ConocoPhillips Petroleum Museums

Oklahoma museums preserve oil and natural gas history in Bartlesville and Ponca City.

 

As part of Oklahoma statehood centennial celebrations, ConocoPhillips opened two petroleum museums in 2007. The state-of-the-art energy education facilities preserve oilfield technologies, rare artifacts and images. Education programs focus on the petroleum industry’s past and future at the Ponca City and Bartlesville museums. (more…)

Ames Astrobleme Museum

A 1991 Oklahoma oil discovery in a hidden meteor crater attracted worldwide attention.

 

About 450 million years ago, a meteor about the size of a football struck north-central Oklahoma, creating an impact crater — an astrobleme — more than eight miles wide. 

The small town of Ames (population 183 at the 2020 census) proudly claims the crater as its own – and as a significant contributor to the geological knowledge of the nation’s petroleum industry.

(more…)

Luling Oil Museum and Crudoleum

Central Texas oil patch museum preserves the discovery and folklore of 1922 oilfield.

 

In a restored 1885 mercantile building downtown, the Luling Oil Museum (also known as the Central Texas Oil Patch Museum) exhibits historic drilling and production equipment from the Luling oilfield of the 1920s. While educating students about the modern petroleum industry, the museum gives little credence to the once widely told tale of Luling’s giant field being discovered thanks to a “reading” by a famous psychic. 

Known for its tasty BBQ ribs, a popular watermelon seed-spitting contest, and colorfully decorated oil pump jacks, Luling became part of  U.S. petroleum history when leading citizen Edgar B. Davis discovered oil there in 1922.

The Texas Luling Oil Museum is housed in an 1885 mercantile building.

Exhibits in Luling’s restored 1885 mercantile store educate visitors about 1920s oil discoveries and their role in the Texas 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). By 1924, the Luling field had about 400 wells annually producing about 11 million barrels of oil. 

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Years later, new technologies like horizontal drilling helped reinvigorated the Luling oil patch, according to the Luling Oil Museum director in 2013, Carol Voight, who was interviewed by Austin TV news. 

Decorated pump jack and city logo of Luling, Texas.

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 August 1859 in Pennsylvania to the social and economic impact on central Texas.

Housed in the 1885 Walkers Brothers mercantile store and renovated several times, the Luling Oil Museum building once sold “everything from nails and hammers, to ladies shoes, to toys. It was the oldest continually operating mercantile store in the Texas until it closed in 1984,” according a 2021 article about the latest renovation in the Lockhart Post-Register.

The Luling Oil Museum purchased the building in 1994, “and set out to showcase what made Luling one of the toughest towns in Texas.” The latest renovation, which incorporated new heating, ventilation, and air conditioning powered from geothermal wells, has provided new exhibit spaces.

“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.

Central Texas Oil Patch Museum exhibit

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, a large collection of locally donated artifacts illustrate 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.”

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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, the Luling museum depends on enthusiastic 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.”

young visitor to oil museum in Luling, TX

Dad signs the museum guestbook for this visitor. 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.

luling oil field

Museum Association Board Member Trey Bailey and his children. 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. 

Learn petroleum history at the Luling Oil Museum.

Discovering the Luling Oilfield

Although the Luling Oil Museum’s historic Walkers 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.

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Some people proclaimed that Davis, president of the exploration company, found the town’s oil-rich geologic formation after getting a psychic reading from the then famous clairvoyant Edgar Cayce. In fact, a geologist working for Davis figured out the oilfield’s likely location. 

Decorated pump jack in Luling, Texas

After sampling “the best ribs in the country,” visitors to Luling, Texas, marvel at the many decorated pump jacks seen in its historic downtown.

“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 early summer 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.

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 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 news-paper 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.”

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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 at his drilling rig in Luling oil field

Edgar Cayce visits his drilling site in San Saba County, Texas, in 1921. The famed 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 went 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. The psychic’s exploration company did not find oil.

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.” The Rocky Pasture No. 1 well would drill beyond 1,650 feet in search of what Cayce described as a 40,000 barrel per day “Mother Pool.”

was a dry hole. Cayce Petroleum Company 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 found with a gusher at Spindletop Hill in 1901. 

Plazak, a consulting geologist and engineer, reported that 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.

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“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.”

Additional 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.”

petroleum product called Crudoleum

A psychic’s petroleum product 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.

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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.

Learn more U.S. petroleum history by visiting the Luling Oil Museum in the historic Walkers Brothers building in downtown Luling.

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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Become an AOGHS annual supporting member and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. © 2023 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: August 2, 2023. Original Published Date: June 21, 2015.

 

Discovering the La Brea “Tar Pits”

Natural 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 actually 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…)

Earliest Signs of Oil

Retired Geologist tracks down earliest references to petroleum and first sightings.

 

A petroleum geologist and historian has spent much of his professional career researching and writing about the oil and natural gas industry.  An ongoing project documents the earliest signs of oil worldwide — including references to hydrocarbons long before the first U.S. oil well drilled by along a Pennsylvania creek in August 1859.

For example, a 1543 Spanish expedition led by Don Luis de Moscoso in the Gulf of Mexico landed at the mouth of the Sabine River (Texas), where Indians had long utilized natural seeps.

Sailing vessel known as a brig, circa mid-1500s.

Spanish explorer used brigantines to explore the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

Retired and living in Tulsa, Raymond P. Sorenson initially focused his research on geological surveys, reports from exploring expeditions, and scientific journals before progressing to references cited by others, Sorenson concentrated on North America and English language sources – the most readily available – but discovered other rare sources as well.

Antiquity to Today

In 2020, Sorenson contacted the American Oil & Gas Historical Society to  share his bibliography of “Pre-Drake” publications. His work now includes 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.

“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,” Sorenson noted.

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“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 oil history research page on geology.

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.”

Sorenson’s research for his “Pre-Drake Literature Collections by Subject” has so far included:

Antiquity, 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 U.S., Taylor R.C., Statistics of Coal, Textbooks, Volcanoes and Earthquakes, David Wells, Annual of Scientific Discovery, and Western U.S. (- California).

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In addition to his research in obscure scholarly journals, Sorenson discovered 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 barrel 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.

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Sorenson, who also has assisted with AOGHS articles (see Rocky Beginnings of Petroleum Geology), noted in his email he does not yet plan to provide this collection in searchable form on a website, but will work with anyone who is conducting similar historical research.

Everything in the collection is preserved in both hard copy and digital (PDF) form, adding up to 11 feet of shelf space — about 27 gigabytes of computer memory! 

Eventually, 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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Edwin Drake’s 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 his investors at 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.

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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Become an AOGHS annual supporting member and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. © 2023 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 20, 2023. Original Published Date: August 5, 2020.

 

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