by Bruce Wells | Dec 25, 2025 | Petroleum Companies
The Batista government stripped United Cuban Oil of its Cuban operations in 1959.
In July 1953, Fidel Castro’s revolutionaries first challenged the government of Fulgencio Batista with organized guerrilla resistance and revolution. Three years later, United Cuban Oil incorporated with Ted Jones as president and offices in Los Angeles. The investment banking firm of S.D. Fuller & Company underwrote the venture, investing $534,694 to control 66 percent of United Cuban Oil stock.
The new petroleum company’s objective was “to consolidate production, development and exploration of oil and gas on concession rights (38 leases) in Cuba.” Jones had existing but independent ventures working on the north coast of the island, including Companie de Fomento Petrolero.
United Cuban Oil filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to register 2,573,625 common stocks and an initial public offering of 2,000,000 shares at $1.25 a share. The company exchanged 573,625 shares of stock one-for-one to absorb Jones’ Companie de Fomento Petrolero and make it a subsidiary.
Jones’ holdings in Cuba also became subsidiaries: Empresas Petroleras Jones de Cuba and Compania Perforadora Jones de Cuba. A group headed by James J. McBride bought 1,200,000 shares to be held in escrow for three years.
On June 13, 1957, United Cuban Oil announced plans to drill in California. The selected site was on the 111 acre Muller ranch, about three miles west of La Honda. Drilling of the Muller No. 1 well began on June 29. Interviewed by the Santa Cruz Sentinel, company president Jones took the opportunity to promote United Cuban Oil’s prospects with its six producing wells in Cuba.
Six weeks later, Jones, “reportedly stated that oil was struck at 2,610 feet in 45 feet of oil sand. Officials would only say that it was producing a ‘couple of hundred barrels.’” Regardless of production, by the end of August 1957, United Cuban Oil had plugged and abandoned the Muller well after water intrusion and a failed re-drilling effort.
In Texas, United Cuban Oil completed its No. 1A Coker well in Coleman County, five miles northeast of Novice. But the wildcat well turned out to be just a brief producer. It too was abandoned. At the time, United Cuban Oil was selling for about 56 cents a share on the American Stock Exchange, but for any business operating in Cuba, everything changed on January 1, 1959. Fidel Castro seized power, dictator Fulgencio Batista fled the island, and the Cold War became more dangerous.
Back in the United States, United Cuban Oil was reorganized by three wealthy entrepreneurs from El Paso, Texas. In May 1959, they merged Balcones Corporation, Dell City Gas Company, and United Cuban Oil to form a new company while retaining the United Cuban Oil name and Ted Jones as president. The company planned to move its headquarters to El Paso.
Although United Cuban Oil’s underwriters, S.D. Fuller & Company, offered analysis of prospects to potential investors in the Commercial and Financial Chronicle, few were willing to gamble on Cuba’s uncertain future. By November 1959, the Law 635 of the Batista government effectively stripped United Cuban Oil of its Cuban operations.
The stories of exploration and production companies joining petroleum booms (and avoiding busts) can be found updated in Is my Old Oil Stock worth Anything? The American Oil & Gas Historical Society preserves U.S. petroleum history.
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Trek of the Oil Finders: A History of Exploration for Petroleum (1975); History of Oil Well Drilling
(2007);The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power (1991); The Birth of the Oil Industry (1938); Groundbreakers: The Story of Oilfield Technology and the People Who Made it Happen (2015). 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 AOGHS to help maintain this energy education website, a monthly email newsletter, This Week in Oil and Gas History News, and expand historical research. Contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2026 Bruce A. Wells.
Citation Information – Article Title: “United Cuban Oil Inc.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/old-oil-stocks/united-cuban-oil-inc. Last Updated: February 8, 2026. Original Published Date: December 6, 2018.
by Bruce Wells | Dec 24, 2025 | Petroleum Companies
How a 1908 California oilfield discovery led to a merger with Coca-Cola.
The search for oil began in 1904 at Cat Canyon In the Solomon Hills of central Santa Barbara County, California. It remote, challenging terrain, and exploration companies drilling with cable tools failed to find anything for four years before the Palmer Oil Company discovered an oilfield about 10 miles southeast of Santa Maria. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Dec 13, 2025 | Petroleum Companies
He was a controversial North Pole visitor whose fraudulent claims were part of failed oil company ventures, a mail fraud conviction, and jail time.
Arctic explorer Dr. Frederick Albert Cook in 1908 made the widely accepted claim to have reached the North Pole after an arduous journey. He became a celebrity after accounts of his feat appeared in newspapers. Cook’s near approach to the pole would be erased in less than a year when Admiral Robert E. Peary made a scientifically documented journey to achieve the milestone.
In 1909, a special commission at the University of Copenhagen investigated Cook’s conclusion that he had reached the pole before Peary. After examining Cook’s records, the commission on December 21, 1909, found no evidence Cook had reached the pole. The U.S. Congress formally recognized Peary’s claim in 1911.
