by Bruce Wells | Jun 8, 2026 | Petroleum History Almanac
“My grandfather worked in the oilfields all of his life.”
Preserving personal stories is important. Oil & Gas Families complements the extensive work of community museum staff and volunteers finding new ways to preserve photographic, written, and oral histories of “oil patch” families.
A subscriber to the American Oil & Gas Historical Society’s monthly newsletter in May 2026 emailed AOGHS to share her family’s early 20th-century connection to America’s oil patch. After reading the Great Oil Boom of Lima, Ohio, Grace Woodward explained:
“My mother who is 96 gave me handwritten pages that her dad wrote while working as a well shooter. My grandfather, Henry “Oscar” Kessler, mentions the names of several petroleum companies, including Manhattan Oil Company and Ohio Oil Company. His first payroll work was for the Ohio Oil Company (1901).
An 1885 drilling boom brought prosperity to Lima, Ohio, after a well drilled for natural gas found oil instead. Circa 1910 postcard published by Robbins Brothers, Boston.
“In addition to my grandfather, my great-grandfather Michael Kessler started working in oilfields in 1889, shortly after oil was discovered in the vicinity of St. Marys, Ohio, and worked as a roustabout building steam boxes that furnished steam for the oilfield engines used to run the wells and for heating, shipping the oil, etc. His roustabout pay was $33 per month. Room and board cost $3 per week.
“My great-grandfather leased his farm to the Manhattan Oil Company. Six wells were drilled, and they produced for many years, one or two lasting for nearly 30 years. The well nearest to their house supplied gas for heating, cooking and lighting.
“My grandfather Kessler worked in the oilfields all of his life, including California, where he eventually lived. Standard Oil Company in the McKittrick Field (western Kern County) was mentioned along with other fields. I have found his information to be very informative, and with my mom’s permission, I would be willing to share.
“Please let me know if you or any of your readers are interested in this history from an oil man who worked in the fields. Thank you, Grace Woodward.”
Post any replies in the Comments below or email bawells@aoghs.org
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Recommended Reading: Ohio Oil and Gas (2008); Black Gold in California: The Story of California Petroleum Industry (2016). 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. Support this energy education website, subscribe to our monthly email newsletter, and help expand historical research. Contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2026 Bruce A. Wells.
Citation Information – Article Title: “A Life in the Oilfields.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/oil-almanac/a-life-in-the-oilfields. Last Updated: May 29, 2026. Original Published Date: May 29, 2026.
by Bruce Wells | Jun 7, 2026 | Petroleum History Almanac
Researching the legacy of Mareau LaViness in historic Oklahoma oilfields.
Preserving personal stories is important. Oil & Gas Families complements the extensive work of community museums staff and volunteers finding new ways to preserve photographic, written, and oral histories of “oil patch” families.
While researching their history, the LaViness family discovered a relative who worked in America’s earliest oilfields. Mareau Fisher LaViness drilled and completed successful oil wells in Pennsylvania, Kansas, and the Indian Territory that would become Oklahoma in 1907.
By the time he died in 1930, Mareau had explored for oil in the new state of Oklahoma, especially near Drumright, in a giant field between Oklahoma City and Tulsa. Years of research by his descendants revealed he ended up spending 16 years in Oklahoma’s Drumright-Cushing oilfield.
According to the family’s ancestry research, their relative was awarded the honorary title “Father of the Oil Industry in Oklahoma” during the International Petroleum Exposition and Congress in downtown Tulsa, an annual event that would continue for decades.
Mareau F. LaViness was proclaimed “The Father of the Oil Industry in Oklahoma” in 1927, three years before his death at age 78. Photo courtesy Tulsa World.
The LaViness family discovered Mareau’s petroleum industry history after pouring over newspaper clippings, visiting local libraries and county archives, and spending hours traveling in Oklahoma, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York seeking information about Mareau LaViness (also spelled LeViness and incorrectly in newspapers as Laviness).
