October 13, 1917 – U.S. Oil & Gas Association founded –
Oklahoma independent producers established the Mid-Continent Oil & Gas Association in Tulsa, Oklahoma, six months after the United States entered World War I. The organization, today the United States Oil & Gas Association, was founded by petroleum industry leaders Frank Phillips, E.W. Marland, Bill Skelly, and Robert Kerr to increase petroleum supplies for the Allies during the war. The association in 1919 formed the Oklahoma-Kansas Division, now the Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma.
October 13, 1954 – First Arizona Gas Well
After decades of searching, Arizona became the 30th petroleum-producing state when Shell Oil Company completed a natural gas well one mile south of the Utah border on the Apache County Navajo Reservation. The East Boundary Butte No. 2 well showed gas production of about 3 million cubic feet per day from depths between 4,540 feet and 4,690 feet — but produced low amounts of oil.
Arizona in 2024 produced about 6,000 barrels of oil in Apache County, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
A rancher had reported finding natural seeps in central Arizona in the late 1890s, and by 1902, a part-time prospector from Pennsylvania, Joseph Heslet, began exploration efforts that ended in 1916 after finding traces of oil.
Arizona’s oil production declined after 2015, occasionally reaching 1,000 barrels of crude oil per month. There were no significant proven reserves by 2024, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), and the state’s few oil wells produced only about 6,000 barrels of oil.
Learn more in First Arizona Oil and Gas Wells.
October 14, 1929 – Van Oilfield discovered East of Dallas
Pure Oil Company completed its Jarman No. 1 well in Van Zandt County and launched a drilling boom east of Dallas. During its first hour, the oilfield discovery well produced 147 barrels of oil from the Woodbine Sandstone at a depth of 2,700 feet. Three more wells followed as construction began on a camp for oilfield workers.
In Van, Texas, about 75 miles east of Dallas, Van Zandt County’s petroleum museum is housed in a 1930s warehouse built by the Pure Oil Company. The annual Van Oil Festival takes place on October 19. Photo by Bruce Wells
By April 1930, the Van field produced 20,000 barrels of oil a day as companies adopted advanced production techniques. New pipelines linked the oilfield to the Pure refinery in Beaumont, Texas, and Standard Oil Company’s refinery in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Among the Van oilfield’s “Cook Camp” buildings was a sheet-metal warehouse, today home to the Van Area Oil and Historical Museum (Facebook page).
In May, the Van Zandt County Historical Commission unveiled a marker to commemorate the Texas & Pacific Railway short line from Grand Saline that “played a critical role in the rapid development of the oilfield by bringing in tons of heavy oilfield equipment.” On October 19, the annual Van Oil Festival will take place in City Park to celebrate 96 years of petroleum heritage.
October 15, 1895 – Patent for a Well Boring Machine
Oscar Benjamin of Lafayette, Louisiana, patented a compact, cable-tool drilling rig. His design for the “Well Boring Machine” used a framework mounted on wheels with a hinged derrick “adapted to swing over in transit.”
An 1895 patent for a portable cable-tool rig noted: Mounted on this framework (A) are the boiler (B) and the steam engine (C), which drives the belt (D).
Although Benjamin’s design included a boiler and steam engine mounted on the framework, any source of power could be used “independent of the portable boring machine,” he noted in his patent application (No. 548,109). The derrick could be steadied by stay-ropes, and the velocity of the shaft controlled by using a band brake.
October 15, 1966 – Johnson signs the Historic Preservation Act
Recognizing that the “spirit and direction of the nation are founded upon and reflected in its historic heritage,” President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the National Historic Preservation Act to protect historical and archaeological sites. The Act authorized the Secretary of the Interior to maintain a National Register of Historic Places. “The historical and cultural foundations of the nation should be preserved as a living part of our community life and development in order to give a sense of orientation to the American people,” the Act proclaimed.
October 15, 1997 – Kerosene fuels Land Speed Record
The current world land speed record was set at 763.035 miles per hour by the Thrust SSC, the British “supersonic car” fueled by a 19th-century petroleum product, kerosene. The vehicle’s twin turbofan engines burned JP-4, a fuel that first powered jet aircraft as early as 1951. SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets are fueled by a kerosene rocket fuel, which also powered the Apollo moon launches. Liquefied natural gas fueled the Blue Flame, which held the land speed record from 1970 to 1983.
October 16, 1931 – Natural Gas Pipeline sets Record
The first long-distance, high-pressure U.S. natural gas pipeline went into service during the Great Depression, linking prolific Texas Panhandle gas fields to consumers in Chicago.
A 1931 natural gas pipeline extended 980 miles from North Texas to Illinois.
A.O. Smith Corporation developed the technology for a thin-walled pipe, and Continental Construction Corporation built the 980-mile bolted flange line for the Natural Gas Pipeline Company of America (NGPL). The $75 million pipeline consumed 209,000 tons of specially fabricated 24-inch wide steel pipe, which filled 6,500 freight cars. The project required 2,600 separate right-of-way leases (also see Big Inch Pipelines of WW II).
October 17, 1890 – Union Oil of California founded
Lyman Stewart, Thomas Bard, and Wallace Hardison founded the Union Oil Company of California by merging their petroleum properties to compete with Standard Oil of California, founded 20 years earlier. Union Oil made strategic alliances with smaller oil companies to build pipelines from Kern County oilfields to the Pacific Coast.
“This gave the independent producers an alternative to what they perceived as the low prices paid by Standard Oil and the high freight rates charged by the railroads to move crude oil,” noted the American Institute of Mining in 1914. Union Oil moved the company headquarters from Santa Paula to Los Angeles in 1901.
