A popular 1837 book by Washington Irving helped reveal natural resources of the Far West.
Tales of a Wyoming “tar spring” convinced the experienced Pennsylvania oilfield explorer Mike Murphy to drill a shallow well in 1883. He sold his oil to Union Pacific to lubricate train axles. Others would follow in the search for Wyoming oilfields.
Civil War veteran Philip Shannon explored for oil at Salt Creek outside of Casper in 1890. His well revealed what proved to be a 22,000-acre oilfield. An oil gusher drilled by a Dutch company made headlines in 1908.
But the story of Wyoming’s petroleum really began with Washington Irving, author of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” (more…)
A 1930 wildcat well and two others miles away revealed the largest oilfield in the lower 48 states.
The East Texas oilfield — one of the greatest petroleum discoveries in United States history — arrived during the Great Depression.
With a crowd of more than 4,000 landowners, leaseholders, stockholders, creditors, and others gathered for the spectacle, the Daisy Bradford No. 3 well erupted a column of oil on a farm near Kilgore, Texas, on October 3, 1930.
“Thousands crowded their way to the site of Daisy Bradford No. 3, hoping to be there when and if oil gushed from the well to wash away the misery of the Great Depression,” noted one Kilgore historian. Photo courtesy Jack Elder and Caleb Pirttelli, The Glory Days.
Incredible to most geologists, another wildcat well 10 miles to the north — the Lou Della Crim No. 1 well, drilled by Malcolm Crim on his mother’s farm — began flowing on December 28, 1930. A month later and 15 miles north of that well, a third, the Lathrop No. 1 well, drilled by W.A. “Monty” Moncrief, delivered another gusher.
At first, the great distance between these “black gold” discoveries convinced geologists — and virtually all of the major oil companies — that the wildcat wells had found separate oilfields.
J. Malcolm Crim of Kilgore names his wildcat well after his mother, Lou Della.
However, to the delight of many small, struggling farmers who owned the land, it finally became apparent that the three wells were all part of one giant oilfield.
H.L. Hunt and Oklahoma Wildcatters
In 1905, when Haroldson Lafayette “H.L.” Hunt was just 16 years old, he left his Illinois farm family and headed west. Along the way, he worked as a dishwasher, mule team driver, logger, and farmhand — and even tried out for semi-pro baseball (also see Oilfield of Dreams — Gassers, Oilers and Drillers).
H.L. Hunt’s oil career began in Arkansas and East Texas and spanned much of the industry’s history, notes Hunt Oil Company. Photo circa 1911.
During his travels, young H.L. Hunt learned to gamble and played cards in bunkhouses, hobo camps, and saloons. But his life changed when an Arkansas wildcat well, the Busey-Armstrong No. 1, erupted oil on January 10, 1921. Hunt joined the speculative rush and drilling frenzy that followed. He began with $50 in his pocket.
The Arkansas oilfield discovery catapulted the population of El Dorado from 4,000 to over 25,000 (learn more in First Arkansas Oil Wells).
While Hunt was pursuing oil in Arkansas, an unlikely pair was doing the same in Oklahoma. Sixty-five-year-old Columbus Marion Joiner was a former lawyer and Tennessee legislator who had spent years making a living as an oil lease broker in Oklahoma. He had lost a $200,000 fortune in the financial panic of 1907 — and began pursuing the wealth a successful wildcatter and promoter might find.
Columbus Marion Joiner believed in geologist A.D. Lloyd, especially after Lloyd located wells in Seminole, Oklahoma, oilfields.
A friend of Joiner, Joseph Idelbert Durham, had studied medicine and worked as a government chemist in the Idaho gold rush. Durham had also prospected for gold in the Yukon and Mexico before peddling patent oil medicines in “Dr. Alonzo Durham’s Great Medicine Show.”
Taking the name “A.D. Lloyd,” Durham proclaimed, “I’m not a professional geologist…but I’ve studied the earth more and know more about it than any professional geologist now alive will ever know.”