Researching an Oil Patch Life
According to research by relative William Knoles, three generations on his mother’s side of the family worked in Pennsylvania oilfields in the late 1800s. He contacted the American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) in November 2021 seeking information about his family’s link to the early U.S. petroleum industry.
“I am trying to find out as much information regarding my mother’s family last name, LaViness, sometimes recorded as LeViness,” Knoles explained in his email to AOGHS.
As U.S. petroleum exploration moved westward from Pennsylvania oilfields following the first commercial well in 1859, so apparently did the family’s great-grandfather (and possibly great-great grandfather). Mareau LaViness reached booming Kansas and Oklahoma oilfields by the early 1900s.
Knoles included in his email an image of a newspaper article describing Mareau as “The Father of the Oil Industry in Oklahoma.” The one-paragraph story appeared in the September 28, 1927, edition of the Tulsa Daily World with the headline, “Oil Industry’s Dad.”
M.F. Laviness, 75, of Drumright, can claim without any contradiction to be the father of the oil industry in Oklahoma. He drilled the first two wells in Oklahoma to find oil in marketable quantities. They were drilled in 1896 and 1897 at Muskogee and Bartlesville, respectively. Laviness began his connection with the infant oil industry 63 years ago when he was but 12 years of age. He has been connected with it ever since.
The “old timer” at the 1927 International Petroleum Exposition, noted the Tulsa World.
LaViness “was one of the enthusiastic old timers of the oil game who took part in the reunion at the International Petroleum Exposition Monday,” reported the Tulsa World on September 28, 1927.
Originally held in downtown Tulsa beginning in 1923, the IPE in 1927 found a permanent home on acreage leased from the Tulsa State Fair, according to “Tulsa Gal” of the Oklahoma Historical Society. The expo date was moved to May to not conflict with fall festivities at the fairgrounds.
After some preliminary research, the LaViness family learned that Mareau was employed by the Cudahy Oil Company.
Exploring the AOGHS website, the family decided to seek help and joined the society as a supporting member. “I am just trying to find as much information as I can find and any information you could supply or direct me toward would be greatly appreciated.”
Nellie Johnstone No. 1
In February 2022, Renee’ LaViness emailed AOGHS with more family details (William Knoles is her husband’s first cousin). She had explored ancestry websites and found newspaper clippings from Kansas and Oklahoma confirming that Mareau Fisher LaViness took part in the first commercial oil well in Oklahoma.
“My husband said his parents once took him and his brothers to see the Nellie Johnstone, and Mareau’s name was on a plaque that named all the men who drilled that well,” she explained. Completed in 1897, the Nellie Johnstone No. 1 well was drilled along the Caney River near Bartlesville, at the time a trading post in Indian Territory.
Today, a granite marker and 72-foot replica of the well’s cable-tool derrick preserve Oklahoma’s petroleum history in Bartlesville’s Discovery One Park. Other exhibits include an oilfield cannon once used for extinguishing oil tank fires — by shooting holes in them (see Oilfield Artillery fights Fires).
A pink granite rock marks the spot where a large crowd gathered at Nellie Johnstone No. 1 well to witness history being made in 1897. Photo by Bruce Wells.
But when Renee’ and her husband visited the well in its park a few years ago, “Mareau’s name was not on the current plaque that is there. This really bothered my husband, so I set out to find what I can to prove his part.”
Cudahy Oil Company
Renee’ hopes AOGHS members and website visitors might offer more information. Her newspaper clippings describe Mareau as the “Father of the Oil Industry in Oklahoma,” because of his role in drilling the Bartlesville well.
Cudahy Oil Company, owned by a Chicago millionaire, financed drilling the Nellie Johnstone No. 1 well, which first showed signs on oil in March 1897.
On April 15, 1897, Cudahy Oil fractured the downhole geologic formation by “shooting” the well with nitroglycerin. The oilfield discovery well began producing up to 75 barrels of oil a day from a depth of 1,320 feet. LaViness family research revealed Cudahy Oil’s fracturing expert came from Neodesha, Kansas, weeks earlier. At the site, he worked with “Mr. M.F. Laviness, the superintendent of works.”
