by Bruce Wells | Aug 29, 2026 | Petroleum Companies
Future CITGO discovered giant mid-continent oilfields.
Cities Service Company was established in September 1910 by Henry Latham Doherty as a public utility holding company in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, home of the first commercial Oklahoma oil well. Five years after its founding, Doherty’s company would make its own historic discoveries.
Doherty began by selectively purchasing natural gas-producing properties in Kansas and Oklahoma. He acquired distributing companies and linked them to his natural gas supplies. Cities Service Company derived income from the subsidiary corporations’ stock dividends. One natural gas subsidiary drilled exploratory wells in central Kansas.
Occidental Petroleum acquired Cities Service Company in 1982 in a $4 billion merger.
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by Bruce Wells | Aug 21, 2026 | Petroleum Companies
The “Snake Hollow Gusher” brought Pittsburgh a $35 million natural gas drilling boom — and bust.
“Rarely, a community sees its pulse quicken with a get-rich-quick beat, feels the boom fever strike, suffers the chill of disillusion when the ‘El Dorado’ fades out and then recovers,” noted the Pittsburgh Press in 1934, decades after the excitement began.
“But this is what happened at the McKeesport gas field, scene of the Pittsburgh district’s biggest boom and loudest crash,” the newspaper added. McKeesport Gas Company was among the many petroleum company casualties.
Pennsylvania’s natural gas fields attracted investors to many ambitious drilling ventures, including McKeesport Gas Company.
Following the first U.S. oil discovery at Titusville, Pennsylvania, in late August 1859, natural gas development began in western Pennsylvania.
With new oilfields came discoveries of large volumes of gas suited for illumination, heating, and manufacturing. Natural gas began to be widely used after two brothers drilled into a giant, highly pressurized field on November 3, 1878.
The Haymaker brothers’ discovery brought the new energy resource to Pittsburgh factories and steel mills. By the late 1880s, Pittsburgh skies cleared for the first time in decades as mills and factories burned natural gas instead of coal.
Learn more about the once nationally famous Haymaker gas well of 1878 in Natural Gas is King in Pittsburgh.
Biggest Boom
For investors in 1919, the region’s natural gas history seemed to be repeating itself. McKeesport Gas Company was one of about 300 petroleum companies that sprang up within six months of an August 30, 1919, discovery — a runaway natural gas well near McKeesport.
The “Snake Hollow Gusher” between the Monongahela and Youghiogheny rivers blew in at more than 60 million cubic feet of natural gas a day. The headline-making gas well, drilled by S.J. Brendel and David Foster, prompted a frenzy that saw $35 million dollars invested during the boom’s seven-month lifespan.
McKeesport Gas Company incorporated on December 5, 1919, and two weeks later enticed investors with advertisements in the Pittsburgh Press and the Gazette Times newspapers. “Over 500 Acres of Leases in the Heart of the McKeesport Gas Fields,” proclaimed one newspaper ad, offering stock at $1.25 a share.
“Many residents signed leases for drilling on their land,” noted another local reporter. “They bought and sold gas company stock on street corners and in barbershops transformed into brokerage houses in anticipation of fortunes to be made.”
Then the natural gas reserves ran out.
Loudest Crash
By the beginning of 1921, McKeesport’s natural gas production was falling in about 180 producing wells and new drilling resulted in about 440 unsuccessful wells — dry holes. The field would be reported as “the scene of the Pittsburgh district’s biggest boom and loudest crash.”
Of the estimated $35 million sunk into the nine square mile area of the boom, only about $3 million came out.
A detail from “McKeesport, Snake Hollow, Gas Belt,” a circa 1920 panoramic image by Hagerty & Griffey. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.
A circa 1920 panoramic photograph at the Library of Congress captured the drilling boom at the McKeesport, Snake Hollow, Gas Belt, by Hagerty & Griffey.
McKeesport Gas Company likely drilled a few of the boom’s hundreds of dry holes, and with funds exhausted, disappeared into petroleum history. Fifteen years later, McKeesport Mayor George H. Lysle explained to a Pittsburgh newspaper reporter how the town survived the “seven-month wonder” natural gas boom:
“Other boom towns,” he said, “were built merely on the strength of the wealth that was to pour from their wells or mines. But McKeesport and vicinity was established before the boom came.”
When the drilling ended, Lysle added, “People still had their jobs in the mills and stores, the permanent population remained, and the natural resources of the district, except for gas, were still as great as ever. We were still a great industrial community.”
Advances in the science of petroleum geology and improved production technologies have brought surer results than the Snake Hollow Gusher. As early as 2010, the region’s gas boom — the Marcellus Shale — extended across western Pennsylvania into other Appalachian Basin states.
Because of the region’s history, McKeesport Gas Company stock certificates are considered collectible; the stories of other exploration companies trying to join petroleum booms (and avoid busts) can be found in the updated research in Is my Old Oil Stock worth Anything?