Joiner believed in “Doc” Lloyd, and his confidence was reinforced when Lloyd accurately located the rich Seminole oilfield. Joiner drilled to within 200 feet of discovering this previously untapped reserve — but stopped short when his money ran out. Empire Gas & Fuel Company brought in the field’s discovery well on a nearby lease.
After a similar near miss in Oklahoma’s Cement field and a stretch of bad luck, the broke but optimistic Joiner headed to Dallas, where oilmen and oil money were plentiful. Meanwhile, A.D. Lloyd was off to Mexico, promoting new oil ventures.
Back in the Oil Business: H.L. Hunt, Inc.
H.L. Hunt’s success in Arkansas enabled him to investigate other investment possibilities, and with El Dorado oilfield production diminishing, he was lured to Florida real estate. He sold his interests to the Louisiana Oil and Refining Company, retaining a few wells in the El Dorado and Smackover fields.
Dedicated in 1955, a monument in Shreveport, Louisiana, commemorates the state’s rich petroleum heritage. Photo by Bruce Wells.
Hunt ultimately abandoned the Florida real estate market and returned to Arkansas, where in 1934 he formed H.L. Hunt, Inc. He was back in the oil business, the no-limit game he loved. Hunt traveled to Shreveport, Louisiana, and checked into the Washington-Youree Hotel, where the marble lobby hosted crowds of competing oil operators, promoters, and “lease hounds” — all looking for an edge in the high-risk world of petroleum exploration.
Speculators and promoters often profited where the true wildcatters could not. Not far to the west of Shreveport, Rusk County in northeastern Texas had seen its share of lease trading, despite the widely held conviction that there was no oil to be found there.
Geologists from major oil companies found no petroleum-rich salt domes (as in the 1901 Spindletop gusher at Beaumont to the south), anticlines, or other indications of oil. Seventeen wildcat wells had been dry holes.
“Dad” and “Doc” in Rusk County
Columbus Marion Joiner was undeterred. In 1927, he was 66 years old. He had just $45 in his pocket when he left Dallas to pursue opportunities in Rusk County. To poor farmers scratching out a living on drought-tormented land, Joiner seemed larger than life — a Bible-quoting genuine oil entrepreneur from Dallas who neither drank, smoked, nor cursed.
Within a few months, the affable but shrewd Joiner had acquired leases on several thousand acres and resumed his collaboration with A.D. “Doc” Lloyd.
Investments from hopeful Rusk County, Texas, farmers and merchants brought historic results — and made Kilgore, Longview, and Tyler boom towns during the Great Depression. Kilgore celebrates by decorating derricks that once dominated its skyline.
Joiner formed a “Syndicate” from 500 of his lease block acres and began selling one-acre interest certificates to anyone who could scrape together $25. Joiner could be quite charming to the ladies and persuasive to gentlemen.
“Animatronic” rural electric lineman Buddy has welcomed visitors to “Boomtown, USA,” since 2012. Photo courtesy East Texas Oil Museum.
Small investments from hopeful Rusk County farmers and merchants provided Joiner just enough month-to-month money to get by and sometimes pay on his considerable lease rental debt. Promoting oil certificates in an area largely dismissed by professionals called for a slick pitch, and Joiner’s self-taught geologist friend, “Doc” Lloyd, could help.
While Humble Oil Company geologists and geophysicists were reporting that Rusk County offered no possibilities, Joiner was mailing his own report to potential investors: “Geological, Topographical and Petroliferous Survey, Portion of Rusk County, Texas, Made for C.M. Joiner by A.D. Lloyd, Geologist and Petroleum Engineer.”
The East Texas Oil Museum in Kilgore is “a tribute to the men and women who dared to dream as they pursued the fruits of free enterprise,” according to Joe White, who founded the museum in 1980 — the 50th anniversary of the oil field’s discovery. Photo by Bruce Wells.