Family research discovered M.F. LaViness in a Neodesha (Kansas) Register article of Friday, April 2, 1897.
Despite the Nellie Johnstone No. 1 well’s oil production, Cudahy Oil Company was confronted with a lack of infrastructure for moving oil to markets. With no storage tanks, pipelines, or railroads available, the well was capped for two years.
Although the 1897 Bartlesville well would be considered Oklahoma’s first commercial oil well, several Indian Territory oil wells preceded it.
Mareau Fisher LaViness (1852-1930). Photo courtesy Renee’ LaViness.
Dr. H.W. Faucett and Choctaw Oil and Refining Company successfully completed a small producing well in 1888. One year later, another small producer was drilled near oil seeps at Chelsea (learn more in Another First Oklahoma Oil Well). Another marginally producing well was drilled in 1889 by Cudahy Oil and Mareau at Muskogee, according to Renee’.
As the 20th century began, other mid-continent exploration companies and industry pioneers arrived, including wildcatter Thomas Slick, who discovered the giant Cushing-Drumright field in 1912 (see Oklahoma’s King of the Wildcatters).
Father of the Oil Industry in Oklahoma
Cudahy Oil Company and Mareau LaViness are connected to Oklahoma’s earliest petroleum discoveries. According to his 1930 obituary in the Drumright Derrick, the title “The Father of the Oil Industry in Oklahoma” was awarded to Mareau during the 1927 Tulsa international oil expo.
“As a driller, Laviness was employed on the first oil well drilled in Oklahoma near Bartlesville,” the Drumright newspaper noted. “He was 78 years old, a member of the Knights of Pythias and a resident of Drumright for 16 years. He was well known in the oil fields there.”
Mareau Fisher LaViness died on August 24, 1930, at 78 — Drumright, Oklahoma, obituary.
Family research uncovered that Mareau traveled from Lima, Ohio, to Oklahoma on a regular basis, stopping in Kansas, “where he was frequently mentioned in the newspapers as ordering more supplies for the drilling in Oklahoma,” Renee’ reported. “Gene’s mother had conveyed that he worked for Cudahy when she first told us about the family history and we started researching. So, that was finally confirmed when I found the articles.”
Darker Discoveries
“I believe Mareau may have known William Hale, who was involved in the Osage murders,” Renee’ added, referring to a bloody criminal conspiracy of unsolved 1930s murders that left dozens of Osage killed for headrights to their land (Oklahoma Historical Society historian Jon D. May’s Osage Murders).
“But I’ve never found any information to link them, other than one water-damaged photo that looks like it might have Mr. Hale in it,” Renee’ La Viness noted. “But I think most of the oil men in the Territory knew each other, or knew of each other, from what I’ve seen in the newspapers.”
Mareau was buried in the Drumright city cemetery. “Family lore says Mareau was quite well off, but he blew it all on women and wine. From what I’ve seen of the times and the town where he spent most of the last part of his life, I can believe that, sadly,” Renee’ wrote in her email to AOGHS.
More information about her research is on Ancestry.com, according to Renee’, who said researchers can visit that site to look up Mareau Fisher LaViness. “If you find photos and records by JesPiddlin, that’s me,” Renee’ explained, adding she would be happy to share copies of documents and newspaper clippings she has discovered.
“I’m excited to be in contact with you and look forward to finding ‘proof’ of my husband’s great-great-grandfather’s part in the oil industry,” Renee’ concluded.
Want to help Renee’ LaViness and William Knoles learn more about the petroleum industry career of Mareau Fisher La Viness? Please comment below or contact bawells@aoghs.org
A California company offers research resources, including public records sources and tips for interviewing, according to Ourpublicords marketing specialist Sarah Moore. “We’ve just created a great guide to help people interview their elderly family members for genealogical research and how to get the best experience and understanding from those interviews,” she noted in a 2023 email to AOGHS.
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Recommended Reading: Oil in Oklahoma
(1976); The Underground Reservation: Osage Oil
(1985); Killers of the Flower Moon (2018). 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. Support this energy education website, subscribe to our monthly email newsletter, and help expand historical research. Contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2026 Bruce A. Wells.
