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 | Mar 31, 2026 | Petroleum Companies
A 1954 well drilled by the Ohio Oil Company reached more than four miles deep.
Founded in 1887 by Henry M. Ernst, the Ohio Oil Company got its exploration and production start in northwestern Ohio, at the time a leading oil-producing region. Two years later, John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Trust purchased the growing company — known as “The Ohio” — and in 1905 moved headquarters from Lima to Findlay.
Soon establishing itself as a major pipeline company, by 1908 the Ohio controlled half of the oil production in three states. The company resumed independent operation in 1911 following the dissolution of the Standard Oil monopoly. The new Ohio Oil’s exploration operations expanded into Wyoming and further westward.
The Ohio Oil Company in 1930 purchased Transcontinental Oil, a refiner that had marketed gasoline under the trademark “Marathon” since 1920. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.
By 1915, the company’s infrastructure had added 1,800 miles of pipeline as well as gathering and storage facilities from its newly acquired Illinois Pipe Line Company. The Ohio then purchased the Lincoln Oil Refining Company to better integrate and develop more crude oil outlets.
“Ohio Oil saw the increasing need for marketing their own products with the ever-increasing supply of automobiles appearing on the primitive roads,” explained Gary Drye in a 2006 forum at Oldgas.com.
The company ventured into marketing in June 1924 by purchasing Lincoln Oil Refining Company of Robinson, Illinois. With an assured supply of petroleum, the Ohio Oil’s “Linco” brand quickly expanded.
The Ohio Oil Company marketed its oil products as “Linco” after purchasing the Lincoln Oil Refinery in 1920. Undated photo of a station in Fremont, Ohio.
Meanwhile, a subsidiary in 1926 co-discovered the giant Yates oilfield in the Permian Basin of New Mexico and West Texas. “With huge successes in oil exploration and production ventures, Ohio Oil realized they needed even more retail outlets for their products,” Drye reported. By 1930, the company distributed Linco products throughout Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Kentucky.
Marathon of Ohio Oil
In 1930 Ohio Oil purchased Transcontinental Oil, a refiner that had marketed gasoline under the trademark “Marathon” across the Midwest and South since 1920. Acquiring the Marathon product name included the Pheidippides Greek runner trademark and the “Best in the long run” slogan.
Adopted in 2011, the third logo for corporate branding in Marathon Oil’s 124-year history.
According to Drye, Transcontinental “can best be remembered for a significant ‘first’ when in 1929 they opened several Marathon stations in Dallas, Texas in conjunction with Southland Ice Company’s ‘Tote’m’ stores (later 7-Eleven) creating the first gasoline/convenience store tie-in.”
The Marathon brand proved so popular that by World War II the name had replaced Linco at stations in the original five-state territory. After the war, Ohio Oil continued to purchase other companies and expand throughout the 1950s.
Ohio Oil’s California Record
As deep drilling technologies continued to advance in the 1950s, a record depth of 21,482 feet was reached by the Ohio Oil Company in the San Joaquin Valley of California.
Petroleum Engineer magazine in 1954 noted the well set a record despite being “halted by a fishing job.”
The deep oil well drilling attempt about 17 miles southwest of Bakersfield in prolific Kern County, experienced many challenges. A final problem led to it being plugged with cement on December 31, 1954. At more than four miles deep, down-hole drilling technology of the time was not up to the task when the drill bit became stuck.
The challenge of retrieving obstructions from deep in a well’s borehole – “fishing” – has challenged the petroleum industry since the first tool stuck at 134 feet and ruined a well spudded just four days after the famous 1859 discovery by Edwin Drake in Pennsylvania (see The First Dry Hole).
In a 1954 article about deep drilling technology, The Petroleum Engineer noted the Kern County well of Ohio Oil — which would become Marathon Oil — set a record despite being “halted by a fishing job.” The well was a financial loss.
A 1953 Kern County well drilled by Richfield Oil Corporation produced oil from a depth of 17,895 feet, according to the magazine. At the time, the average U.S. cost for the nearly 100 wells drilled below 15,000 feet was about $550,000 per well. Learn more California petroleum exploration history by visiting the West Kern Oil Museum.
More than 630 exploratory wells with a total footage of almost three million feet were drilled in California during 1954, according to the American Association of Petroleum Geologists — the AAPG, established in 1917.
In 1962, celebrating its 75th anniversary, The Ohio changed its name to Marathon Oil Company and launched its new “M” in a hexagon shield logo design. Other milestones include:
1981 – U.S. Steel (USX) purchased the company.