Using clear and correct scientific terminology, “Doc” Lloyd’s document described Rusk County anticlines, faults, and a salt dome — all geologic features associated with substantial oil deposits and all completely fictitious. Equally imaginary were the “Yegua and Cook Mountain formations” and the thousands of seismographic registrations ostensibly recorded.
The impressive-looking but fabricated report was accompanied by a map depicting a “salt dome” and a fault running squarely through the widow Daisy Bradford’s farm, the exact site of the 500-acre Syndicate lease block that “Dad” Joiner was promoting.
Dry Hole, Dry Hole
“Doc” Lloyd’s assessment had the desired effect, and the increased sales of certificates enabled Joiner to patch together a rusty, worn-out rig and begin drilling the Daisy Bradford No. 1 in August 1927.
To sustain operations and in pursuit of new investors, Joiner created more syndicates and sold far more certificates than he could possibly redeem, in one case selling the same certificate to eleven different investors. This didn’t present a problem unless Joiner actually brought in a producing well, but if he did, finding oil was the kind of “problem” wildcatters wished for.
In February 1928, the Daisy Bradford No. 1 well failed at 1,098 feet when the drill pipe became irretrievably stuck. Joiner continued overselling certificates to finance drilling.
In March 1929, his Daisy Bradford No. 2 suffered a like fate at 2,518 feet — far deeper than the hodgepodge of old equipment was thought capable.
Haroldson Lafayette “H. L.” Hunt (third from right) is a former dishwasher, mule team driver, logger, farmhand, and semi-pro baseball tryout. C. M. “Dad” Joiner (third from left) shakes the hand of geologist A. D. “Doc” Lloyd at the 1930 discovery well of the East Texas oilfield. Recognizing the significance of the discovery before his competitors, H. L. Hunt will move quickly — and take significant risk — by purchasing the discovery well and nearby leases from Joiner.
Daisy Bradford No. 3 was spudded just 375 feet from the failed second attempt at a site determined when broken equipment prevented moving any farther. Before long, Joiner’s “poor boy” operation was down to burning used tires in the old boiler to gain a few pounds of steam pressure and drill a few feet at a time.
In September 1930, Hunt and Joiner met for the first time when Daisy Bradford’s brother invited Hunt to observe a drill stem test at Joiner’s third well (drill stem tests can determine if oil is present in a formation and the rate at which it can be produced).
Hunt — always on the lookout for new opportunities — drove to the site on the widow Bradford farm with his friend from El Dorado, merchant and clothier P.G. “Pete” Lake.
The Woodbine Sand
The well test was done on September 3, 1930. When the drill stem test brought a surge of mud, oil, and natural gas, Hunt was impressed. He raised enough money to lease three tracts to the east and one to the south of Joiner’s well as the news spread and the scramble for a piece of the action began. The Woodbine sand formation will make petroleum history.
In legal trouble, Columbus “Dad” Joiner, discoverer of the giant oilfield, met with H.L. Hunt at the Baker Hotel in Dallas and sold 5,580 acres of leases for $1.34 million.
In two weeks, more than 2,000 land deals were recorded; two weeks later, Daisy Bradford No. 3 blew in as a gusher in front of about 5,000 spectators who cheered madly, celebrated their newfound fortunes, and congratulated “Dad” Joiner. It wasn’t long, however, before the greatly oversold Syndicate certificates created a convoluted legal nightmare of immense proportions for the now famous “Dad” Joiner.
On the 31st of October, a Dallas court put Joiner’s holdings into receivership. Seventy-year-old Columbus Marion Joiner took refuge in a Dallas hotel as swarms of claimants and creditors looked for him.
Following the drill stem test and aware of previous dry holes drilled to the east, H.L. Hunt became convinced that a substantial oilfield lay to the west. His conviction was reinforced when dry holes were drilled both southeast and northeast of Daisy Bradford No. 3, abruptly chilling the lease market.
