by Bruce Wells | Feb 5, 2026 | Energy Education Resources
Relentless demand for oil challenged petroleum geologists, who organized a professional association.
As demand for petroleum grew during World War I, the earth science for finding oil and natural gas reserves remained obscure until a small group of geologists in 1917 organized what became the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG).
AAPG began as the Southwestern Association of Petroleum Geologists in Tulsa, Oklahoma, after about 90 geologists gathered at Henry Kendall College, now Tulsa University. They formed their professional association on February 10, 1917, “to which only reputable and recognized petroleum geologists are admitted.”
AAPG began by establishing a professional business code for its members.
Rapidly multiplying mechanized technologies of the “Great War” brought desperation to finding and producing vast supplies of oil. The United States entered World War I two months after AAPG’s founding.
An October 1917 giant oilfield discovery at Ranger, Texas, inspired a British War Cabinet member to declare, “The Allied cause floated to victory upon a wave of oil.”
Rock Hounds
In January 1918, the AAPG convention of in Oklahoma City reported 167 active members and 17 associate members. After adopting its present name one year after organizing at Henry Kendall College, the group issued its first technical bulletin, using papers and presentations delivered at the 1917 Tulsa meeting.
The professional “rock hounds” produced a mission statement that included promoting the science of geology, especially relating to oil and natural gas. The geologists also committed to encouraging “technology improvements in the methods of exploring for and exploiting these substances.”
AAPG was founded in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at Henry Kendall College — today’s Tulsa University.
AAPG also began publishing a bimonthly journal that remains among the most respected in the industry. The peer-reviewed Bulletin included papers written by leading geologists of the day.
With a subscription price of five dollars, the journal was distributed to members, university libraries, and other industry professionals.
Finding Faults and Anticlines
By 1920, one petroleum trade magazine — after complaining of the industry’s lack of skilled geologists — noted the “Association Grows in Membership and Influence; Combats the Fakers.”
The article praised AAPG professionalism and warned of “the large number of unscrupulous and inadequately prepared men who are attempting to do geological work.”
Similarly, the Oil Trade Journal praised AAPG for its commitment “to censor the great mass of inadequately prepared and sometimes unscrupulous reports on geological problems, which are wholly misleading to the industry.”
Perhaps the best known such fabrication is related to the men behind the 1930 East Texas oilfield discovery — a report entitled “Geological, Topographical And Petroliferous Survey, Portion of Rusk County, Texas, Made for C.M. Joiner by A.D. Lloyd, Geologist And Petroleum Engineer.”
Using very scientific terminology, A.D. Lloyd’s document described Rusk County geology — its anticlines, faults, and a salt dome — all features associated with substantial oil deposits…and all completely fictitious.
The fabrications nevertheless attracted investors, allowing Joiner and “Doc” Lloyd to drill a well that uncovered a massive oil field, still the largest conventional oil reservoir in the lower 48 states.
AAPG’s peer-reviewed journal first appeared in 1918, one year after the association’s first meeting in Tulsa.
Equally imaginative science came from Lloyd’s earlier descriptions of the “Yegua and Cook Mountain” formations and the thousands of seismographic registrations he ostensibly recorded. Lloyd, a former patent medicine salesman, and other self-proclaimed geologists were the antithesis of the AAPG professional ethic.
In 1945, AAPG formed a “Committee on Boy Scout Literature” to assist the Boy Scouts of America in updating requirements for the “mining” badge, which had been awarded since 1911 (learn more in Merit Badge for Geology).
By 1953, AAPG membership had grown to more than 10,000, and a permanent headquarters building opened in Tulsa. The association’s 2022 membership included about 40,000 members in 129 countries in the upstream energy industry, “who collaborate — and compete — to provide the means for humankind to thrive.”
The world’s largest professional geological society, a nonprofit organization, maintains a membership code that assures integrity, business ethics, personal honor, and professional conduct. Since 1917, AAPG has helped advance the science of geology, “especially as it relates to petroleum, natural gas, other subsurface fluids, and mineral resources.”
Petroleum Historians
Longtime AAPG member Ray Sorenson, a Tulsa-based consulting geologist, has made numerous presentations about the history of petroleum. After publishing papers in leading academic journals, he adapted many of his contributions for the association’s 2007 Discovery Series, “First Impressions: Petroleum Geology at the Dawn of the North American Oil Industry.”
Further, Sorenson continued to research and collect a vast amount of material documenting the earliest signs of oil — worldwide references to hydrocarbons earlier than the 1859 first U.S. oil well drilled by Edwin Drake in Pennsylvania.
