by Bruce Wells | Jul 14, 2026 | Petroleum History Almanac
The Tulsa World newsroom and meeting Mr. Skelly.
Lloyd N. Unsell (1923-2007), a founding member of the American Oil & Gas Historical Society, in 1986, he received the industry’s prestigious Chief Roughneck Award in 1986 — the only person not affiliated with an oil company to do so since the award began in 1955. He joined the Independent Petroleum Association of America in 1948 and soon managed public and media relations; he was promoted to executive vice president in 1976 and president in 1985. Unsell was part of key industry industry debates — and also helped win final approval for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial’s design and construction in 1982. In December 2004, Unsell gave AOGHS exclusive permission to publish the draft forward and early chapters of his then in-progress memoirs, Recollections of Lloyd N. Unsell.
Chapter Four: “Glitter of the Oil Capital”
When I went to work on the Tulsa World, I learned very quickly what it meant to be a little frog in a big pond. The dynamics of downtown Tulsa were fascinating for a small town reporter. The Tulsa Chamber of Commerce stationary still proclaimed that the city it served was “The Oil Capitol of the World.” Houston may have been edging up on that claim, but all the elements on which Tulsa had based the title were still in place – headquarters for Skelly Oil Co., Carter Oil Co., the SONJ domestic production subsidiary, Stanolind Oil & Gas, the Standard of Indiana production arm, Mid-Continent Petroleum Corp., Service Pipeline Co., National Tank, Bovaird Supply, Hinderliter tool, Unit Rig, and production headquarters for a dozen other medium to large integrated companies. But Tulsa was also headquarters for dozens of highly successful independent oil companies, and managers of the hundreds of phone book listings of oil-related enterprises which were competing for space in the bristling downtown area where business offices were at a premium.
Tulsa was headquarters for the then world’s largest commercial magazine, the Oil & Gas Journal which now only has a printing plant there, and a half dozen major industry associations. But one of the crown jewels of Tulsa’s claim as the major oil city was the International Petroleum Exposition (IPE) which had been a world renowned industrial exposition since 1923. When I arrived on the scene, feverish plans were already under way for the first postwar Exposition in May 1948, many months away. Tulsa had endemic housing and hotel room shortages, and an IPE Housing committee had been formed to find space for oil show visitors from 33 countries. It wasn’t going to be easy. Downtown Tulsa was a fascinating place in 1947. Major department stores and specialty shops lined Main Street and Boston Avenue for blocks, and shopping throngs crowded the streets on most days, giving the city the flavor of a bustling “big little town.” Great downtown theaters that matched any west of the Mississippi, particularly the Orpheum and the Ritz, attracted sellout throngs with long lines of movie-goers waiting for the next show. The downtown was blessed with eating establishments serving the after-theater crowds, and a favorite was Bishops, a spotless eatery open 24 hours, seven days a week. So popular was this restaurant that it almost always had lines of waiting patrons. Some of its waitresses were institutions, on their jobs there for decades.
The Tulsa World and the competing Tulsa Tribune both had daily oil pages, but neither had a business page. The two papers’ oil editors, Paul Hedrick at the World and Andrew Rowley at the Tribune were known to everyone in the Tulsa oil community, and had no problem filling their respective spaces with industry developments fresh to their readers. I was a assigned a “beat” that included the local banks, travel organizations, the railroads and airlines all of which had busy downtown offices competing for the patronage of the traveling public, and represented the World at the weekly luncheon meeting of the Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, to cover anything of interest on which the group may act.
My earlier oil experience had consisted of lowest echelon work as an oilfield truck swamper, floor hand on oil well servicing rigs, and a small cog position in manufacturing oil tools at the Hinderliter plant in Tulsa. Now, I was getting to know some of the leading lights in the management of production operations of some of the largest oil companies in the land, exposed to their personalities, and learning about their backgrounds and experiences in the industry. Oil and gas leaders indeed were dominant in the Tulsa business community, and in the forefront of civic and business organizations in the city. It was my good fortune to get to know many of them well.
Chapter Five: “Mr. Tulsa”“
When I moved to Tulsa, Skelly Oil Co. was a familiar name, not because I was a customer, because I didn’t own a car, but because a family friend had operated a Skelly service station in Seminole. The name W. G. (Bill) Skelly, however, meant nothing special to me, though to every long-term Tulsa resident he was known as the city’s top booster, and to many as “Mr. Tulsa.” Before long I would come to learn that Skelly earned that title because he simply loved the City of Tulsa, and for years had sought to express this affection in many visible ways.