1985 – Yates field produced its billionth barrel of oil.
1990 – Marathon opened headquarters in Houston.
2005 – Marathon became 100 percent owner of Marathon Ashland Petroleum LLC, which later became Marathon Petroleum Corp.
2011 – Completed a $3.5 billion investment in the Eagle Ford Shale play in Texas.
On June 30, 2011, Marathon Oil became an independent upstream company and unveiled an “energy wave” logo as it prepared to separate from Marathon Petroleum, based in Findlay. Read a more detailed history in Ohio Oil Company and visit the Hancock Historical Museum in Findlay.
On May 29, 2024, Marathon Oil announced it was being acquired by ConocoPhillips in an all-stock transaction valued at $22.5 billion.
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Recommended Reading: Portrait in Oil: How Ohio Oil Company Grew to Become Marathon
(1962). 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 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: “Marathon of Ohio Oil.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/stocks/marathon-ohio-oil. Last Updated: March 31, 2026. Original Published Date: December 28, 2014.
by Bruce Wells | Mar 28, 2026 | Petroleum Companies
Discovering oil in 1889 near natural seeps in the hill country of Indian Territory.
Drilled near petroleum seeps in 1889 and completed one year later southwest of Chelsea in Indian Territory, Edward Byrd’s oil well in the Cherokee Nation is not as well known as the “Bartlesville Gusher” of 1897, the official first Oklahoma oil well.
What would become known as the Indian Territory began when President Andrew Jackson signed into law the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The legislation established a process where the president could forcibly relocate native American tribes westward.
Chelsea began in 1881 as a railroad stop in the Cherokee Nation. Its oil well was drilled in 1889 and completed a year later, producing half a barrel of oil per day from 36 feet deep.
Land “remote from white settlements” west of Arkansas was deemed the best place to settle the tribes, according to The Five Civilized Tribes: Indian Territory, a 1900 article in the annual Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York.
Title and deed gave ownership of the land to the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Creek, and Cherokee, where they could establish tribal governments under the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs.
“It was intended to settle them there for all time, whereby they could live to themselves, according to their own pleasure, with self-government, under the protection of the general Government,” notes C.H. Fitch, author of the Journal article.
However, westward growth and legislation such as the Dawes Act (1887) and Curtis Act (1898) ultimately stripped the tribal governments of their authority. Their designated tribal lands were reduced from about 150 million acres to 78 million acres as America’s search for petroleum reached into Indian Territory.
Indian Territory Oil
In 1882, Edward Byrd, a Cherokee by marriage, found oil seeps southwest of Chelsea in Indian Territory. Two years later, the Cherokee Nation passed a law authorizing the organization of a company “for the purpose of finding petroleum, or rock oil, and thus increasing the revenue of the Cherokee Nation.”
Seven years earlier than a headline-making 1897 gusher at Bartlesville in the Cherokee Nation, the United States Oil and Gas Company completed an oil well at Chelsea, about 35 miles southeast.
Leases were limited to Cherokee citizens, and in 1887 Byrd organized the United States Oil and Gas Company with his partner William B. Linn of Pennsylvania, home of the first U.S. oil well of 1859. The company had a contingent of four Kansas investors: William Woodman, Finley Ross, Oak Daeson and Martin Hellar.
Byrd’s petroleum exploration venture secured a 100,000-acre lease from the Cherokee Nation west of Chelsea, between the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway and the Verdigris River. The lease covered portions of present-day Rogers and Nowata counties in Oklahoma.
In 1890, United States Oil and Gas completed its first well on Spencer Creek, within yards of Byrd’s old oil seeps, using basic technologies for “making hole.” This Indian Territory well produced oil seven years before the Bartlesville well — but just half a barrel of oil a day from 36 feet deep.
Ten more marginal wells followed, and by the last quarter of 1891, the company reported a total of “twelve barrels of oil pumped” in what became the Chelsea-Alluwe field.
With little production and no large commercial market nearby, Byrd’s venture shut down. He then organized a group of Cherokee citizens into the Hugh B. Henry and Company and secured additional leases covering thousands of acres for United States Oil and Gas.
Cherokee Oil and Gas
John B. Phillips, an experienced independent oil producer from Butler, Pennsylvania, formed Cherokee Oil and Gas Company to take over United States Oil and Gas properties.
Under federal law, the leases had to be approved by the Department of the Interior, which reduced the size from more than 100,000 acres to 12,000 acres. Cherokee Oil and Gas also bought the 11 shallow, marginal wells of United States Oil and Gas for “twenty-five cents on the dollar.”
