 billion all-stock acquisition of Hess Corporation, founded in the 1930s as Hess Oil and Chemical by Leon Hess. One day earlier, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lifted an earlier restriction, clearing the way for his son John B. Hess to join Chevron’s board of directors. In 1968, Hess Corporation merged with Amerada Petroleum, which in 1951 had revealed the potential of North Dakota’s Bakken formation. Amerada Hess completed the first well in Prudhoe Bay on Alaska’s North Slope in 1970. Chevron began in California as the Pacific Coast Oil Company in 1879.
Howard Snyder applied to patent his internal combustion-powered washing machine, assigning the rights to the Maytag Company. His washer for “the ordinary farmer” who lacked access to electricity used a one-cylinder, two-cycle engine that could operate using gasoline, kerosene, or alcohol.
Advertisements featured two popular consumer products powered by air-cooled internal combustion engines.
Four years later, Edwin George of Detroit removed the engine from his wife’s Maytag washing machine and added it to a reel-type lawnmower. His invention launched the Moto-Mower Company, manufacturer of America’s first commercially successful gasoline-powered lawn mower.
Although some oil production had occurred earlier in the territory, Alaska’s first commercial oilfield was discovered by Richfield Oil Company, which completed its Swanson River Unit No. 1 in Cook Inlet Basin. The well yielded 900 barrels of oil per day from a depth of 11,215 feet.
Even the Anchorage Daily Times could not predict oil production would account for more than 90 percent of Alaska’s revenue.
Alaska’s first governor, William Egan, proclaimed the oilfield discovery provided “the economic justification for statehood for Alaska” in 1959. Richfield leased more than 71,000 acres of the Kenai National Moose Range, now part of the 1.92 million-acre Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.
By June 1962, about 50 wells were producing more than 20,000 barrels of oil a day. Richfield Oil Company merged with Atlantic Refining Company in 1966, becoming Atlantic Richfield (ARCO), which with Exxon discovered the giant Prudhoe Bay field in 1968.
Learn more in First Alaska Oil Wells.
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Recommended Reading: History Of Oil Well Drilling
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Support this energy education website, our monthly email newsletter, This Week in Oil and Gas History News, and help expand historical research. Contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2026 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
