by Bruce Wells | Oct 2, 2023 | This Week in Petroleum History
October 2, 1919 – Future “Mr. Tulsa” incorporates Skelly Oil –
Skelly Oil Company incorporated in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with founder William Grove Skelly as president. He had been born in 1878 in Erie, Pennsylvania, where his father hauled oilfield equipment in a horse-drawn wagon.
Born near Pennsylvania’s early oilfields, independent oilman William Skelly’s company helped make Tulsa the “Oil Capital of the World.”
Skelly’s success in the El Dorado oilfield east of Wichita, Kansas, helped him launch Skelly Oil and other ventures, including Midland Refining Company, which he founded in 1917. As Tulsa promoted itself as “Oil Capital of the World,” Skelly became known as “Mr. Tulsa.”
Skelly served as president of Tulsa’s famous International Petroleum Exposition for 32 years until his death in 1957.
October 3, 1930 – East Texas Oilfield discovered on Widow’s Farm
With a crowd of more than 4,000 landowners, leaseholders, creditors, and spectators watching, the Daisy Bradford No. 3 remote wildcat well was successfully shot with nitroglycerin near Kilgore, Texas.
Spectators gathered on the widow Daisy Bradford’s farm near Kilgore, Texas, to watch the October 3, 1930, “shooting” of the discovery well of what proved to be the largest oilfield in the lower-48 states. Photo courtesy Jack Elder, The Glory Days.
“All of East Texas waited expectantly while Columbus ‘Dad’ Joiner inched his way toward oil,” explained historian Jack Elder in 1986. “Thousands crowded their way to the site of Daisy Bradford No. 3, hoping to be there when and if oil gushed from the well to wash away the misery of the Great Depression.” (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Mar 9, 2015 | Petroleum Companies
Many petroleum companies use and have used the name Apex Oil. Records show a San Antonio, Texas-based company that formed and failed by 1916.
Another exploration company, Apex Oil & Gas Company, was formed in 1920 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, by S.A. Logsdon, E. Bercutt and H. Robinowitz with $50,000 capital. Apex Oil & Gas reported drilling two shallow wells in Kentucky in 1922 – but with minimal oil production (about 13 barrels of oil a day).
By 1929, another Apex Oil and Gas Company formed in Sapulpa, Oklahoma. This Apex Oil drilled two dry holes in a row and did not survive the Great Depression.
Sapulpa had attracted hundreds of exploration companies after a series of gushers led to Making Tulsa “Oil Capital of the World.”
When the Glen Pool oilfield was discovered in 1905 a few miles from Sapulpa, Oklahoma was still two years away from becoming the 46th state.
Thanks to oil and natural gas discoveries, the area grew from a very small village to a prosperous city within a few years, explains the Sapulpa Historical Society.
“Because of the availability of natural gas from the Glen Pool field, glass plants located here, notes the society’s website. “We are still home to Bartlett-Collins Company, which manufactures tableware, and St. Gobain (formerly Liberty Glass Company), which manufactures beverage containers.”
According to the society, abundant natural gas supplies in 1938 attracted John and Grace Lee Frank, who moved their Frankoma Pottery plant to Sapulpa – to make a popular “wagonwheel” tableware. Learn a lot more about “Sooner State” petroleum exploration and production in Oklahoma Oil History.
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The stories of other attempts to join petroleum exploration booms (and avoid busts) can be found in an updated series of research at Is my Old Oil Stock worth Anything? Please support the American Oil & Gas Historical Society’s energy education mission and this website with a donation today!
