by Bruce Wells | Jun 27, 2024 | Energy Education Resources
Discoveries in the 1920s led to a giant oilfield in 1957.
A 1961 Clare County historical marker explains Michigan petroleum history began in 1886, but that Michigan State Geologist Alexander Winchell had reported that oil and natural gas deposits lay under Michigan’s surface as early as 1860.
“First commercial oil production was at Port Huron, where 22 wells were drilled, beginning in 1886,” the marker notes. “Total output was small. Michigan’s first oil boom was at Saginaw, where production began about 1925. About three hundred wells were drilled here by 1927, when Muskegon’s ‘Discovery Well’ drew oil men from all over the country to that field.”
“Michigan Oil & Gas History,” a 2005 Clarke Historical Library exhibit at Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant. Photo by Kristin L. Wells.
The Clare County historical marker notes that the Mt. Pleasant field, discovered in 1928, “helped make Michigan one of the leading oil producers of the eastern United States. Mount Pleasant became known as the “Oil Capital of Michigan.”
Central Michigan University Oil Exhibit
In the summer of 2005, a special petroleum exhibit opened at Central Michigan University’s (CMU) Clarke Historical Library, Mount Pleasant.
“They work hard, take risks, prosper, and by and large benefit everybody,” noted Frank Boles, director of the Clarke Historical Library, about oil and natural gas producers. “What I didn’t understand about the industry is that these people all know each other.”
Frank Boles (top), director of the Clarke Historical Library, designed an exhibit creatively combining documents and photographs to capture the attention of students. Photos by Kristin L. Wells.
The library told their story with an “Oil and Natural Gas in Michigan” exhibit.
The state’s abundant oil production comes as a surprise to many, said Boles, who put the exhibit together with the cooperation of the Michigan Oil & Gas Association and the Michigan Oil & Gas Producers Educational Foundation.
Jack Westbrook, retired managing editor of Michigan Oil & Gas News magazine, marshaled the resources and worked tirelessly to ensure success, Boles said. “In a very real sense, there would be no exhibit if it were not for Jack.”
The exhibit was designed to designed to pique a visitor’s curiosity – and be transportable. The region’s students learned that Mount Pleasant, home to CMU, had its own oil boom in 1928 and today is known as the historical center of Michigan’s oil industry.
Exhibit visitors learned that more than 57,000 oil and gas wells had been drilled in their state since 1925 — and that Michigan ranks 17th in nationwide oil production and 11th in natural gas. More surprises awaited those students who looked more closely, Boles said.
“We’re about usage,” he explained. “Our profit is people coming in, using our resources, and hopefully learning something. We want our exhibits to prompt them to dig deeper.”
Golden Gulch of Oil
Clarke Historical Library visitors learned about late 1920s oil discoveries and that after decades of dry holes or small oil finds, a January 7, 1957, Houseknecht No. 1 well revealed Michigan’s largest oilfield, 29-miles-long. Ferne Houseknecht had convinced her uncle, Clifford Perry, to take time between his other farm projects to drill the historic well.
Learn more in Michigan’s Golden Gulch of Oil.
For the Clarke Historical Library exhibit, Boles used six walls and eleven cabinets to tell this and other stories, so careful planning was essential. He said that from the project’s outset, pursuit of community support, resources, and partners was essential.
Showing off his homemade cable tool rig in 1932, Earl “Red” Perry Jr., 12, was the nephew of Cliff Perry — who would discover Michigan’s largest oilfield in 1957. Photo courtesy Clarke Historical Library, Central Michigan University.
The exhibit began with storyboarding and the interactive process of writing and rewriting proposed text. Large photo formats with understandable text dominated the walls, while display cases featured unique artifacts and documents.
Visitors discovered a rich oil history and learned of the complex environmental issues Michigan has successfully addressed.
The 1970s “Pigeon River State Forest” ecological controversy was presented — along with its innovative solution. In 1976, Michigan became the first state in the nation to earmark state revenue generated through mineral, including oil and gas, activity for acquisition and improvement of environmentally sensitive or public recreation lands.