Drake expert and geologist and historian William Brice, professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, in 2009 published Myth, Legend, Reality – Edwin Laurentine Drake and the Early Oil Industry. His 661-page epic was researched and written as part of the U.S. petroleum industry’s 150th anniversary (learn more in Edwin Drake and his Oil Well),
As part of AAPG’s 2017 centennial events, geologist Robbie Rice Gries published Anomalies: Pioneering Women in Petroleum Geology 1917-2017. Researched with help from AAPG volunteers, her 405-page book includes contributors’ personal stories, written correspondence, and photographs dating back to the early 1900s.
The stories in Gries’ book should be read by every petroleum geologist, geophysicist, and petroleum engineer, according to independent producer Marlan Downey, founder of Roxanna Oil Company. “Partly for the pleasure of the sprightly told adventures, partly for a sense of history, and, significantly, because it engenders a proper respect towards all women professionals, forging their unique way in a ‘man’s world.’”
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Recommended Reading: Anomalies: Pioneering Women in Petroleum Geology 1917-2017 (2017); Trek of the Oil Finders: A History of Exploration for Petroleum (1975); Myth, Legend, Reality – Edwin Laurentine Drake and the Early Oil Industry
(2009); The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power (1991); The Birth of the Oil Industry (1936). 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. Become an annual supporter to help maintain this energy education website, a monthly email newsletter, this week in oil and gas history, and expand historical research. Please contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2026 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
Citation Information – Article Title: “AAPG – Geology Pros since 1917.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL:https://aoghs.org/energy-education-resources/aapg-geology-pros-since-1917. Last Updated: February 7, 2026. Original Published Date: April 29, 2014.
by Bruce Wells | Sep 26, 2025 | Energy Education Resources
A 1928 experimental concrete reservoir for storing Permian Basin oil became a water park in 1958 — for one day.
Travelers on I-20 in West Texas should not miss the petroleum museum at Monahans southwest of Odessa and Midland. Not just a collection of Permian Basin artifacts, the Million Barrel Museum’s biggest attraction is a former experimental oil tank the size of three football fields.
The Permian Basin once was called a “petroleum graveyard” — until a series of oilfield discoveries beginning in 1920 brought exploration companies to the vast, arid region. Completed near Big Lake in 1923, the Santa Rita No. 1 well alone would endow the University of Texas with millions of dollars.
However, as the giant basin’s oilfield discoveries grew, the lack of infrastructure for storing and transporting growing volumes of oil proved to be an equally big problem. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Aug 15, 2025 | Energy Education Resources
A 1991 Oklahoma oil discovery in a hidden meteor crater attracted worldwide attention.
About 450 million years ago, a meteor 1,000 feet wide struck north-central Oklahoma, creating an impact crater — an astrobleme — more than eight miles wide.
The small town of Ames (population 190 in 2024) has claimed the Paleozoic Era crater as its own with an annual celebration. The impact sight also marks a significant milestone in the geological knowledge of the global petroleum industry.
(more…)
by Bruce Wells | Jul 31, 2025 | Energy Education Resources
Central Texas oil museum preserves the discovery — and folklore — of a giant 1920s oilfield.
A restored 1885 mercantile building downtown, the Luling Oil Museum (formerly the Central Texas Oil Patch Museum) preserves drilling and production equipment from the Luling oilfield of the 1920s. Exhibits educate visitors about the modern petroleum industry.
Known for its tasty BBQ ribs, watermelon seed-spitting contest, and colorfully decorated oil pump jacks, Luling became a petroleum boom town in 1922, when leading citizen Edgar B. Davis discovered a giant oilfield. The oil museum gives little credence to local stories of the giant field being discovered thanks to a famous psychic’s “reading.”
Exhibits in an 1885 Luling mercantile store educate visitors about a 1922 oilfield discovery and the modern petroleum industry. Photo courtesy Luling Oil Museum.
Luling’s oilfield discovery northeast of San Antonio and south of Austin allowed the small town to join recent oil booms already making headlines to the north in Ranger (1917) and Burkburnett (1918). At its peak in 1924, the Luling field had about 400 wells producing more than 11 million barrels of oil.
Years later, new technologies like horizontal drilling helped reinvigorate the central Texas oil patch, according to Carol Voight, a director of the Luling Oil Museum interviewed by an Austin TV news reporter in 2013.
The city of Luling, Texas, has hosted a watermelon festival every June since 1954.