Tulsa was making great plans to host the first post-war International Petroleum Exposition (IPE) scheduled in May of 1948, and the President of IPE since its founding in the 1920’s, W. G. Skelly, was worried. The IPE housing bureau had rapidly run out of hotel space, and many Tulsans had discovered they could schedule vacations during the “oil show” and rent their homes to exhibitors, oil companies and foreign visitor delegations for good money. Trouble was, this opportunity was becoming too much of a “good thing” to some folks, and Mr. Skelly’s phone and post office box were overloaded with complaints of outlandish demands being made by some who apparently were determined to “get rich” renting their homes to oilmen. It nettled Skelly that anyone living in Tulsa would make demands that would “alienate our visitors to the city,” so he called the Tulsa World seeking its support in appealing to the “civic conscience” of Tulsans to treat prospective oil show visitors as they would wished to be treated. I was sent to interview Skelly and do this story.
It wasn’t a long walk. The Skelly building, a rustic red brick structure, was on a corner adjoining The Tulsa World building. A secretary more than twice my age at the time, a clearly competent, pleasant lady having behind her long years of service to the founder of Skelly Oil, ushered me into the presence of “Mr. Tulsa,” introduced me, and announced my purpose. Mr. Skelly motioned me into a chair, and said, “This is a very simple story. We have some people trying to pick the pockets of folks wanting to come to the oil show. We want visitors to Tulsa to feel good about being here. We want them to want to come back. If they leave feeling they’ve been fleeced, they’ll never come back. That’s it; simple story.”
I told Mr. Skelly he had given me one paragraph, and that we needed to discuss the problem at some length so I could get the feel of it, and develop his philosophy about it since he was so incensed about the problem. He had other things to do, and saw little need of this extended conversation, but agreed, so he responded to my questions for the better part of an hour.
Mr. Skelly was a curious interviewee. He was bald, for the most part, with wisps of hair above both ears, had a very large head with an oversized W. C. Fields nose, astride which sat heavy thick-lense eyeglasses. To a visitor, the thick glasses magnified his eyes which appeared to be enormous, a little bulgy, and somewhat rheumy. He had a nervous habit of quickly stroking the side of his nose with the knuckle of his index finger, sniffing as he did so. He always stroked his nose twice, and sniffed twice, simultaneously, while making a point in the conversation. When he thought I had notes enough to do the story, he said so, and dismissed me when his secretary announced that a visitor with an appointment was cooling his heels in the anteroom.
I went back to the World newsroom, itself a little antiquated in those days. Every reporter used an old Underwood upright, any one of which could be heard on the street. All of them going at once created an indescribable racket, augmented by the clacking of a half-dozen AP teletype machines along one wall. To make matters worse, the city editor, Lorren Williams, was near deaf (no doubt because of all the racket) and kept a police radio receiver on the wall behind his desk blaring at full volume. As a defense mechanism, I learned to consciously shut out all this tumult when I was concentrating on a story at deadline, and the habit sticks to this day.
I called the oil show office, and got a few examples of complaints about excessive rental demands, then went to work on the story. It was late morning on Friday and relatively quiet when I finished W. G. Skelly’s appeal to Tulsans not to abuse the pocketbooks of visitors to the much-heralded oil show, still many months away. I roughly edited the article, pasted the succeeding pages together which was the practice in those non-computerized days, tossed it into the city editor’s in-basket, and went off to cover my regular news beat.
When I returned to the newsroom in late afternoon, the Skelly article had been bounced to the managing editor, Lee Erhard, who called me over and said, “This reads good to me, but do me a favor. Take it over and let Mr. Skelly read it.”
I said I had several stories to write, and feeling a little offended by Erhard’s suggestion, I said if he wanted. Skelly to read the piece, he should send it over by a copy boy.
Erhard wasn’t persuaded. “Look,” he said, “Mr. Skelly is a special person in this city. If he wanted to add something to the story, the guy who wrote it ought to be there. So as a personal favor to me, take it over and let him read it.” There was a note of finality in his voice, as he handed me the copy.
In the stroll back to Skelly’s office, I unconsciously rolled the story into a cylinder perhaps an inch and a half in diameter. The same gracious secretary rang Mr. Skelly, and inquired whether he wished to read the story I had written. He did indeed. So she ushered me into his office, and I handed him the rolled-up copy. This suited him fine, because he held anything he read about 8 to 10 inches from his face, so he slowly unrolled the story as he read it, a process that seemed interminable. When he finally finished, he stroked his bulbous nose, sniffed, tilted his head back, and scrutinized me through those heavy eyeglasses. Finally, he said, “You’re a very fortunate young fella. I wouldn’t change a word of this.”