After becoming the Union Oil Museum in 1950, the company’s Santa Paula headquarters building was restored to its original appearance in 1990 and reopened as the California Oil Museum.
In 1910, Union Oil lost control of its Midway-Sunset field’s Lakeview No. 1 well, which would take 18 months to control. The purchase of Pennsylvania-based Pure Oil in 1965 made the Unocal Union 76 brand a nationwide company. Chevron acquired Unocal in 2005.
Union Oil’s original Santa Paula headquarters building, a California Historical Landmark, became home to the California Oil Museum in 1990.
October 17, 1917 – “Roaring Ranger” launches Texas Drilling Boom
A wildcat well drilled between Abilene and Dallas launched the Texas drilling boom that helped fuel the Allied victory in World War I. The J.H. McCleskey No. 1 well erupted oil about two miles south of the small town of Ranger, which had been founded in the 1870s near a Texas Ranger camp in Eastland County.
The 1917 McCleskey No. 1 oil gusher in Texas made headlines as the “Roaring Ranger” that helped win World War I.
William Knox Gordon of the Texas and Pacific Coal Company completed the oilfield discovery well at a depth of 3,432 feet. It initially produced 1,600 barrels a day of quality, high-gravity oil. Within 20 months, the exploration company’s stock value jumped from $30 a share to $1,250 a share.
“Roaring Ranger” launched a drilling boom that extended to nearby towns. With effective blowout-preventer technology still a decade away, more gushers followed, some producing up to 10,000 barrels of oil a day. Ranger’s population quickly grew from 1,000 to 30,000.
North Texas oil discoveries included 1920s wells drilled at Cisco in Eastland County, where Conrad Hilton witnessed a crowd of roughnecks waiting at the Mobley Hotel — and decided to buy it.
Petroleum proved essential in World War I. After the armistice was signed in 1918, a member of the British War Cabinet declared, “The Allied cause floated to victory upon a wave of oil.”
After the war, a veteran named Conrad Hilton visited Eastland County intending to buy a bank at Cisco. When his deal fell through, Hilton — at the Cisco train station ready to leave — noticed a small hotel with a line of roughnecks waiting for a room (see Oil Boom Brings First Hilton Hotel).
Learn more in “Roaring Ranger” wins WWI.
October 17, 1918 – End of “Gasless Sundays”
Three week before the end of World War I, and after seven voluntary “Gasless Sundays” east of the Mississippi River to support the war effort, the U.S. Fuel Administration ended the initiative after saving an estimated one-million gallons of gasoline. Because of depleted East Coast reserves, gasoline deliveries to customers had been forbidden until all orders to the Army, Navy, and U.S. Allies were delivered. Mandatory “Lightless Nights” in 1917 required electrical signs to be turned off on Thursdays and Sundays. Other homefront conservation measures included “Heatless Mondays” and Meatless Thursdays.”
October 17, 1973 – OPEC Embargo brings Gas Lines, Recession
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) implemented what it called “oil diplomacy,” prohibiting any nation that had supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War from buying the cartel’s oil. “The oil crisis set off an upheaval in global politics and the world economy. It also challenged America’s position in the world, polarized its politics at home and shook the country’s confidence,” author Daniel Yergin noted in a 2013 Wall Street Journal article.
The OPEC embargo lasted from October 1973 until it was lifted in March 1974 and caused oil prices to almost quadruple. January 1974 photo by Warren Leffler, courtesy Library of Congress (LOC).
The OPEC embargo brought an end to years of cheap gasoline and caused the New York Stock Exchange to drop by almost $100 billion. It also created one of the worst recessions in U.S. history. By the end of 2017, the United States would become the world’s top petroleum producer, surpassing Russia and Saudi Arabia.
October 18, 2008 – Derrick dedicated at First Oklahoma Well
A reenactment of the dramatic moment that changed Oklahoma history highlighted the 2008 dedication of an 84-foot replica derrick at Discovery 1 Park in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Events included roughneck reenactors and a water gusher from an 84-foot derrick that replaced one dedicated in 1948.
Discovery 1 Park in Bartlesville includes a replica derrick on the original site of Oklahoma’s first official oil well, the Nellie Johnstone No. 1, in 1897.
In 1897, a cable-tool drilling rig at the site of Oklahoma’s first commercial oil well had thrilled another group of spectators when Jenny Cass, stepdaughter of Bartlesville founder George W. Keeler, was given the honor of “shooting” the well in what today is Discovery 1 Park.
October 19, 1990 – First Emergency Use of Strategic Petroleum Reserve
As world oil prices spiked after the August 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi troops, the first presidentially mandated emergency use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve was authorized by George H. W. Bush, who ordered the sale of five million barrels of SPR oil as a test to “demonstrate the readiness of the system under real-life conditions,” according to the Department of Energy.
Strategic Petroleum Reserve oil storage facilities grouped into three geographical pipeline distribution systems in Texas and Louisiana. Map courtesy U.S. Department of Energy, 2018 Report to Congress.
President Ford established the SPR in 1975 as a protection against severe supply interruptions. By 2020, four underground salt dome sites along the Gulf Coast stored 735 million barrels of oil — the largest stockpile of government-owned emergency oil in the world.
_______________________
Recommended Reading: Trek of the Oil Finders: A History of Exploration for Petroleum (1975); Arizona Rocks & Minerals: A Field Guide to the Grand Canyon State
_______________________
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.