The oil museum, “shows the contrast of the tools and technology of the past with those utilized in the oil industry today,” Voight explained. Exhibits trace the development of the oil industry — from the first U.S. oil well in 1859 in Pennsylvania to the social and economic impact on central Texas.
Downtown Oil Museum
Housed in the 1885 Walker Brothers mercantile store and renovated several times, the Luling Oil Museum building once sold “everything from nails and hammers to ladies’ shoes, to toys,” reported the Lockhart Post-Register in a 2021 article about the renovation. “It was the oldest continually operating mercantile store in Texas until it closed in 1984.”
After its founding in 1990, the museum purchased the building four years later to showcase what made Luling one of the earliest and wildest boom towns in Texas. Renovations have incorporated new heating, ventilation, and air conditioning powered by geothermal wells. Exhibits continue to be added.
“We strive to demonstrate the struggles between the men and women who were the oilfield pioneers and to create a better understanding of the process of oil exploration and production,” noted one volunteer.
Edgar B. Davis in 1922 discovered an oilfield 12 miles long. Photo by Bruce Wells.
“Our collection includes a working model of a modern oil rig, pump jacks, the ‘Oil Tank Theater,’ and an excellent assortment of tools from each decade of the oil industry,” added Voight. To preserve the city’s petroleum heritage, locally donated artifacts show “not only how it was in the olden days,” but also “what can be accomplished with community efforts, cooperation, and creative programs.”
Museum staff in 2015 credited Luling area petroleum companies and service companies like Tracy Perryman, himself a multi-generation independent producer. One of the museum’s great outreach success stories was “Reflections of Texas Art Exhibit.”
Combined with the permanent oil exhibits, the art show attracted more school field trips from San Antonio. Another program was an annual quilt show, which brought another kind of audience into the museum’s oil exhibit spaces. Like many small oil and gas museums, preservation work depends on community support.
In a frugal approach to integrating downtown with outdoor exhibit space, the museum in 2012 partnered with Susan Rodiek, PhD, and graduate students of architectural design at Texas A&M University. Her student teams proposed designs to economically exploit existing facilities while providing new exhibit spaces. Students approached the project competitively, proclaiming the museum their “first client.”
Dad signs the museum guestbook for this visitor in 2015. Photo by Bruce Wells.
Museum Association Board Member Trey Bailey noted, “The preliminary designs that the Aggie students presented to us were fantastic. There were some terrific concepts, and the work was detailed and quite fascinating.”
Voight added, “They really got it – Luling’s rich heritage in oil, the E.B. Davis story and more. Being able to get this quality of work and vision is tremendous to our efforts to showcase some of the true historic gems of Luling. “Dr. Rodiek and her able team have again offered us the ability to get this project moving, especially considering the limited budget we have at this time.”
Once known as the toughest town in Texas, visitors today flock to Luling on the first Saturday in April for the annual Roughneck BBQ and Chili Cook-Off. — where they have found “Best ribs in the country,” according to Reader’s Digest. Crowds also gather every June for the renowned Watermelon Thump Festival and Seed-Spitting Contest.
Museum Board Member Trey Bailey and his children examine an oilfield map almost a century after the 1920s Luling boom. Photo by Bruce Wells.
The Guinness Book of World Records has documented Luling’s watermelon seed-spitting with a distance of 68 feet, 9 and 1/8 inches, set in 1989. The distance reportedly is still unbeaten.
A Giant Oilfield
Although the Luling Oil Museum’s historic Walker Brothers building was a center for trading cotton, crude oil replaced cotton in Luling’s future thanks to Edgar B. Davis and his Rafael Rios No. 1 discovery well of August 9, 1922.
After drilling six consecutive dry holes near Luling, Davis’ heavily in debt United North & South Oil Company finally struck “black gold.” The wildcat well revealed an oilfield that proved to be 12 miles long and two miles wide.
After sampling “the best ribs in the country,” visitors to Luling, Texas, marvel at the many decorated pump jacks seen in its historic downtown.
Some people proclaimed that Davis, president of the exploration company, found the town’s oil-rich geologic formation after getting a psychic reading from clairvoyant Edgar Cayce. A geologist working for Davis figured out the oilfield’s likely location.
“Many have called Edgar B. Davis eccentric, and perhaps it was his unconventional personality that led to several half-truths about a career that would be exceptional without embellishment,” noted Riley Froh in a 1979 article in the East Texas Historical Journal.