Still smarting from an immature notion that my professionalism had been compromised, and still not fully appreciative of W. G. Skelly’s exalted status in the community, I said, “You’re pretty lucky too, Mr. Skelly.”
“How’s that?” he asked.
I said, “You’re the only person I know who has editing privileges at the Tulsa World.”
The president of Skelly Oil Company looked at me for a long, tortuous moment, while I was biting my tongue at having made such a petty remark. “Just a minute,” he said. He pulled out a drawer of his desk, rummaged around in it a moment, then handed me a misshapen brown nut.
“Put this in your pocket,” he said, “and rub it now and then for luck.” Not knowing what he had given me, I dropped it into my pocket, thanked him, and departed.
Walking through the newsroom, I ran into Paul Hedrick, the World’s oil editor for many years.. Paul said. “I hear you’ve been interviewing Mr. Skelly.”
I said the rumor was true, and I pulled the brown nut from my pocket and showed it to Paul, asking if he knew what it was. He smiled and said, “I’ll be darned (strong language for Mr. Hedrick). You mean he gave you a buckeye? He only gives those to people he likes.” Paul went on to explain that Mr. Skelly was a native of Ohio, where the buckeye is the state tree, and
had absolute faith that the buckeye seed was a working good luck charm.
Mr. Skelly’s appeal to the “civic conscience” of Tulsans ran on Sunday, two columns wide down the left side of page one. At midweek, Mr. Skelly called me and said, “Young fella, your story is working. The housing office says what people are demanding to rent their homes is moderating already, and I’ve had some good response too. I thought you’d like to know.”
I thanked Mr. Skelly, who immediately changed the subject. “I called you because I wanted to offer you a little civic duty, young fella.” In the considerable time I was around Mr. Skelly, he never called me by name. He addressed me simply as, “Young Fella.” When he referred to me in conversation with others, he would tilt his head in my direction, and say, “…this young fella thinks,” or “this young fella says..”
This was before television found its way to Tulsa, but Mr. Skelly owned radio station KVOO, where perhaps the only broadcast “celebrity” other than Bob Wills was Sam Schneider, the farm editor. Sam had an early morning broadcast which had an enormous following among farmers all over the southwest, since KVOO had 50,000 watts of clear channel power. Sam was in constant demand as a speaker before farm groups, knew what he was doing, and was an all-around nice guy.
Skelly asked if I knew Sam, and I said yes that I knew him very favorably. “Well, this is good. We’re going to have the first Tulsa Fat Stock Show and Exposition next March. It’s developing well, but we need a publicity committee. I’d like you to serve as co-chairman with Sam. You can handle the newspapers, and Sam will be responsible for radio. Does that make sense?”
“I suppose so,” I said.
“Then I can count on you.”
I was already beginning to learn that not many people said “no,” arbitrarily, to Mr. Skelly.
“I suppose so,” I said again.
“Good,” he said. “the planning group meets at my house, sometimes every week. You must attend those meetings. My secretary will advise you.” He hung up the phone.
Mr. Skelly’s home, built in the teen years of the 20th century as I recall, suited him perfectly. It was furnished in turn-of-the-century decor, one memorable example a massive teakwood dining room suite. The chair backs, hand carved, featured elephants in a curved line up both sides, the elephants increasing in size as both lines met at the center top of the massive chairs. I was told that Mr. Skelly personally bought the suite in India. The elephant motif was well-suited to him; he had been a Republican national committee member for as long as anyone could remember.
The stock show group met in the basement, where a huge table had been set up conference style. Two of the principals were Jay P. Walker, founder of the National Tank Co. who had an Angus ranch west of Sand Springs, and J. W. Sharp, whose ranch was on Mingo road northwest of Tulsa. Sharp raised Herefords, as I recall. These meetings were run loosely, and one quickly got the impression that plans for the Tulsa stock show were being developed without a plan. The only thing certain about this project was that it was near to the heart of W.G. Skelly. More than once in these meetings, he would declare with complete confidence that one day the Tulsa stock show would be “bigger than the Kansas City Royal,” which, of course, was then, and still is the granddaddy of all stock shows. But Mr. Skelly had such uncompromising faith in Tulsa that he could not imagine the city not spawning and nurturing to greatness a stock show measuring up to his boundless vision. He had for years given dozens of 4-H Club youngsters their first purebred calf, from his own ranch along the Verdigris river. It was a certainty in his mind that Tulsa was destined to have a stock show that would incubate and encourage the rise of young and successful ranchers the length and breadth of the “Magic Empire” of which his beloved city was the hub.