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Recommended Reading: McKeesport – Images of America: Pennsylvania
(2007); Western Pennsylvania’s Oil Heritage
(2008); The Extraction State, A History of Natural Gas in America (2021); Your Amazon purchase benefits the American Oil & Gas Historical Society. As an Amazon Associate, AOGHS earns a commission from qualifying purchases.
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please support this website, subscribe to the monthly email newsletter, and help expand our historical research. Contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2026 Bruce A. Wells.
Citation Information: Article Title: “McKeesport Gas Company.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/stocks/mckeesport-gas-company. Last Updated: August 21, 2025. Original Published Date: April 29, 2013.
by Bruce Wells | Jul 23, 2026 | Petroleum Companies, Petroleum History Almanac
Seeking petroleum riches in risky Mid-Continent fields.
The Kansas petroleum industry began in 1892 with an oilfield at Neodesha. In 1915, an oilfield discovery at El Dorado near Wichita revealed the giant Mid-Continent field, but it took years for business sense to arrive, according to the editor of a 1910 History of Wichita and Sedgwick County, Kansas. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Jun 6, 2026 | Petroleum Companies
Exploration company meets its fate during North Texas drilling boom.
Established soon after World War I, the Ajax Oil Company was among hundreds that rushed into Texas and Oklahoma oilfields seeking petroleum riches,
Joining hundreds of new and established exploration ventures, Ajax Oil Company was organized by members of the Sowell family in Dallas as a joint stock association on July 25, 1919. It was capitalized at $4,950,000 and offered both Class A and Class B shares. Class A shares “had preference as to assets as well as dividends.”
Beginning in September 1919 shareholders were paid dividends of one percent per month for seven consecutive months. Company’s stock sold for about $5 per share.
Ajax Oil acquired leases in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, including leases in the booming, increasing crowded Ranger and the Burkburnett oilfields. Production from these North Texas fields were making headlines worldwide — and causing oil prices to drop as costs for drilling equipment soared.Black Gold Rush
In 1917, a wildcat well in North Texas struck oil near the small town of Ranger. The J.H. McCleskey No. 1 well erupted a geyser of oil on October 17, 1917 (see Roaring Ranger wins WWI).
The Ranger well alone reached a daily production of 1,700 barrels. Its gained international fame for Ranger as the town whose oil wiped out critical oil shortages during World War I, allowing the Allies to “float to victory on a wave of oil.”
About one year later, 135 miles due north at Burkburnett, a July 1918 wildcat well on S.L. Fowler’s farm launched a another North Texas drilling boom along the Red River. It would make the town near Wichita Falls famous (see “Boom Town” Burkburnett).
The Burkburnett oilfield inspired a 1940 motion picture featuring Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy. Gable had been a teenager working as a roustabout in nearby Oklahoma oilfields when the discovery was made.
Investment capital and aspiring millionaires overwhelmed Burkburnett and Ranger as well as nearby Cisco, where a young war veteran saw crowds of roughnecks and bought his first motel (see Oil Boom Brings First Hilton Hotel).
The 1918 Burkburnett oilfield discovery was featured in the popular 1940 MGM movie “Boom Town.”
Ajax Oil Company
Ajax Oil Company’s properties reportedly included 11 producing wells and the equipment to drill more. The company reported completed the wells, often in association with the Hercules Petroleum Company and Halleck-Whales Company, but production figures cannot be found.
Dividends abruptly ended in March 1920 and shareholders were advised that the company was investing in new equipment to expand operations. Typical of a petroleum boom, notes one historian, as the region’s increased production lowered oil prices, drilling costs rose.
In August, a B.A. Butterworth sued Ajax Oil Company for debts. It is unclear what happened next, but by December of the following year, Ajax Oil Company was bankrupt and in receivership.
The petroleum booms in Ranger and Burkburnett resulted in many newly formed companies rushing to North Texas. But as local historian Bernadette Pruitt has noted, much of the land already had been leased. Inevitably, almost all companies arrived too late. Many of the new ventures departed — or failed.
Learn more about the era’s Intense competition throughout the Mid-Continent discoveries in Pump Jack Capital of Texas.
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Recommended Reading: Trek of the Oil Finders: A History of Exploration for Petroleum (1975); History of Oil Well Drilling
(2007). 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: “Ajax Oil Company.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org. Last Updated: June 11, 2026. Original Published Date: June 24, 2013.
by Bruce Wells | Jun 1, 2026 | Petroleum Companies
When Edwin L. Drake drilled the first U.S. oil well in 1859 along a creek at Titusville, Pennsylvania, he transformed the landscape of the Allegheny River valley — and America’s energy future. The former railroad conductor’s discovery launched a new industry as investors and drillers rushed to cash in on the new resource for making kerosene for lamps.
Wallace Oil Company would be among the earliest U.S. petroleum companies, and the venture’s fate would presage the riskiness of America’s new exploration and production industry.
Stock certificate detail of exploration company founded by grocery store owner John Wallace in 1865.