In the early summer of 1922, Davis was struggling financially when he located the oilfield’s discovery well five miles northwest of Luling. “Drilling on the recommendation of only one geologist and against the advice of several, Davis located his seventh well at random,” Froh reported.
Luling’s downtown museum preserves “the vibrant life and times of ‘the toughest town in Texas’ and the oil boom in the Central Texas oil patch.” Photo courtesy Luling Oil Museum.
By 1924, Luling was a top-producing oilfield in the United States, exceeding the early 1900s fields of southeastern Texas, including Sour Lake and even the world-famous Spindletop Hill.
Exhibits at the Luling Oil Museum focus on the real science behind the discovery, which resulted in the town’s population skyrocketing from less than 500 people to 5,000 people within months after the Rafael Rios No. 1 well.
Psychic Dreams of Oil
Biographers of the once-famous American psychic Edgar Cayce have noted that he found his own mysterious path into exploring the oil patch at Luling. In 1904, Cayce was a 27-year-old photographer when a local newspaper described his “wonderful power that is greatly puzzling physicians and scientific men.”
The Hopkinsville Kentuckian reported that Cayce – from a hypnotic state – could seemingly determine causes of ailments in patients he never met. By 1910, the New York Times proclaimed that “the medical fraternity of the whole country is taking a lively interest in the strange power possessed by Edgar Cayce to diagnose difficult diseases while in a semi-conscious state.”
As his reputation grew, Cayce expanded his photography business with the addition of adjacent rooms and a specially made couch so he could recline to render readings. He became known as “The Sleeping Prophet” while his readings expanded beyond medical diagnoses into reincarnation, dream interpretation, psychic phenomenon…and advising oilmen.
Edgar Cayce visited his drilling site in San Saba County, Texas, in 1921. The once-famous psychic’s abilities failed him searching for oil.
Sidney Kirkpatrick, author of Edgar Cayce: An American Prophet
, explained that Cayce in 1919 provided detailed trance revelations to several oilmen probing the prolific Desdemona oilfield in Eastland County, Texas. The results reportedly inspired Cayce and several partners to form their own company.
In September 1920, Cayce became the clairvoyant partner of Cayce Petroleum Company. Guided by his own psychic readings, Cayce Petroleum Company leased some acreage around Luling. Not far away, Edgar B. Davis had drilled eight dry holes and nearly gone broke before completing the discovery well for Luling’s oilfield.
But raising capital for Cayce Petroleum drilling proved difficult and eventually led to loss of the Luling leases. Cayce’s company tried again 150 miles north in San Saba County, Texas, and according to Kirkpatrick’s book, Cayce’s readings included “detailed descriptions given of the various rock geological formations that would be encountered as they drilled.”
Cayce Petroleum’s Rocky Pasture No. 1 well would drill beyond 1,650 feet in search of what Cayce described as a “Mother Pool,” capable of producing 40,000 barrels of oil a day. The psychic’s exploration company did not find any oil, ran out of money, and failed.
Salt Dome Faults
In a 2017 email to the American Oil & Gas Historical Society, long-time AOGHS member Dan Plazak noted Cayce spoke of finding oil at a salt dome at Luling. Petroleum and the geology of salt domes had been in the news since one had been revealed at Spindletop Hill in 1901, thanks to the persistence of Patillo Higgins, “Prophet of Spindletop.”
Plazak, a consulting geologist and engineer, reported that Cayce, “speaking in a trance, proclaimed that oil would be found at Luling associated with a salt dome. But there are no salt domes at Luling, and Cayce’s bad psychic advice could only have prevented Davis from finding oil.
“It was a geologist working for Davis who saw faulting in the outcrop and correctly predicted that the oil would be trapped behind the fault,” Plazak added.
An associate of Cayce, David Kahn, later wrote Davis asking the successful oilman to give some of the Luling profits to Cayce, but Davis declined. “Edgar Davis was famously generous, but his refusal to reward Cayce indicates that he didn’t consider Cayce to have been of much help,” explained Plazak in an email to AOGHS.
However, the geologist added, Davis continued to consult Cayce concerning possible presidential ambitions — Davis had convinced himself he was destined for the White House.
Plazak explained that it was a geologist working for Davis who saw faulting in the outcrop, and correctly predicted that the oil would be trapped behind the fault.
After a few early wells, “Cayce’s oil-exploration readings were a complete bust, both for his own oil company and later for many other oil drillers, in locations all over the country.”