I recall that the central subject of the first meeting I attended was “money.” There wasn’t any in the till, so plans were progressing to have a dinner in the Mayo hotel to which all the city fathers would be invited, there to be pep-talked on the grand vision of Tulsa’s first annual Fat Stock Show and Exposition, then appealed to for funds which were needed to open an office and hire an exposition manager. Somehow, I got the feeling that all this deadly-serious planning should have been started a year earlier, at least. There was so much to do; animal categories to be designated, premiums to be established, catalogs to be printed (not to mention distributed), ribbons printed, trophies designed and ordered, and on and on ad infinitum.
I learned also at the first meeting what I suspected when I accepted the co-chairmanship of the “publicity committee.” Mr. Skelly advised that Charlie Border, who ran the agricultural department at the Chamber of Commerce in those days, had arranged a room complete with phone and typewriters where Sam Schneider and I could write the stock show publicity. I tried to reason privately with Mr. Skelly that I had a full-time job occupying me for l0-plus hours six days a week, and had little time to write press releases, work up newspaper mailing lists, and stuff envelopes, but he waved these protests off with assurances that it wouldn’t be that big a job.
Sam Schneider and I quickly came to the conclusion that what Mr. Skelly expected of us was beyond our doing, but Sam was on wobblier footing than I because he worked for Mr. Skelly. So it fell to me to suggest hiring a part-time person to build and maintain mailing lists, write publicity, and do all the follow-up work that was needed. We found a woman who had been a reporter on the Tulsa Tribune, and had quit the newspaper to start a family. She agreed to work four to five hours a day, for a nominal $3 an hour. Mr. Skelly fumed about this, and argued that we could get a journalism student from the University of Tulsa for 50 cents an hour, pleading the poverty of the stock show coffers. But reasoning the thing through, showing that we clearly had much work demanding experienced help, we prevailed and hired the former reporter. I breathed a sigh of relief, and so did my wife who had developed disdain for two things: l) morning newspapers with midnight deadlines, and 2) “civic duty” as defined by W. G. Skelly.
I forget the exact time, only that it was very cold, the night of the fundraising dinner held in a nice room on the mezzanine of the Mayo hotel, overlooking Fifth street. Jay Walker had arranged for special cuts of aged beef, and the Mayo supplied all the accompaniments. There were about 60 of Tulsa’s leading citizens there to be fed and solicited.. It was more than half a century ago, but I still remember a few of them: A. E. Bradshaw, chairman of the National Bank of Tulsa; R. Otis McClintock, president of the First National Bank; L. W. Grant, founder/president of Sooner Savings & Loan; R. W. McDowell, president of Mid-Continent Petroleum Corp., L. C. Clark of Clark-Darland Hardware (later to be mayor of Tulsa) C. H. Wright, founder of Sunray Oil, my boss Eugene Lorton, publisher of the Tulsa World, and others of similar stature.
There were three people at the head table including Mr. Skelly and Jay P. Walker, a natural born promoter who was there to preside. The third person was the “show piece” of the evening, a young man named Ray Gene Cinnamon, a farm boy from the hamlet of Garber, OK., who had taken his prize steer to the Kansas City Royal, was awarded the grand championship for the animal, and in recognition of his achievement had been named “Star Farmer of America” by the Future Farmers of America (FFA).
Jay Walker had found young Cinnamon and prevailed on him to come to Tulsa for the purpose of telling the city’s business luminaries what a wonderful thing they were about to do for young people like himself. Ray Gene didn’t disappoint. He said it was caring people just like those in his audience who had generated his interest in his life’s pursuit. Such men, through the Oklahoma State Fair at Oklahoma City, he said, had sparked the interest and shown the way to hundreds of young men then positioned to help elevate the quality of the livestock industry in Oklahoma. He said he couldn’t say enough for the wisdom of the men seated before him, for it was the interest of such men who had given him the vision which assured his success in the cattle business. He concluded by saying he felt so strongly about the mission of the Tulsa stock show, that he wanted the “privilege” of making the first contribution. He then plucked a crisp new hundred dollar bill from his shirt pocket, said “the first hundred dollars,” smiled, laid the bill on the table, and sat down.