Citation Information – Article Title: “LaViness Family Oilfield History.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/oil-almanac/laviness-family-oilfield-history. Last Updated: June 11, 2026. Original Published Date: March 1, 2022.
by Bruce Wells | May 27, 2026 | Petroleum History Almanac
Less than 10 months after Edwin L. Drake and his driller William “Uncle Billy” Smith completed the first commercial U.S. oil well on August 27, 1859, along Oil Creek in Titusville, Pennsylvania, Thomas A. Gale wrote a detailed study about rock oil — and helped launch the petroleum age.
Published in 1860, The Wonder of the Nineteenth Century: Rock Oil in Pennsylvania and Elsewhere described a radical fuel source for the popular lamp fuel kerosene, which had been made from coal for more than a decade.
“Those who have not seen it burn may rest assured its light is no moonshine; but something nearer the clear, strong, brilliant light of day,” Gale declared in his 25-cent pamphlet printed in Erie by Sloan & Griffith Company.
Thomas Gale’s 80-page pamphlet in 1860 marked the beginning of the petroleum age, illuminated with kerosene lamps.
“In other words, rock oil emits a dainty light; the brightest and yet the cheapest in the world; a light fit for Kings and Royalists, and not unsuitable for Republicans and Democrats,” Gale added.
Oil in Rocks
Gale’s descriptions of the value of petroleum helped launch investments in new exploration companies, especially as he noted the commercial qualities of Pennsylvania oil for refining into kerosene, the distilled “coal oil” invented in 1848 by Canadian chemist Abraham Gesner.
Historians regard the 80-page publication as the first book about America’s petroleum industry. The Wonder of the Nineteenth Century: Rock Oil in Pennsylvania and Elsewhere was almost forgotten until 1952, when the Ethyl Corporation of New York republished the work. Only three original copies were known to exist.
“Not by the widest stretch of the imagination could Thomas Gale have realized, when he put down his pen on June 1, 1860, that he had written a book destined to become one of the rarest of all oil books,” proclaimed the Ethyl historian when the company republished Gale’s book.
Ethyl Corporation noted the scarcity of copies of the book had prevented “all but a few historians” from giving the book the attention it deserved.
“Gale wrote his book to satisfy a public desire for more information about petroleum. Newspapers had carried belated accounts of Drake’s discovery well, and the mad scramble for oil that followed, but actually the world knew little about petroleum.”
“The Rock poured…”
The book’s 11 chapters explain practical aspects of the new petroleum industry. Chapters one and two, “What is Rock Oil?” and “Where is the Rock Oil found?” were followed by “Geological Structure of the Oil Region.”
Chapters four through six explained the early technologies (and costs) for pumping the oil, while the next two chapters examine “Uses of Rock Oil.” The final three chapters offered “Sketches of several oil wells,” “History of the Rock Oil Enterprise,” and “Present condition and prospects of Rock Oil interests in different localities.”
A chapter in The Wonder of the Nineteenth Century: Rock Oil in Pennsylvania and Elsewhere features the “geological structure of the oil region,” now part of Oil Creek State Park in northwestern Pennsylvania.
Originally published by Sloan & Griffith of Erie, Pennsylvania, the 1860 cover noted the author as “a resident of Oil Creek” and included a biblical quote, “The Rock poured me out rivers of oil,” from Job, 29:6.
In addition to mysteriously burning gasses and “tar pits,” explorers for millennia have referenced signs of coal, bitumen, and substances very much like petroleum — a word derived from the Latin roots of petra, meaning “rock” and oleum meaning “oil.”
But did Thomas Gayle’s 1860 work produce the first book about oil as Ethyl Corporation historians believed when the company reprinted it in 1952? In fact, there have been many references to natural oil seeps recorded millennia ago (including in the Bible), according to Ray Sorenson. a geologist who has researched the subject (see Earliest Signs of Oil).
Illuminating Petroleum
Several years before the 1859 oil discovery in Pennsylvania, businessman George Bissell hired a prominent Yale chemist to study the potential of oil and its products to convince potential investors (see George Bissell’s Oil Seeps).