In his email, Plazak — a “geologist and researcher of finding oil with doodlebugs, dreams, and crystal balls” from Colorado — added there are still those today who believe in psychic advice who no doubt are “raising money on the internet to drill yet another dry hole in San Saba County.”
Despite the psychic’s exploration readings not working, investors apparently can still be tempted with promotions of Cayce’s ability to find a “mother pool of oil.” More interesting research from oil patch detective Dan Plazak can be found at Mining Swindles.
A graduate of Michigan Tech and the Colorado School of Mining, Plazak in 2010 wrote “an entertaining and informative volume that delightfully investigates the history of mining frauds in the United States from the Civil War to World War I,” according to his publisher, the University of Utah Press.
“In his estimable work, A Hole in the Ground with a Liar at the Top, Dan Plazak strikes it rich with his examination of the old west’s most successful villains and their crimes.” — Utah Historical Quarterly
Modern “Crudoleum”
Today, the psychic legacy of failed oilman Edgar Cayce lives on at the Association for Research and Enlightenment in Virginia Beach, Virginia, founded in 1931, and “the official world headquarters of the works of Edgar Cayce, considered America’s most documented psychic.”
A psychic’s creamy petroleum product “for healthy hair” sold today.
An invention from Cayce’s venture into the oil business remains on the market — his “pure crude oil” product he recommended as a first step toward replenishing healthy hair. Cayce invented a “pure crude oil” product he called Crudoleum, which is sold today as a cream, shampoo and conditioner. Baar Products Inc. of Downingtown, Pennsylvania, offers Crudoleum Pennsylvania Crude Oil Scalp Treatment.
Learn more U.S. petroleum history by visiting the Luling Oil Museum in the historic Walker Brothers building in downtown Luling.
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Recommended Reading: Texas Art and a Wildcatter’s Dream: Edgar B. Davis and the San Antonio Art League
(1998); Drilling Technology in Nontechnical Language (2012); Edgar Cayce: An American Prophet (2001); A Hole in the Ground with a Liar at the Top: Fraud and Deceit in the Golden Age of American Mining (2010). 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 support AOGHS to help maintain this energy education website, a monthly email newsletter, This Week in Oil and Gas History News, and expand historical research. Contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2026 Bruce A. Wells.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Central Texas Oil Patch Museum.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/energy-education-resources/luling-oil-field. Last Updated: July 31, 2025. Original Published Date: June 21, 2015.
by Bruce Wells | Jul 22, 2025 | Energy Education Resources
California oil seeps created asphalt pools — not tar — that trapped Ice Age animals.
The sticky black pools attracting tourists between Beverly Hills and downtown Los Angeles are natural asphalt, also known as bitumen. Although the repetitive tar pits’ name has stuck, the seeps are part of America’s oil history.
The La Brea site — discovered by a Spanish expedition on August 3, 1769 — originated from naturally produced California oil seeps found onshore and offshore. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Jul 18, 2025 | Energy Education Resources
A geologist tracks down the first references to petroleum.
Petroleum geologist and historian Raymond P. Sorenson has spent much of his professional career writing about the oil and natural gas exploration and production industry.
Among Sorenson’s ongoing projects is documentation of the earliest signs of oil worldwide, including references to hydrocarbons long before the 1859 first U.S. oil well drilled 69.5 feet into the Venango sands of Pennsylvania.
About three centuries earlier, a Spanish expedition in the Gulf of Mexico led by Don Luis de Moscoso landed at the mouth of the Sabine River in the future state of Texas. The New World explorers in 1543 discovered Indians had for centuries utilized natural seeps to waterproof canoes, apply to abrasions, and more.
A Spanish expedition in 1543 used brigantines to explore the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
Sorenson, retired and living in Tulsa, initially focused his research on geological surveys, reports from other exploring expeditions, and scientific journals. He then progressed to references cited by others, concentrated his efforts on North America and English language sources — the most readily available — but discovered rare sources as well.
Oil in Antiquity to Today
The petroleum geologist’s ongoing work has added more than 740 reference pages (with captured images) of his sources for the earliest signs of hydrocarbons in North America and other parts of the world.
In 2002, Sorenson shared with the American Oil & Gas Historical Society his 59-page bibliography of “Pre-Drake” publications. “For the past few years I have been engaged in a systematic study to document what was known about oil and natural gas prior to the Drake well,” he noted.
“I have an additional list of cited references that I have not yet examined of comparable size,” Sorenson added in a follow-up email to AOGHS. “The majority are in languages other than English, and I suspect that many of them will not be accessible through my library resources (or my linguistic skill set).”