Sitting near the head table, I turned to see if I could read the reaction. Ray Gene Cinnamon had Tulsa’s elite in his pocket. There wasn’t a dry eye in the place. It was only left for Jay Walker to say, “Well, gentlemen, it couldn’t have been said any better. If you see the point of what we’re up to now, we need your checks or your pledges.’ In a very few minutes, some $68,000 was put on the table, a lot of money in 1947. The Tulsa Fat Stock Show and Exposition wasn’t broke any more.
After the crowd had dispersed, I straggled into the cloak room in the corner of the mezzanine, and Jay Walker was there retrieving his topcoat. In a low voice, I told Mr. Walker he had done a great job of salting the mine.
“Whatta you mean?” he looked at me quizzically.
“Well, boy reporters don’t walk around with hundred dollar bills in their shirt. I know, because I am one, and I don’t think boy farmers do either.”
Jay Walker looked a little flustered, then took my arm and pulled me over against the wall. He said, “Mah gawd, boy, you ain’t gonna put anything like that in the paper are you?”
I told him heavens no, that I just wanted him to know there was a little skepticism left in his audience. Jay Walker walked out of the cloakroom grinning and shaking his head.
A few days after this, I was standing at one of the AP tickers which was moving a story about an entrepreneur in Denver who had sponsored a big winter carnival-type event to which nobody came because of blizzard conditions. The only thing that had saved this fellow, according to the story, was weather insurance. I made a mental note of this, and at a subsequent meeting of the stock show planners in Mr. Skelly’s basement, I broke my usual silence and reported on the Denver showman’s experience, then asked if any consideration had been given to such insurance.
Mr. Skelly looked at me with a strained tolerance, and declared such a thing would be a waste of money. He said they had looked back 20 years at conditions in the March time-frame when the stock show was scheduled, and the weather was always perfect, so there was nothing to worry about. Truth be told, W. G. Skelly just could not conceive that Providence or the elements would or could betray the city of Tulsa by spoiling an undertaking so important to its future.
Somehow, we all muddled through and things got done, and it was hectic every day, but
as the big opening day approached, everything had fallen into place. The epic (opening) day for Bill Skelly’s great outreach to farm youth of the Magic Empire and beyond was to be Friday the 13th of March. If that day means bad luck, it was sure set to justify its reputation this time!
Nobody could remember anything like the great Oklahoma blizzard of 1948. Almost seven inches of snow fell on Wednesday, March 11. By Thursday morning it was gauged at more than l0 inches, but much of it had been driven by winds of nearly 70 miles per hour, and drifting was a major problem. The low early Thursday was in the teens. Following the snow came sleet and ultimately the ground layer was like packed ice. Everything in Tulsa closed – the refineries, businesses, schools, all local traffic, and inter-city buses. Three youngsters from Washington County, stalled with their pigs in a truck bogged in a snowdrift, and one had severe frostbite. Volunteers pitched in to see that the hardy youngsters who braved the storm had three hot meals a day. The judging went forward, and 4-H and FFA boys and girls took home more than $112,000 in prize money for stock shown and sold at the first — and last — Tulsa Fat Stock Show.
Continuance of Bill Skelly’s dream depended on a large public turnout and a heavy gate at the turnstiles, but the crowds never materialized. As a fallback, the show’s officials thought attendance at the then popular Verne Elliott Rodeo, a highlight of the stock show, with the Lone Ranger himself a featured attraction, would be a big revenue generator. But the bitter cold kept the public away, even for this extravaganza. When the show was over and the thaw had come, the Tulsa Fat Stock Show was worse than broke, it was deep in the red. The blizzard of ‘48, so fierce in its biting ways, had killed Bill Skelly’s dream.
One of the things I remember was, with two other reporters on phones gathering and passing on information, I wrote the story of the blizzard and its devastating impact. It was the only news story I ever wrote with an eight-column headline, page one. Three or four weeks after the death of the Tulsa Fat Stock Show, I ambled into the Skelly Building barber shop for a haircut. Mr. Skelly was just getting out of one of the chairs, and the barber asked him if they would try to hold the stock show in l949.
“No, nobody thinks the city would put up the money to try it again,” he said.”We’re goin’ to have problems just paying the bills.”
“Really too bad,” the barber sympathized.
“Yes, a big disappointment,” Mr. Skelly said. Then nodding in my direction, he said “This young fella thinks the weather broke us, but we really could have used better publicity.” With that, he winked at me and ducked through the door leading to the building lobby.