Meanwhile, just a mile west of Joiner’s find and surrounded by his leases, Deep Rock Oil Company was drilling a test well on the Claude Ashby farm. Hunt believed that if this well came in, it would confirm that Daisy Bradford No. 3 was part of a much larger oilfield. A dry hole would prove the major oil companies’ belief that Joiner’s Woodbine sand reservoir was a fluke.
Hunt assigned three oil scouts to closely monitor and report to him on the progress of the Ashby No. 1 well. Since his own credit was exhausted, he tried to interest Deep Rock and others in deals to buy out Joiner, but Daisy Bradford No. 3 was by then flowing intermittently. It would yield only about 200 barrels of oil and stop altogether for an agonizing 18 to 20 hours before resuming.
Hunt remained convinced Joiner’s contested leases sat atop an oilfield, but just how big an oilfield was beyond Hunt’s or anybody else’s imagination. He later wrote, “Joiner was a true wildcatter and was much more interested in drilling wildcat wells than developing proven or semi-proven oil acreage. He was becoming weary of all the carrying on which was being made against him.”
Hunt’s “Business Coup”
Hunt borrowed $30,000 from his old El Dorado clothier friend, P.G. Lake, and set about to convince the harried and hiding “Dad” Joiner to sell. They met in Dallas’ Baker Hotel on November 25-26, 1930, while Hunt’s scouts continued to watch the Deep Rock well’s progress.
By the summer of 1931, about 900,000 barrels of oil per day are being produced from 1,200 wells in Rusk County. H. L. Hunt’s purchase of Daisy Bradford No. 3, above, provided the financial base for Hunt Oil Company.
At about 8:30 p.m. on November 26, Hunt’s scouts reported that the Deep Rock well had found the oil-rich Woodbine sand, confirming his belief in the oilfield. Four hours later, Joiner sold all his holdings (including about 5,000 leased acres) to Hunt for $1,335,000, including all the $30,000 in cash Hunt had borrowed. It was far more money than Joiner had ever seen and provided him a way out of the legal mess of oversold certificates and competing claims.
It was for Hunt — as he later described — his “greatest business coup,” despite the 300 lawsuits that followed. As presiding District Judge R.T. Brown said, “If you want a successful gathering of long-lost kinfolks, just manage to find oil on the old homestead. They will come out from under logs, down trees, from out of the blue, and down every road and byway, but they’ll get there — even some nobody ever suspected were kinfolks.”
The East Texas oilfield produced more than five billion barrels of oil by 2010 — and has continued to produce. The 1930 well found a field 43 miles long and 12.5 miles wide.
In the 10 years of litigation that followed, Hunt sustained every title. Eighteen days after his deal with Joiner, Deep Rock’s Ashby No. 1 came in at 3,000 barrels of oil a day.
The “Black Giant”
On a Sunday two weeks later, Lou Della Crim No. 1 came in 13 miles to the north, near Kilgore, Texas, flowing at over 22,000 barrels of oil a day. In January 1931, the similarly petroleum-rich Lathrop No. 1 well came in about 15 miles farther north, in Gregg County. Remarkably, the Ashby, Lou Della Crim, and Lathrop wells were all part of the same gigantic field, covering over 140,000 acres!
Hunt’s deal had put him in the midst of the unprecedented “Black Giant” known as the East Texas oilfield. In 1972, James A. Clark and Michel T. Halbouty published The Last Boom, noting, “The fortune Hunt built in East Texas served as the foundation for one much larger, for he could no more stop hunting for oil than could Joiner — and he seemed to find it as often as not.”
Production from the giant oilfield yielded five billion barrels of oil by 1980, and thanks to Dallas-based Hunt Oil Company, that was the year the East Texas Oil Museum opened at Kilgore College, not far from the Daisy Bradford No. 3 well.
Citation Information – Article Title: “East Texas Oilfield Discovery.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/petroleum-pioneers/east-texas-oilfield. Last Updated September 25, 2025. Original Published Date: October 22, 2012.
A giant Mid-Continent oilfield revealed in 1915 by the emerging science of petroleum geology.
