by Bruce Wells | Aug 27, 2024 | Petroleum Pioneers
Will wisely stipulated mineral rights should not be sold.
In 1917, the Tyndall-Wyoming Oil Company’s No. 1 Hogg well discovered oil south of Houston and ended a streak of dry holes dating back to 1901 — when former Texas Governor James S. Hogg first thought oil might be there and leased the land.
The Lone Star State’s 20th governor, “Big Jim” Hogg died in 1906 without witnessing the Texas drilling boom he helped launch. But his unwavering belief in finding oil in the Gulf Coast’s geologic salt domes would benefit the Texas petroleum industry.
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by Bruce Wells | Aug 23, 2024 | Petroleum Pioneers
The U.S. petroleum industry began in 1859 to meet demand for “Coal Oil” — the popular lamp fuel kerosene.
American oil history began in a valley along a creek in remote northwestern Pennsylvania. Today’s exploration and production industry was born on August 27, 1859, near Titusville when a well specifically drilled for oil found it.
Although crude oil had been found and bottled for medicine as early as 1814 in Ohio and in Kentucky in 1818, these had been drilled seeking brine. Drillers often used an ancient technology, the “spring pole” Sometimes the salt wells produced small amounts of oil, an unwanted byproduct.
Considered America’s first petroleum exploration company – the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company of New York – incorporated in 1854. It reorganized as Seneca Oil Company of New Haven Connecticut in 1858.
The advent of cable-tool drilling introduced the wooden derrick into the changing American landscape. The technology applied same basic idea of chiseling a hole deeper into the earth.
Using steam power, a variety of heavy bits, and clever mechanical engineering, cable-tool drillers continued to become more efficient. (Learn more Making Hole – Drilling Technology.) (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Aug 15, 2024 | Petroleum Pioneers
Some considered self-taught geologist Pattillo Higgins “something of a fool” — until January 1o, 1901.
Self-taught geologist Patillo Higgins became known as the “Prophet of Spindletop” a decade after founding his Gladys City Oil, Gas & Manufacturing Company in 1892. He was instrumental in discovering the world-famous Spindletop oilfield at Beaumont, Texas. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Jul 23, 2024 | Petroleum Pioneers
“The World’s Wonder Oil Pool” in North Texas attracted investors, drillers — and Hollywood.
The July 1918 Burkburnett oilfield discovery on a small farm along the Red River in Texas launched a drilling boom that brought great prosperity to North Texas. It was just the beginning. Less than one year later, a well on another farm added 27 square miles to the oilfield, bringing even more exploration and production companies to Wichita County.
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by Bruce Wells | Jul 18, 2024 | Petroleum Pioneers
Once called night riders of the hemlocks, petroleum sleuths separated oil well fact from fiction.
In the hard winter of 1888, 37-year-old oil scout Justus C. McMullen succumbed to pneumonia — contracted while investigating oil production from a well in densely wooded hills near Canonsburg, Pennsylvania.
McMullen, publisher of the Bradford “Petroleum Age” newspaper, already had contributed much to America’s early petroleum industry as a journalist and oilfield detective.
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by Bruce Wells | Jul 14, 2024 | Petroleum Pioneers
Petroleum production began in 1902 near coastal oil seeps, but the real boom arrived in 1957.
Alaska’s petroleum history began long before statehood in 1959 and the major oilfield discovery two years earlier.
The first Alaskan oil well with commercial production was completed in 1902 in rugged, coastal territory where oil seeps had been known for years. (more…)