It was a private joke, and as near as he would ever come to acknowledging that weather insurance wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
While Bill Skelly’s dream of founding a major stock show in Tulsa died aborning in the great blizzard of 1948, just six weeks later his International Petroleum Exposition opened, playing to sellout crowds for ten days, and was a success by all standards. And I was thrust, unexpectedly, into the midst of the “Big Oil Show,” as the Tulsa World’s key reporter on the event.
I took on that assignment a little bleary-eyed.
The End
This concludes the first five chapters of “Recollections of Lloyd N. Unsell,” provided by the author, who continued writing his fascinating his memoirs until his death at 84 in 2007. Lloyd, a founding member and sponsor of the American Oil & Gas Historical Society in 2003, a year later gave AOGHS exclusive permission to publish the forward and first five chapters of his in-progress memoirs, “Recollections of Lloyd N. Unsell.”
The Rest of the Story
A skilled journalist and long-time leader of the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), in 1986 Lloyd received the industry’s prestigious Chief Roughneck Award — the only person not affiliated with an oil company to do so since the award began in 1955. He lived in historic Coltons Point, Md., where he wrote about his career on behalf of the industry.
Fortunately, thanks to the help and encouragement from his son Lloyd N. Unsell Jr., the senior Unsell completed another 10 chapters (and participated in several video interviews). In 2018, Lloyd Jr. of Delmar, Maryland, preserved his father’s “Anecdotes from a White-Collar Roughneck” for future publication.
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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.
by Bruce Wells | Jul 7, 2026 | Petroleum History Almanac
As the U.S. petroleum industry expanded following the January 1901 “Lucas Gusher” at Spindletop Hill in Texas, service company pioneers like Carl Baker and Howard Hughes Sr. brought new technologies to oilfields.
Baker Oil Tools and Hughes Tools specialized in maximizing petroleum production, as did oilfield service company competitors Schlumberger, a French company founded in 1926, and Halliburton, which began in 1919 as a well-cementing company.
R.C. “Carl” Baker Sr.
Baker Oil Tool Company (later Baker International) was founded by Reuben Carlton “Carl” Baker Sr., who among other inventions patented a cable-tool drill bit in 1903 after founding the Coalinga Oil Company in Coalinga, California.
A 1919 portrait of Baker Tools Company founder R.C. “Carl” Baker (1872 – 1957).
The oil wells Carl Baker had drilled near Coalinga encountered hard rock formations that caused problems with casing, so he developed an offset cable-tool bit allowing him to drill a hole larger than the casing. He also patented a “Gas Trap for Oil Wells” in 1908, a “Pump-Plunger” in 1914, and a “Shoe Guide for Well Casings” in 1920.
Coalinga was “every inch a boom town and Mr. Baker would become a major player in the town’s growth,” according to the R.C. Baker Memorial Museum. He also organized several small oil companies and the local power company and established a bank.
After drilling wells in the Kern River oilfield, Baker added to his technological innovations on July 16, 1907, when he was awarded a patent for his Well Casing Shoe (No. 860,115), a device ensuring uninterrupted flow of oil through a well. His invention revolutionized oilfield production.
R.C. “Carl” Baker standing next to Baker Casing Shoes in 1914. Photo courtesy R.C. Baker Memorial Museum.
In 1913, Baker organized the Baker Casing Shoe Company (renamed Baker Tools two years later). He opened his first manufacturing plant in Coalinga.
When Baker Tools headquarters moved to Los Angeles in the 1930s, the building remained a company machine shop. It was donated by Baker to Coalinga in 1959. Two years later, the original machine shop and office of Baker Casing Shoe reopened as the R.C. Baker Memorial Museum.
By the time Carl Baker Sr. died in 1957 at age 85, he had been awarded more than 150 U.S. patents in his lifetime. “Though Mr. Baker never advanced beyond the third grade, he possessed an incredible understanding of mechanical and hydraulic systems,” reported the former Coalinga museum.
Baker Tools became Baker International in 1976 and Baker Hughes after the 1987 merger with Hughes Tool Company.
The Houston manufacturing operations of Sharp-Hughes Tool at 2nd and Girard Streets in 1915. The site is on the campus of the University of Houston–Downtown. Photo courtesy Houston Metropolitan Research Center, Houston Public Library.
Howard Hughes Sr. and Walter Sharp
The Hughes Tool Company began in 1908 as the Sharp-Hughes Tool Company, founded by Walter Benona Sharp (1870–1912) and Howard R. Hughes, Sr.