Desperate for their town to live up to its name, community leaders of El Dorado, Kansas, sought petroleum riches after natural gas discoveries at nearby Augusta and at Paola, south of Kansas City. But it would be oil, not natural gas, that brought prosperity east of Wichita. (more…)
Humble Oil and Refining Company discovered an oilfield in 1943 — and earned a $50,000 state bounty.
Among its petroleum history records, Florida’s first — but not last — unsuccessful attempt to find commercially viable oil reserves began in 1901, not far from the Gulf Coast panhandle town of Pensacola. Two exploratory wells, the first drilled to a depth of 1,620 feet and the second reaching 100 feet deeper, were abandoned. (more…)
Pico Canyon oilfield brought pipelines, refineries, and Chevron.
Following the 1859 first commercial U.S. oil discovery in Pennsylvania, the earliest petroleum exploration companies were attracted to California’s natural oil seeps. Small but promising discoveries after the Civil War led to the state’s first gusher in 1876 — and the launching of a new California industry.
Pico Canyon, less than 35 miles north of Los Angeles, produced limited amounts of oil as early as 1855, but there was no market for the petroleum found near natural oil seeps. The first California drilling boom arrived a decade later in the northern part of the state with an oilfield also found near seeps.
Humboldt County Oil
Completed in 1865 by the Old Union Matolle Oil Company, the Humboldt County well produced oil near the aptly named Petrolia. The oilfield discovery quickly attracted some of America’s earliest exploration companies.
Detail of a 1908 “Map of Humboldt County Oil Lands” includes post-Civil War commercial oil wells that attracted more drilling to northern California. Map courtesy Humboldt County Map Collection, Cal Poly Humboldt Library Special Collection.
A California historical marker (no. 543) dedicated on November 10, 1955, declared:
California’s First Drilled Oil Wells — California’s first drilled oil wells producing crude to be refined and sold commercially were located on the north fork of the river approximately three miles east of here. The Old Union Mattole Oil Company made its first shipment of oil from here in June 1865 to a San Francisco refinery. Many old wellheads remain today.
Although the “Old Union well” initially yielded about 30 barrels of high-quality oil, production declined to one barrel of oil per day, and the prospect was abandoned, according to K.R. Aalto, a geologist at Humboldt State University.
The Humboldt County well in what became the oilfield “attracted interest and investment among oilmen because of the abundance of oil and gas seeps throughout that region,” Aalto noted in his 2011 article in Oil-Industry History. But the California petroleum industry truly began to the south, at Pico Canyon Oilfield, a few miles west of Newhall.
Pico Canyon Well No. 4
In Pico Canyon of the Santa Susana Mountains, Charles A. Mentry (1847-1900), who had formed a partnership establishing the California Star Oil Works Company, drilled three exploratory wells between 1875 and 1876. All showed promise, and the first West Coast oil gusher arrived with his fourth well. The oilfield discovery would lead to the creation of a major oil company.
The steam boiler and cable tools, including the “walking beam,” of Pico Well No. 4 in 1877. Photo by Carleton Watkins courtesy Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection.
Drilling with a steam-powered cable-tool rig in an area known for its many oil seeps, Mentry discovered the Pico Canyon oilfield north of Los Angeles. California’s first truly commercial oil well, the Pico Well No. 4 gusher of September 26, 1876, prompted more development, including pipeline construction and an oil refinery for producing kerosene.
According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, the well initially produced 25 barrels a day from 370 feet. Mentry improvised many of his cable tools, including making a drill stem out of old railroad car axles he welded together.
“The railroad had not then been completed, there was no road into the canyon, water was almost unattainable, and there were no adequate tools or machinery to be had,” noted the Times article.
Charles Mentry had already successfully drilled 42 wells near Titusville, Pennsylvania, before exploring in the Santa Clara Valley — and launching California’s petroleum industry. Photo courtesy KHTS Radio, Santa Clara.