A petroleum historian and consulting geologist based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Sorenson explained in his email to AOGHS that to aid researchers, he has been using images of every page that contains relevant material, posting the full reference information at the top, and outlining the relevant portion of the text.
An 1835 reference to signs of oil and natural gas in Massachusetts prior to the first commercial U.S. oil well in Pennsylvania. Image courtesy Ray Sorenson.
“So far I have found relevant information in more than 550 publications with over 3,500 net pages, covering at last count 31 states, five Canadian provinces, and many foreign countries on other continents,” Sorenson noted in January. “For several topics, I have created subsets. I expect to continue to build the collection.”
In addition to antiquity references, Sorenson’s research for his “Pre-Drake Literature Collections by Subject” has thus far included:
California, Canada, Central & South America, Early Geologists, Europe, Fiction, Humboldt, Industrial & Laboratory, Initial Reactions, Kentucky, Maps & Figures, Medicinal , Middle East Asia Africa, Midwest, New England, New York, Oil & Gas Wells Pre-Drake, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Religious, Scientific American, Shales that Burn, Southern United States, Taylor R.C., Statistics of Coal, Textbooks, Volcanoes and Earthquakes, David Wells, Annual of Scientific Discovery, and Western United States.
Although many of his discoveries were found in obscure scholarly journals, Sorenson also found petroleum references in popular 19th-century publications. For example, the April 18, 1829, issue of “Niles’ Register” reported a Kentucky salt well driller finding oil.
“We have just conversed with a gentleman from Cumberland county, who informs us that in boring through rocks for salt water, a fountain of petroleum, or volatile oil, was struck, at the depth of 180 feet,” the Baltimore publication noted on page 117.
Sorenson’s Research Gigabytes
A long-time member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) and the Petroleum History Institute (PHI), Sorenson has made many presentations and published academic papers with both. He submitted to PHI a paper on his history of oil and natural gas production from wells prior to 1859 for the journal Oil-Industry History.
The wells were drilled seeking water or brine, but Sorenson found one that flowed an estimated 2,500 barrels of oil per day in the 1820s.
In 2007, Sorenson adapted many of his contributions to AAPG for its extensive Discovery Series with “First Impressions: Petroleum Geology at the Dawn of the North American Oil Industry.” In January 2013, his “Historic New York Survey Set High Geologic Standards” was published in AAPG Explorer magazine, one of his many contributions to that publication.
Sorenson, who also has assisted with AOGHS articles (see Rocky Beginnings of Petroleum Geology), noted in his email that he has no plans to provide this collection in searchable form on a website, but will work with anyone who is conducting similar research.
Everything in the Sorenson collection is preserved in hard copy and digital (PDF) form, adding up to 11 feet of shelf space — about 27 gigabytes of computer memory.
Sorenson intends to give his full collection of research to the Drake Well Museum and Park in Titusville, at the site where Edwin L. Drake first found oil in the upper Venango sands.
Today, the Oil Region Alliance of Business, Industry and Tourism proclaims that historic part of northwestern Pennsylvania, “The Valley that Changed the World.”
For more information about Ray Sorenson’s on-going oil history projects and resources, post a comment below.
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1859 Pennsylvania Well
The beginning of the science of petroleum geology might be traced to 1859 when a new industry began in western Pennsylvania. An oil well drilled in 1859 by former railroad conductor Edwin L. Drake along Oil Creek at Titusville sought oil for making kerosene, a new lamp fuel at the time made from coal.
Slowed by delays in receiving funds for what locals called “Drake’s Folly” and drilling with a steam-powered cable-tool rig, it took Drake more than a year to find oil at a depth of 69.5 feet. He also made his own innovations along the way, including adding a 10-foot cast iron pipe to the bore hole — a first.
To the relief of company founder George Bissell and investors in the Seneca Oil Company of New Haven, Connecticut, Drake completed the first U.S. oil well drilled specifically for oil. The August 27, 1859, discovery came in a geologic formation that would be called the Venango sands.
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Recommended Reading: Trek of the Oil Finders: A History of Exploration for Petroleum (1975); The Birth of the Oil Industry (1936); The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power
(2008); Myth, Legend, Reality: Edwin Laurentine Drake and the Early Oil Industry
(2009). 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. © 2025 Bruce A. Wells.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Sorenson Oil History Project.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/energy-education-resources/exploring-the-earliest-signs-of-oil. Last Updated: July 18, 2025. Original Published Date: August 5, 2020.