Sharp, born in Tipton County, Tennessee, moved to Texas and began drilling oil wells in 1893 with a test well for the Gladys City Oil and Gas Manufacturing Company near Beaumont. The well on Spindletop Hill did not find oil, but it helped lead to the giant oilfield’s discovery in 1901, according to Texas State Historical Association (TSHA).
In 1896, Sharp was one of the drillers at Corsicana when the state’s first commercial oilfield was developed. While there, he met Joseph “J.S.” Cullinan, who became a lifelong friend. Cullinan in 1902 founded the Texas Company (see Sour Lake produces Texaco). That same year, Sharp joined Hughes to form Moonshine Oil Company, laying the groundwork for their partnership in the Sharp-Hughes Tool Company.
Sharp and Hughes in 1907 drilled test wells at Goose Creek. “When both wells had to be abandoned because of the hard rock encountered, the two men began to consider the possibility of developing a roller rock bit. They eventually arranged for Hughes to proceed with the design and construction of a bit, with capital provided equally by Sharp and Cullinan.
Rotary drilling bits shaped like fishtails became obsolete in 1909 when the two inventors introduced a dual-cone roller bit. They created a bit “designed to enable rotary drilling in harder, deeper formations than was possible with earlier fishtail bits,” according to a Hughes historian. Secret tests took place on a drilling rig at Goose Creek, south of Houston.
Goose Creek Test
“In the early morning hours of June 1, 1909, Howard Hughes Sr. packed a secret invention into the trunk of his car and drove off into the Texas plains,” noted Gwen Wright of History Detectives in 2006. The drilling site was near Galveston Bay.
The new technology would soon bring faster and deeper drilling worldwide, helping to find previously unreachable oil and natural gas reserves. The dual-cone bit also created many Texas millionaires, explained Don Clutterbuck, one of the PBS show’s sources.
“When the Hughes twin-cones hit hard rock, they kept turning, their dozens of sharp teeth (166 on each cone) grinding through the hard stone,” he added.
Although several inventors tried to develop better rotary drill bit technologies, Sharp-Hughes Tool Company was the first to bring it to American oilfields. Drilling times fell dramatically, saving petroleum companies huge amounts of money.
Howard Hughes Sr. (1869 – 1924) on August 10, 1909, was awarded a U.S. patent for a dual-cone drill bit that could crush hard rock.
The Society of Petroleum Engineers has noted that about the same time Hughes developed his bit, Granville A. Humason of Shreveport, Louisiana, patented the first cross-roller rock bit, the forerunner of the Reed cross-roller bit.
Biographers have noted that Hughes met Granville Humason in a Shreveport bar, where Humason sold his roller bit rights to Hughes for $150. The University of Texas Center for American History Collection includes a 1951 recording of Humason talking about that chance meeting. He recalled spending $50 of his sale proceeds at the bar that evening.
After Walter Sharp died in 1912, his widow Estelle Sharp sold her 50 percent share in the company to Hughes. It became Hughes Tool in 1915. Despite legal action between Hughes Tool and the Reed Roller Bit Company in the late 1920s, Hughes prevailed and his oilfield service company prospered.
Hughes Tool
By 1934, Hughes Tool engineers designed and patented the three-cone roller bit, an enduring design that remains much the same today. Hughes’ exclusive patent lasted until 1951, which allowed his Texas company to grow worldwide. More innovations (and mergers) would follow.
A February 1914 advertisement for the Sharp-Hughes Tool Company in Fuel Oil Journal.
Frank Christensen and George Christensen had developed the earliest diamond bit in 1941 and introduced diamond bits to oilfields in 1946, beginning with the Rangley field of Colorado. The long-lasting tungsten carbide tooth came into use in the early 1950s.
After Baker International acquired Hughes Tool Company in 1987, Baker Hughes acquired the Eastman Christensen Company three years later. Eastman was a world leader in directional drilling.
When Howard Hughes Sr. died in 1924, he left three-quarters of his company to Howard Hughes Jr., then a student at Rice University. The younger Hughes added to the success of Hughes Tool while becoming one of the richest men in the world. His many legacies include founding Hughes Aircraft Company and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Learn more in Making Hole – Drilling Technology.
Oilfield Service Competition
A major competitor for any energy service company, today’s Schlumberger Limited can trace its roots to Caen, France. In 1912, brothers Conrad and Marcel began making geophysical measurements that recorded a map of equipotential curves (similar to contour lines on a map). Using very basic equipment, their field experiments led to the invention of a downhole electronic “logging tool” in 1927.
