December 30, 1854 – First American Oil Company incorporates –
George Bissell and six investors incorporated the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company of New York. Convinced oil could be found in northwestern Pennsylvania, Bissell formed this first U.S. petroleum exploration company “to raise, manufacture, procure and sell Rock Oil” from Hibbard Farm in Venango County.
America’s first oil company was incorporated on December 30, 1854, in Albany. George Bissell wanted oil for a new product: kerosene.
In 1855, after struggling to attract more investors, the company reorganized under Connecticut corporate law, which protected shareholders from company debts. The Wall Street Panic of 1857 rendered control of the company to financier Robert Townsend, who in March 1858 reincorporated it as the Seneca Oil Company of New Haven, Connecticut, which in August 1859 drilled the first U.S. oil well on the 105-acre Hibbard Farm lease.
Learn more in George Bissell’s Oil Seeps.
December 31, 1954 – Ohio Oil Company sets Depth Record
As deep drilling technologies continued to advance in the 1950s, a record depth of 21,482 feet was reached by the Ohio Oil Company in California. The well was about 17 miles southwest of Bakersfield in prolific Kern County, in the San Joaquin Valley. At more than four miles deep, the well’s down-hole drilling technology was not up to the task and the bit got stuck.
A January 1954 trade magazine noted the record depth reached by the Ohio Oil Company’s deep well in Kern County — a dry hole.
Petroleum Engineer noted the well set a depth record, despite being “halted by a fishing job” and ending up as a dry hole. More than 630 exploratory wells were drilled in California during 1954. Founded in 1887, the Ohio Oil Company discovered the Permian Basin’s giant Yates field in 1926 and later purchased Transcontinental Oil, acquiring the Marathon product name — and Greek runner trademark.
Learn more deep-drilling history in Anadarko Basin in Depth.
December 31, 1998 – Amoco merges with BP
Amoco completed its merger with British Petroleum in a stock swap valued at about $48 billion, at the time the world’s largest industrial merger and the largest foreign takeover of an American company. Amoco, founded in 1889 as John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company of Indiana, changed its name to Amoco in 1985.
BP closed all Amoco stations in 2001, three years after acquiring the former Standard Oil Company of Indiana.
BP shareholders owned 60 percent of the newly combined companies, BP Amoco, PLC. In 2002, the company changed its brand to simply “BP” and began closing or renaming Amoco service stations. BP in 2017 announced the reintroduction of the Amoco brand in the United States, 105 years after the first Amoco station opened in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
December 31, 1999 – Pegasus returns to Dallas Skyline
As millennium celebration fireworks began at midnight in Dallas, Texas, an oil company marketing icon soared again atop the 29-story Magnolia Building. The new version of Mobil Oil’s Pegasus replaced a badly deteriorated original, which had first rotated there in 1934. “You can’t tell the new one from the old one except for the fact that the faces are now red and not rusty,” noted one of the restorers.
The downtown building’s first 11-foot “Flying Red Horse” would be lost and almost forgotten until 2015, when it was discovered in a storage facility. After extensive renovation, the petroleum industry artifact landed in front of the Omni Dallas Hotel, where it can be seen today.
Learn more in Mobil’s High-Flying Trademark.
January 1, 1973 – Esso becomes Exxon
After one year of test marketing the new name, Standard Oil of New Jersey became Exxon, officially replacing U.S. Esso brands and subsidiary Humble Oil and Refining’s Enco brands. The nationwide rebranding applied to 28,600 Esso and Humble Enco stations, costing $100 million in research, product relabeling, and advertising, according to TIME magazine.
“Plans call for Humble to be renamed Exxon U.S., and for Standard Oil of New Jersey to become Exxon Inc.,” TIME reported in 1971, adding the company recognized existing brands could become global. The Enco name was discarded because it means “stalled car” in Japanese. Exxon would become ExxonMobil in 1999 after merging with Mobil Oil.
January 2, 1866 – Patent describes Early Rotary Rig
Peter Sweeney of New York City received a U.S. patent for an “Improvement in Rock Drills” design that included basic elements of the modern rotary rig. The inventor described his idea as a “peculiar construction particularly adapted for boring deep wells.”
Peter Sweeney’s innovative 1866 “Stone Drill” patent included a roller bit using “rapid rotary motion” similar to modern rotary drilling technologies.
Sweeney’s drilling patent, which improved upon an 1844 British patent by Robert Beart, used a roller bit with replaceable cutting wheels such “that by giving the head a rapid rotary motion the wheels cut into the ground or rock and a clean hole is produced.”
The rig’s “drill-rod” was hollow and connected with a hose through which “a current of steam or water can be introduced in such a manner that the discharge of the dirt and dust from the bottom of the hole is facilitated.”
Learn more in Sweeney’s 1866 rotary rig.
January 2, 1882 – Rockefeller organizes the Standard Oil Trust
John D. Rockefeller continued to expand his Standard Oil Company empire by reorganizing his assets into the Standard Oil Trust, which controlled much of the U.S. petroleum industry through 40 producing, refining and marketing affiliates. The trust also operated all of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s tank cars (also see Densmore Oil Tank Cars) until a U.S. Supreme Court ruling broke it up in 1911.
January 2, 1932 – Birth of Union “76” Brand
The Union Oil Company “76” brand was launched at service stations in western states. The brand’s orange circle with blue type logo was adopted in the 1940s, and the “76” orange orb first appeared at the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle. A smaller version of the ball proved so popular that millions would be given away as bright attachments to car antennas.
The Union 76 ball debuted in 1962.
The California Oil Museum in Santa Paula is in the original Union Oil headquarters of the 1890s.
January 2, 1974 – President Nixon sets 55 mph Speed Limit
Although setting speed limits earlier had been left to each state, when OPEC cut U.S. oil supplies in October 1973, President Richard Nixon signed the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act to reduce gas consumption. As a national speed limit of 55 mph became law, the embargo’s higher gas prices boosted sales of smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. President Bill Clinton in 1995 repealed the federal limit, returning the power to the states.
January 4, 1948 – Deep Discovery in Permian Basin
Exploration of the Permian Basin in Texas intensified when a wildcat well found oil and natural gas in a deep geologic formation. The Slick-Urschel Oil Company drilled the well after partnering with Michael Late Benedum, a renowned geologist who had discovered Pennsylvania and West Virginia oilfields as early as the 1890s.
Tom Slick Jr. of Oklahoma helped Michael Benedum of Pennsylvania discover a deep Permian Basin field in Texas. Image from February 16, 1948, LIFE magazine.
The Permian Basin discovery, the Alford No. 1 well, 50 miles south of Midland, was completed at 12,011 feet. A famous West Texas well completed two decades earlier, Santa-Rita No. 1, had produced oil from just 440 feet deep. The Slick-Urschel Oil well reached a depth of 10,000 feet in less than five months; it took another seven months to penetrate 384 feet.
Help came from Tom Slick Jr., the son of Oklahoma’s King of the Wildcatters, who branched off the well using a “whipstock” and reached the prolific limestone formation. The field was named in 1950 by the Texas Railroad Commission in honor of Benedum, “who devoted 69 of his 90 years to the oil business.”
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Recommended Reading: Myth, Legend, Reality: Edwin Laurentine Drake and the Early Oil Industry (2009); History Of Oil Well Drilling
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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.