According to Jack Westbrook, all 83 Michigan counties have benefited from the fund’s $635 million collected from oil and gas revenues — and other states followed Michigan’s example. His book, Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund 1976-2011: A 35 year Michigan investment heritage in Michigan’s public recreation future, can be found on Amazon Books (link below).
Visit the Clarke Historical Library.
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Recommended Reading: American Oil And Gas History Book: Michigan’s Golden Gulch Of Oil: The Great Depression (2021); At Home in Earlier Mt. Pleasant Michigan: A visit with our neighbors of the past (2021); Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund 1976-2011: A 35-year Michigan Oil and Gas Industry Investment Heritage in Michigan’s Public Recreation Future
(2011); Handbook of Petroleum Refining Processes
(2016).
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society preserves U.S. petroleum history. Become an annual 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.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Michigan Petroleum History.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/energy-education-resources/exhibiting-michigan-petroleum-history. Last Updated: November 12, 2024. Original Published Date: June 19, 2014.
by Bruce Wells | Jun 23, 2024 | Energy Education Resources
Volunteers are key to Oblong museum’s Illinois Basin exhibits and events.
Building a community oil museum is not for the faint of heart. “Money and volunteers, volunteers and money,” are the biggest challenges, according to John Larrabee, board president for the Illinois Oil Field Museum and Resource Center on the outskirts of his hometown of Oblong, Illinois.
The Illinois Oil Field Museum is located in Oblong, Illinois, on Highway 33, southeast of Effingham. First opened in 1961, the museum moved into a new building in 2001. Photos by Kristin L. Wells.
“The first thing you have to have is a goal and the determination to keep at it, no matter what. Don’t give up, whatever happens,” Larrabee explained in a 2004 interview with Kris Wells, American Oil & Gas Historical Society volunteer researcher and contributing editor. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | May 8, 2024 | Energy Education Resources
Kansas museum preserves history of 1920s natural gas field — and world’s greatest source of helium.
A small museum in southwestern Kansas preserves the history of one of the largest natural gas fields in the world. The Stevens County Gas & Historical Museum in Hugoton opened in 1961 near an historic and still producing gas well drilled in 1945.
Hugoton’s museum, founded by a group of dedicated volunteers led by Gladys Renfro, serves as a Kansas energy education center. Its exhibits are “a memento of the Hugoton gas field and the progressive development of Stevens County.”
(more…)
by Bruce Wells | May 6, 2024 | Energy Education Resources
Preserving Louisiana petroleum history at Caddo Lake.
A 1905 oil discovery at Caddo-Pines brought America’s rapidly growing petroleum industry to northwestern Louisiana. A state museum in appropriately named Oil City tells the story.
Originally the Caddo-Pine Island Oil and Historical Museum, in May 2004 the Louisiana State Oil and Gas Museum was dedicated as a state museum under the Louisiana Secretary of State.
Gulf Refining Company in 1911 built drilling platforms to reach the oil beneath Caddo Lake, Louisiana. The early “offshore” technologies worked, and production continues today.
Located about 20 miles north of Shreveport, the first public museum in Louisiana dedicated to the petroleum industry maintains an extensive local history library and collected photographic archives. Exterior exhibits include the former depot of the Kansas City Southern Railroad. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Apr 29, 2024 | Energy Education Resources
Petroleum geologists helped create the Boy Scouts of America geology merit badge in 1953.
The Boy Scouts of America’s geology merit badge began in 1911 as a mining badge — one of less than 30 scouting badges. The mining merit badge in 1937 changed to rocks and minerals before becoming the geology badge in 1953.
The story behind the geology merit badge is best told by a member of the Houston Geological Society (HGS), a resource for potential badge earners.
Petroleum geologists helped inspire the Geology merit badge adopted in 1953.
Petroleum geologist Jeff Spencer, himself an Eagle Scout, has published dozens of petroleum history papers and frequently contributed to Oil-Industry History, the peer-reviewed journal of the Petroleum History Institute (PHI), Oil City, Pennsylvania.