“Gentlemen, it appears to me that there is much ground for encouragement in the belief that your company have in their possession a raw material from which, by simple and not expensive processes, they may manufacture very valuable products,” reported Benjamin Silliman Jr. in 1855.
Silliman’s groundbreaking “Report on the Rock Oil, or Petroleum, from Venango Co., Pennsylvania, with Special Reference to its Use for Illumination and Other Purposes,” convinced the petroleum industry’s earliest investors to drill at Titusville. Cable-tool technology developed for brine wells would drill the well.
According to historian Paul H. Giddens in the 1939 classic, The Birth of the Oil Industry, Silliman’s 1855 report, “proved to be a turning-point in the establishment of the petroleum business, for it dispelled many doubts about its value.”
The Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company would evolve into the Seneca Oil Company of New Haven, Connecticut, which became America’s first oil company after Drake completed the first U.S. commercial well drilled seeking oil in 1859.
Rock Oil Products
In addition to providing oil for refining into kerosene lamps (and someday rockets), oilfield discoveries led to many products. Early petroleum products included axle greases, an oilfield paraffin balm, and in Easton, Pennsylvania, Crayola crayons.
Further, oil offered an improved asphalt prior to the first U.S. auto show in November 1900 in New York City’s Madison Square Garden.
Ethyl Corporation was established in 1923 by General Motors and Standard Oil of New Jersey.
Responding to consumer demand for better automobile gasoline, General Motors and Standard Oil of New Jersey established the Ethyl Corporation in 1923. The company marketed its “Brand of Anti-Knock Compound” and initially downplayed the health dangers of tetraethyl lead. Leaded gas would be banned for use in cars in the 1970s.
High-octane leaded aviation fuel proved vital for winning World War II, and the powerful additive still fuels many piston-engine aircraft and racecars.
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Recommended Reading: The Wonder of the Nineteenth Century: Rock Oil in Pennsylvania and Elsewhere (1952); The Birth of the Oil Industry (1939); 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. Support this energy education website, subscribe to our monthly email newsletter, and help expand historical research. Contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2026 Bruce A. Wells.
Citation Information – Article Title: “First Oil Book of 1860.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/oil-almanac/first-oil-book-of-1860. Last Updated: May 26, 2026. Original Published Date: May 31, 2020.
by Bruce Wells | May 24, 2026 | Petroleum History Almanac
Marketing icon “Dino” and friends introduced children to wonders of the Mesozoic era courtesy of Sinclair Oil.
Harry Ford Sinclair established his petroleum company in 1916, making it one of the oldest continuous names in the U.S. energy industry. Appearing among other Sinclair Oil Company dinosaurs during the 1933-1934 World’s Fair in Chicago, “Dino” became a marketing icon whose popularity with children remains today. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Apr 14, 2026 | Petroleum History Almanac
Standard Oil curbed the excitement of unruly speculators trading oil and pipeline certificates.
In a sign of the growing power of John D. Rockefeller at the end of the 19th century, Standard Oil Company brought a decisive end to Pennsylvania’s highly speculative — and often confusing — trading markets at oil exchanges.
On January 23, 1895, the Standard Oil Company’s purchasing agency in Oil City, Pennsylvania, notified independent oil producers it would only buy their oil at a price “as high as the markets of the world will justify” and not necessarily “the price bid on the oil exchange for certificate oil.” The action would bring an end to the “paper oil” markets of brokers and buyers.
(more…)
by Bruce Wells | Apr 7, 2026 | Petroleum History Almanac
A “Self-Heating Sad Iron” patented in 1903 used gasoline to make ironing easier.
On ironing day long before electricity, a row of sad irons could be found in the kitchen where the family’s cast-iron cook stove kept them hot. Three or four of these heavy “sadirons” — from the old English word meaning “solid” — cycled between the stove and a nearby ironing board.
With each sad iron weighing five to nine pounds, smoothing clothes led to an exhausting ironing routine. In 1872, Mary Florence Potts from Ottumwa, Iowa, patented a sad iron design with two pointed ends and a quick-change detachable walnut handle.