After developing an electrical four-probe surface approach for mineral exploration, the brothers lowered another electric tool into a well. They recorded a single lateral-resistivity curve at fixed points in the well’s borehole and graphically plotted the results against depth – creating first electric well log of geologic formations.
Meanwhile, another service company in Oklahoma, the Reda Pump Company had been founded by Armais Arutunoff, a close friend of Frank Phillips. By 1938, an estimated two percent of all oil produced in the United States with artificial lift, was lifted by an Arutunoff pump.
Learn more in Inventing the Electric Submersible Pump (also see All Pumped Up – Oilfield Technology).
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Recommended Reading: History Of Oil Well Drilling
(2007); Trek of the Oil Finders: A History of Exploration for Petroleum (1975). 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: “Carl Baker and Howard Hughes.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/oil-almanac/carl-baker-howard-hughes. Last Updated: July 12, 2026. Original Published Date: December 17, 2017.
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 | Jun 4, 2026 | Petroleum History Almanac
Son preserved circa 1950 ad of father operating oilfield Caterpillar Tractor.
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 working as a foreman in the oilfield service industry in Pennsylvania and New York, Charles Gerringer’s father operated an innovative diesel-fueled tractor. The family kept a circa 1950 trade magazine ad featuring Harold Gerringer working at a well using the promoted “Caterpillar” D4.
“My Dad worked for N.V.V. Franchot and was a foreman in the oil and gas fields around Allegany, New York,” Charles Gerringer noted about his father Harold in 2019. “I have an advertisement of him using one of the first modern Caterpillar tractors to pull a well.”
Thanks to his son Charles, this image of Allegany lease tractor operator Harold Gerringer (at right) in a Caterpillar advertisement has been preserved. This partially restored image of a well workover is from the ad, which appeared in Producers Monthly magazine.
The trade magazine advertisement featured Harold Gerringer with a “Caterpillar” D4 at a workover site (replacing production equipment to extend the life of a well). The promotion came from an prominent machine company in the region that sold the “Caterpiller” D4, whose virtue was its low diesel fuel consumption.
Franchot Oil Lease
“Never was there a cheaper power on a lease,” the ad proclaimed. Originally designed for farm use, the 41-horsepower tractor proved popular in oilfields. Its ads appeared in Producers Monthly, published by the Bradford District of the Pennsylvania Oil Producers Association from 1936 to 1969.
The “Caterpiller” D4 ad began with a simple description of the oilfield photo. “Four men and a tractor are putting new economy into their work on the N.V.V. Franchot lease at Four Mile, New York, lease pictured above,” the ad noted, adding, “Credit is due to the N.V.V. F. Munson, the general superintendent, Lawrence Gallets, the foreman, Harold Gerringer the tractor operator, and Norbert Karl, the able helper.”
“For more than three months now this ‘Caterpillar’ Diesel D4 Tractor has been operating at the amazingly low fuel consumption of only four gallons of Diesel fuel in an eight-hour day,” the ad continued.
The Four Mile oilfield location also has historical significance, according to the Pioneer Oil Museum of New York in Bolivar. An oil strike in 1877 southwest of Olean at Four Mile Valley, “made Rock City Mountain the hub of New York’s first major oilfield.”
Promoting the Allegheny region’s supplier, Beckwith Machine Company, the Gerringer family’s Caterpillar ad proclaimed, “Never was there a cheaper power on a lease, never so much work for so little fuel cost, and never greater satisfaction for the owner built into a Tractor.”
Beckwith Machine provided contact information for sales at field offices in Pittsburgh, Bradford, Wilkes-Barre, and Harrisburg. Bradford today is home to the Penn-Brad Oil Museum.
Chuck Gerringer hope this sharing of a small part of his father’s oilfield history will help preserve it. Learn about other families’ petroleum-related careers and efforts to preserve their heritage in Oil & Gas Families.
More about New York’s lengthy petroleum history can be found in the classic, Empire Oil: The Story of Oil in New York State, by John P Herrick. “If you are doing business in the oil and gas industry in New York State this is a must read. The level of historical research is excellent,” noted one reviewer in 2014 after reading Herrick’s 474-page oil history book.
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Recommended Reading: Empire Oil: The Story of Oil in New York State (1949); Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919
(2017); A History of the New York International Auto Show: 1900-2000
(2000). 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: “Saving a Workover Well Tractor Ad.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/Saving a Workover Well Tractor Ad. Last Updated: June 13, 2026. Original Published Date: June 14, 2020.
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.