The ensuing scramble fueled the nation’s first petroleum drilling boom. Newspapers reported discoveries on farms clustered in the northwestern Pennsylvania oil region.
Newly incorporated oil companies rushed to construct wooden derricks with steam-powered cable tools for “making hole.” Drillers, some skilled at using spring-poles for water wells, came to John Rynd’s farm at the junction of Oil Creek and Cherry Tree Run, the Blood farm to the north, and the widow McClintock farm to the south.
America catches Oil Fever
Operating a grocery store on the Rynd farm in 1859, Irish immigrant John Wallace witnessed the excitement firsthand. When the first of many wells found oil on the farm in 1861, derricks already crowded nearby hillsides. Four years later, the 24-year-old entrepreneur caught oil fever and incorporated Wallace Oil Company in 1865 with an office at 319 Walnut Street in Philadelphia.
Witnessing the oil region’s drilling boom from his Rynd farm grocery store, John Wallace joined it. Oil Region of Pennsylvania,1865 map courtesy David Rumsey Historical Map Collection, F.W. Beers & Co.
With the science of petroleum geology in its infancy, “creekology” and oil seeps often were the only tools for finding promising locations to drill. Some exploration companies turned to dowsing (hazel or peach tree rods preferred) to find oil.
Wallace’s company sold stock certificates and acquired a 3/32 royalty interest in a 200-acre tract on the neighboring McClintock farm (previously owned by investors Curtiss, Haldeman, and Fawcett).
Although records offer no evidence of Wallace Oil Company actually drilling and completing a well, Wallace’s lease trading speculations, financed by his 3/32 royalty income, and energetic sales of stock, made the company money.
“Pleasant morning – Rouseville,” detail from a stereographic view, circa 1875, with petroleum company officers, lawyers, lease agents, and a small oil exchange. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.
Purchasers of Wallace’s stock stood to gain from both royalties and appreciation. The financial horizon looked promising. In 1865, a 42-gallon barrel of oil sold for $6.59 a barrel (nearly $100 in 2013 dollars).
Boom and Bust
As the gamble to find oil spread, Pithole Creek and other oilfield discoveries inspired more drilling — and speculation at oil exchanges in Titusville, Oil City, and elsewhere.
Those seeking petroleum riches in 1864 included John Wilkes Booth, whose Dramatic Oil Company drilled on a 3.5-acre lease on the Fuller farm.
By the end of 1869, Wallace Oil Company ‘s McClintock farm leases still produced an average of 200 barrels of oil daily from 32 wells. It took three more years before Wallace Oil Company paid its first and only dividend to investors, who received one cent per share in 1874. But by then, one industry publication noted, “oil had left the territory.”
The company dutifully paid the state an annual “Tax on Stock,” and in 1871 paid its first “Tax on Income.”
A circa 1875 Library of Congress stereograph of a small building includes signs for the “Wallace Oil Company,” the “Allegheny & Pittsburgh Oil Co.,” the “Oil Basin Petroleum Co.,” the “Buchanan Royalty Oil Co.,” and the “Rouseville Oil Co.”
Wallace Oil Company in Rouseville is among many stereographic views preserved in the Library of Congress.
Rouseville in 1861 had been the scene of a deadly oil well fire, one the earliest fatal conflagrations of the U.S. oil and natural gas industry.
By the early 1890s, Wallace Oil Company’s expanded oil-region holdings were reduced to the original 3/32 royalty from its McClintock property, which no longer produced commercial quantities of oil. Overproduction had drained profitability from the countryside.
In August 1895, American Investor reported Wallace Oil Company had lost its wells and property and could not even muster resources to pay legal fees associated with formal dissolution of the company. The grim assessment concluded, “The company is in a hopeless condition. The stock has no market value.”
Visit the Drake Well Museum and Park in Titusville. More stories of exploration and production companies joining petroleum booms (and avoiding busts) can be found in Is my Old Oil Stock worth Anything?
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Recommended Reading: Trek of the Oil Finders: A History of Exploration for Petroleum (1975); Myth, Legend, Reality: Edwin Laurentine Drake and the Early Oil Industry
(2009); The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power (1991); History Of Oil Well Drilling (2007). 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: “Wallace Oil Company.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https: https://aoghs.org/old-oil-stocks/wallace-oil-company. Last Updated: June 18, 2026. Original Published Date: June 17, 2021.
by Bruce Wells | Apr 9, 2026 | Petroleum Companies
John Wilkes Booth and his actor friends drilled for Pennsylvania oil in 1864 — and found it.
After forming an oil company and drilling for “black gold” in booming northwestern Pennsylvania, the actor’s dreams of a petroleum fortune collapsed in June 1864. He then sought fame as a martyr to the Confederacy. A failed oilman turned assassin.
As the Civil War approached its bloody conclusion, John Wilkes Booth in January 1864 made the first of several trips to Franklin, Pennsylvania, where he purchased an oil lease on the Fuller farm. Maps reveal the three-acre strip of land on the farm, about one mile south of Franklin and on the east side of the Allegheny River. (more…)