The 19-year-old housewife’s invention offered relief from blistered palms and was instantly popular nationwide. Thirty years later, a Civil War veteran brought another innovation to ironing.
In 1870, Mary Florence Potts patented a wooden-handled sad iron widely commercialized as an easier, safer solution for ironing clothing and linens, according to the National Inventors Hall of Fame, which inducted her in 2024.
Gasoline-fueled Sad Iron
John C. Lake, who served in the 16th Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the Civil War, patented (No. 725,261) a gasoline-fueled “Self-Heating Sad Iron” in April 1903.
Lake’s invention made the family fortune and brought prosperity to Big Prairie, Ohio, where he established the Monitor Sad Iron Company on the Pennsylvania Railroad line. The manufacturing company in Amish country would make petroleum-fueled sad irons for the next 50 years.
The 61-year-old inventor earlier had shared three woodworking tool patents with his father Abraham, but none led to production. Lake’s new gasoline-fired sad iron would bring easier ironing to households without electrical service, which in 1903 meant most of America.
As advertised, “Monitor Self-Heating Sad Irons” did not need the kitchen stove, maintained a steady temperature, and turned on and off with a knob. Two tablespoons of alcohol started the process and charged the reservoir delivery system.
“Save Half the Time, Half the Labor, and All the Worry of Laundry Day,” the ads proclaimed as consumers warmly welcomed the gasoline-fueled sad irons, which sold for $3.50 each.
Monitor Sad Iron Company expanded by licensing an army of sales agents. As the factory in Big Prairie grew, by 1920 the company could proclaim 850,000 in cumulative sales. In the 1930s, Monitor added a new brand (Royal) as Lake’s son Bertus received three patents for improvements.
Geologist Iron Man
Antique iron collector Prof. Kevin McCartney knows a lot about Monitor Sad Iron Company and its early competitors like Jubilee and Ideal. A professor of geology at the University of Maine at Presque Isle, he also serves as director of the Northern Maine Museum of Science.
Since 2013, McCartney has posted more than 50 YouTube videos “to educate and entertain the avid collector, antique shop owner, pickers and novices alike. Each video is a mini-lesson on a different topic about irons.”
In his Kevin Talks Irons number 54, “Firing up the 1903 Monitor gasoline iron,” he described how consumers preferred Monitor’s gasoline appliance — made with just three durable assemblies — because it was “simple, utilitarian, and economical.”
The Monitor Sad Iron Company’s patented self-heating design became “the most common of the early gasoline irons.” Formerly a byproduct of kerosene refining, gasoline also had begun its transformation from “white gas” into an automobile fuel before Anti-Knock Ethyl and other additives added color.
Coleman Lamp Company entered the gasoline-fueled iron business in the 1920s. Based in Wichita, Kansas, Coleman began producing a self-heating iron while securing additional patents in 1940.
Products from Monitor, Coleman, Royal, and others competed in catalog offerings and advertisements, especially for potential customers in rural, unelectrified regions. The self-heating appliances burned the basic white gas (naphtha). Coleman later branded and sold the fuel in one-gallon containers as Coleman Fuel.
Coleman Company quit manufacturing gasoline-fueled sad irons after World War II, and the Monitor Sad Iron factory closed in 1954 as electricity relegated most such artifacts to museums and antique shops.
Born Mary Florence Webber, Mrs. Potts originally patented her sad iron (today commonly spelled sadiron), using her name instead of Mrs. Joseph Potts, according to a 2021 “Out of the Attic” article by Julie Martineau of Des Moines County Historical Society.
Potts was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2024 for her improved, cold-handled sad iron, “which was lighter and offered a cooler, more ergonomic handle.”
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please support this energy education website, subscribe to our monthly email newsletter, and help expand historical research. Contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2026 Bruce A. Wells.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Ironing with Gasoline.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/oil-almanac/ironing-with-gasoline. Last Updated: April 7, 2026. Original Published Date: November 5, 2022.