According to Spencer, the original Boy Scouts mining merit badge had several basic requirements, including naming at least 50 minerals; describing the 14 great divisions of the earth’s crust; and defining terms like watershed, delta, drift, fault, glacier, terrace and stratum.
Scouts seeking the mining badge also were asked to identify 10 different kinds of rock and describe methods for mine ventilation and safety devices,
Scouts earned the Rocks & Minerals badge from 1937 until 1953.
The first mention of oil and natural gas appeared in 1927 — the mining badge requirement asked Scouts to “explain how we locate petroleum and natural gas pools, and how we obtain oil and gas,” Spencer notes.
In September 1937, the mining merit badge (a shovel) was replaced with the rocks and minerals badge (a crystal). The first merit badge booklet was published the same year by Daniel O ’Connell, chairman of the department of geology at the City College of New York.
O’Connell’s “Rocks and Minerals” booklet would go through through many revised printings in the next ten years, according to the Geological Society of America (GSA).
The first 12 merit badges of the Boy Scouts of America, which encourages visits to science museums and geology departments of local universities.
In 2014, thanks in part to the Society for Mining and Metallurgy (SME), the mining merit badge returned as “Mining and Society.”
Petroleum Geologists
In 1945, the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) formed a “Committee on Boy Scout Literature” at the urging of industry leaders, including A.C. Bace, a geologist with Stanolind, and George W. Pirtlem, an independent geologist from Tyler, Texas.
Oklahoma geologist Frank Gouin chaired the AAPG committee’s effort to revise the merit badge and its requirements, and the geology badge officially replaced the Rocks and Minerals badge in 1953.
Spencer notes that the 1953 merit badge’s description of what a geologist does said that four out of five geologists become “oil geologists” with an expected starting salary of $300 per month.
“You may have to be a nomad instead of settling down for life in one spot,” the description continued. “You may have to ‘sit on’ a well all night and then drive a hundred miles to report on it. You may have to burn in India, freeze in Alaska, or do both in the Texas Panhandle.”
Although minor revisions of the geology merit badge occurred in 1957, the next major change came in 1982, adding anticlines, synclines, and faults with a requirement to draw simple diagrams showing unconformity, strikes and dips.
The last major revision of the geology badge occurred in 1985, Spencer says, again with the cooperation of AAPG leadership. The badge now has 13 requirements, organized under five categories: earth materials, earth processes, earth history, geology and people, and careers in geology.
- The earth materials section includes the collection and identification of rocks and minerals.
- The earth processes section covers geomorphology, the hydrologic cycle, volcanoes, mountain building, and the ocean floor.
- The earth history section includes the geologic time chart, fossils, and continental drift. The geology and people section covers environmental geology and energy sources with a field trip option in this category.
In addition to its involvement in merit badges, AAPG and its chapters serve the scouting program in many ways, Spencer concludes. The Houston Geological Society has sponsored “Explorer Posts” and worked with the Houston Museum of Natural Science to teach the elements of earning the badge.
OPEC-inspired energy badge.
There now are more than 120 merit badges. The OPEC oil embargo of 1973 — and the need for energy conservation — led to creation of an energy merit badge in 1977.
In 2013, Jeff Spencer published a selection of oil patch post cards via Arcadia Publishing’s postcard history series. Texas Oil and Gas includes more than 200 vintage black-and-white images through decades of oil booms throughout the state.
Chapters reflect the Lone Star State’s petroleum heritage by region, including “Spindletop and the Golden Triangle,” a prolific area in southeast Texas between Beaumont, Port Arthur and Orange (read more about Spencer’s Texas oil postcards).
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Recommended Reading: Texas Oil and Gas, Postcard History
(2013); Trek of the Oil Finders: A History of Exploration for Petroleum (1975); Anomalies: Pioneering Women in Petroleum Geology 1917-2017 (2017). 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 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.
Citation Information: Article Title – “Merit Badge for Geology.” Authors: Aoghs.org Editors. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/energy-education-resources/geology-merit-badge. Last Updated: May 1, 2024. Original Published Date: June 1, 2008.