Cherokee Oil and Gas drilled deeper wells and found high-grade oil in two wells (1,450 feet deep and 1,320 feet deep) before a boiler explosion shut both wells down. Other small producing wells followed as the company continued drilling.
Meanwhile, another Indian Territory company explored near Bartlesville oil seeps, about 40 miles west. On April 15, 1897, the Cudahy Oil Company “shot” with nitroglycerin the company’s Nellie Johnstone No. 1 well after finding signs of oil in March. This oilfield discovery well began producing up to 75 barrels of oil a day from a depth of 1,320 feet.
Despite the production, Cudahy Oil was confronted with a lack of infrastructure for moving oil to markets. With no storage tanks, pipelines, or railroads available, the Nellie Johnstone No. 1 was capped for two years.
In 1898, Congress passed the Curtis Act, “for the Protection of the People of Indian Territory.” The new law, amending the Dawes Act of 1887, is described by the Oklahoma Historical Society as “the culmination of legislation designed to strip tribal governments of their authority and give it to Congress and/or the federal government.”
In Indian Territory oilfields, operations were brought to a standstill because of difficulties with titles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. “The title of the oil and minerals remains in trust with the United States Government under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, who must ratify every lease to make it valid.”
The legislation also stipulated, “The amount of 640 acres can only be acquired by a single individual or company.”
An 1890 marginal producing well at Chelsea could be considered Oklahoma’s first petroleum production.
However, both the Cherokee Oil and Gas Company and the Cudahy Oil Company had leased more than 300,000 acres from the Cherokee Nation before the Curtis Act. Congressional hearings and litigation followed.
In 1902, the Superior Court of the District of Columbia upheld “the power of the Secretary of the Interior to lease Cherokee oil lands” in litigation over a lease of 12,000 acres held by the Cherokee Oil and Gas Company. Cudahy Oil’s prospects were profoundly affected as well.
In 1904, the Los Angeles Herald reported on the pending merger of Cherokee Oil and Gas Company with Cudahy Oil Company to form a new combined enterprise, the Cudahy Pipe Line and Refining Company.
The merger never took place, although the combined assets reportedly amounted to 137 producing wells on the Cherokee Oil and Gas property and 87 producing wells on Cudahy leases for a total production of 2,100 barrels of oil a day.
“The producers are rather chary about signing up with the Cudahy concern,” noted the Weekly Examiner of Bartlesville in 1905. “An effort is being made to sell stock to the producers, but it is said the latter are not falling over each other in an effort to get on the independent band wagon.”
Near Route 66 south of Chelsea, an oil well pump, historic marker, and two tanks preserve the 1899 history of the “First Oil Well in Oklahoma.” Photo courtesy Tillie, Road Trip Journeys.
With the Curtis Act having cleared the last impediment to statehood, Oklahoma became the 46th state on November 16, 1907. Cherokee Oil and Gas Company continued to operate, and by 1918, the company owned a half interest in 375 oil wells at Chelsea.
Old Faucett Well
Although the 1890 marginal oil producer at Chelsea could be called Oklahoma’s first, records show that in the Choctaw Nation, a well was completed by Dr. H.W. Faucett and Choctaw Oil and Refining Company.
The well drilled in the Choctaw Nation also has a claim to the “first Oklahoma oil well” title. The discovery on Choctaw land reached 1,400 feet deep, where it produced some oil — but not in commercial quantities. The “Old Faucett Well” of 1890 was abandoned after Dr. Fawcett fell ill and died later that year.
The Cherokee-Warren Oil and Gas Company (incorporated on March 31, 1919) took over the remaining assets of Faucett’s Choctaw Oil and Refining Company, the venture that had drilled another of Oklahoma’s first oil wells.
However, the 1897 gusher at Bartlesville officially remains the Sooner State’s first oil well. A replica cable-tool derrick of the Nellie Johnstone No. 1 can be found at Discovery 1 Park in Bartlesville. The wooden, 84-foot derrick produces a popular water-gushing demonstration among other petroleum exhibits, including an oilfield firefighting cannon.
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Recommended Reading: Oil in Oklahoma
(1976); Oil And Gas In Oklahoma: Petroleum Geology In Oklahoma
(2013); The Oklahoma Petroleum Industry
(1980); Conoco: 125 Years of Energy
(2000); Phillips, The First 66 Years
(1983). 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. 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: “Another First Oklahoma Oil Well.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K. L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/stocks/another-first-oklahoma-oil-well. Last Updated: March 28, 2026. Original Published Date: March 9, 2017.