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by Bruce Wells | Nov 26, 2025 | Petroleum Companies
The gas that would not burn — and the professor who in 1905 extracted helium from a natural gas well.
Drilling for natural gas in May 1903, an exploratory well drilled by Gas, Oil and Developing Company found natural gas beneath William Greenwell’s farm near Dexter, Kansas. The discovery came as the company drilled into a geologic formation that produced “a howling gasser” that would not burn.
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by Bruce Wells | Nov 7, 2025 | Petroleum Companies
New York, Manhattan, Metropolitan, Municipal, Knickerbocker and Harlem gas companies merged in 1884.
The history of Con Edison includes stories of work crews from New York City’s many competing gas companies digging up lines of rivals — and literally battling for customers, giving rise to the term “gas house gangs.” (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Oct 15, 2025 | Petroleum Companies
Hard lessons learned in the Wyoming Powder River Basin.
During World War I, the Winona Oil Corporation set up operations in Casper, Wyoming, with holdings of 1,200 acres of “selected land in the heart of Powder River.” The small, newly established exploration company reported having one drilling rig and another ready to be “rigged up” at another site.
A Winona Oil Company station sold gasoline and and Ivaline Motor Oil, circa 1919. After months of difficult drilling, the company’s first exploratory well reached a depth of 700 feet without finding oil.
As the Powder River Basin attracted exploration companies, a 1918 discovery at a depth of about 2,600 feet by the Ohio Oil Company (later Marathon) would grow into the largest in the Rocky Mountains. Ohio Oil could afford drilling more productive wells a thousand feet deeper.
Along with earlier discoveries at Salt Creek (1908) and Big Muddy (1916), the Lance Creek field “brought an immediate boom and derricks sprang up everywhere,” according to the Niobrara Historical Society. The Basin’s abundant shale deposits also played a role.
With capitalization of $200,000, Winona Oil was considered a “poor boy” drilling venture dependent upon investors to fund continued drilling despite the risks. The company offered stock at 5 cents a share. Advertisements in the Ogden Standard enticed investors with “Winona Is Here to make Money, Money, Money.”
In February 1918, C. Kirchner, secretary of the Winona Oil, conducted a promotional demonstration of the reduction of shale oil to gas for about 50 onlookers. “This gas was lighted and burned during the entire experiment to such an extent that a couple of engineers in the party made the remark that the gas itself would furnish 90 percent of the fuel necessary for the original reduction,” it was later proclaimed.
This Winona Oil interest in shale oil did not develop, although other contemporary ventures did pursue it (see Ute Oil Company).
Powder River Oilfield
Winona Oil by 1919 had only been able to drill 700 feet in its first drilling effort somewhere “on the north side of the railroad.”
“Hocus Pocus-or-Common Sense?” Ivaline Motor Oil sales did not help the Winona Oil Company to survive its drilling ventures in the highly competitive oilfields of the Powder River Basin.
In March 1919, a trade magazine noted that “the Powder River Syndicate has undertaken to finish the well commenced by the Winona Oil Corporation at Powder River, Natrona Co., according to reports current in Casper.”
Another article in the Oil & Gas News added, “In the Powder River field, the Winona Oil Corporation has announced the purchase of a drilling machine which will be used to complete the company’s first well, which has been underway for months. The Winona claims to have solved all its difficulties and expects to go with its work without further delay.”
By the end of May, Winona Oil Company reportedly survived its financial difficulties and had reentered the field. Plans were by then underway to drill a second well.
Good news came the following month when the first well was described as “gassing heavily, and Casper people interested in the enterprise are very optimistic over the prospects,” the trade publication proclaimed, adding. “Should the well prove a good one, a large tract north of Powder River station would be added to the territory considered proven.”
However, by August the good news had gone bad; the gasser well had to be abandoned, “as the hole was started with a casing too small to see it thoroughly.”
Powder River Syndicate
A second well was spudded by the Powder River Syndicate with Winona Oil a fifty-fifty partner. “The Winona Powder River Syndicate well No. 2, which was begun when the first hole pinched-out, is making 100 feet a day, according to reports from the field, and is down about 500 feet. This well is located north of Powder River, on Winona holdings,” noted the Oil & Gas News on September 4.
The publication reported bad news on January 29, 1920. “The Winona well at Powder River is also shut down, but it is claimed that drilling will resume in the spring,” the News noted. “This is the second well, the first having been lost on account of a bit wedged in the hole.”
Drilling did not resume in the spring or anytime thereafter. Despite the efforts of Winona Oil and the hopes of its investors, the independent exploration company did not survive. Cities Service Company bought Winona Oil and moved the Winona division to St. Paul, Minnesota.
More articles about small exploration and production companies attempting to join petroleum booms (and avoid busts) can be found in Is my Old Oil Stock worth Anything?
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Recommended Reading: Black Gold, Patterns in the Development of Wyoming’s Oil Industry (1997); 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. Please become an annual AOGHS supporter and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2025 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Winona Corporation.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/old-oil-stocks/winona-oil-corporation. Last Updated: October 18, 2025. Original Published Date: March 23, 2016.