Mentry persevered, and his success in Pico Canyon led to the founding of “Mentryville,” the onetime drilling boom town that is today the site of Stevenson Ranch.
“Although his life was tragically cut short by illness on October 4, 1900, from typhoid fever, Mentry’s legacy as a pioneer in California’s oil industry endures,” noted KHTS Radio, Santa Clara. “His work in Pico Canyon not only made him a key figure in the region’s development but also set the stage for California’s future as an oil-rich state,” KHTS reported in 2025.
California Star Oil Works deepened the well to 560 feet, increasing daily production by 125 barrels, and constructed its pipeline from Pico Canyon to the newly built refinery in Newhall, just south of Santa Clarita.
By 1880, California’s first commercial refinery processed oil from its first commercial oil well to make kerosene and other products. Photo courtesy the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society.
Producing kerosene and lubricants, Newhall’s Pioneer Refinery on Pine Street would become the first successful commercial refinery in the West. Giant stills set on brick foundations included two capable of producing 150 barrels a day each. The city of Santa Clarita received California’s first successful refinery as a gift from Chevron in 1997.
The Santa Clarita refinery, today preserved as a tourist attraction, is among the oldest in the world. The major oil company can trace its beginnings to the 1876 Pico Canyon oil well, which has been designated a historic site by the California Office of Historic Preservation.
Chevron Corporation, once the Standard Oil Company of California, in 1900 acquired Pacific Coast Oil Company. Pacific Coast had become majority owner of California Star Oil Works in 1879.
Santa Clarita acquired California’s first refinery as a gift from Chevron in 1997. It is one of the oldest existing oil refinery sites in the world. Photo by Konrad Summers.
Refining Kerosene for Lamps
California’s commercial refineries were among the first in America, where the industry began with small refineries in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, producing kerosene for lamps. The oil came from Titusville area oilfields — and a giant 1871 field discovered at Bradford, about 70 miles to the northeast.
The Bradford oilfield, which became known as America’s “first billion-dollar oilfield,” launched many Pennsylvania refineries, including the still-operating American Refining Group. The field’s first well produced just 10 barrels a day from 1,110 feet.
By 1875. Bradford leases reached as high as $1,000 per acre. A decade later, a sudden decline in the oilfield’s production led to a technological breakthrough. Pioneers in the new science of petroleum geology suggested that water pressure on oil sands could be used to increase oil production — “waterflooding” the geologic formation.
The oldest operating U.S. oil refinery began in 1881 in Bradford, Pennsylvania.
In Neodesha, Kansas, the Norman No. 1 well of 1892 revealed a petroleum-rich geologic region that would extend across Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana. Standard Oil built a refinery in Neodesha in 1897 that refined 500 barrels of oil a day. Standard was the first to process oil from the giant Mid-Continent field (learn more in Kansas Well reveals Mid-Continent).
In 2024, there were 134 operable petroleum refineries in the United States, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). The newest refinery with significant downstream capacity — a facility in Garyville, Louisiana — came online in 1977.
Built in 1897, a Standard Oil refinery in Neodesha, Kansas, refined 500 barrels of oil per day – the first to process oil from the Mid-Continent field. From “Kansas Memory” collection of the Kansas Historical Society.
For an investigation into which California oil well was the first, see this 2011 SearchReSearch blog of Dan Russell.
Citation Information: Article Title: “First California Oil Well.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/petroleum-pioneers/first-california-oil-well. Last Updated: September 17, 2025. Original Published Date: September 9, 2015.
The first Louisiana oil well in 1901 revealed the giant Jennings field and launched the Pelican State’s petroleum industry. By 1911, offshore exploration included barges, floating pile drivers, and drilling platforms on Caddo Lake.
Nine months after the 1901 “Lucas Gusher” at Spindletop, Texas, oil erupted 90 miles to the east in Louisiana. W. Scott Heywood — already a successful wildcatter at Spindletop — drilled the discovery well of the Jennings oilfield. His September 21, 1901, gusher initially produced 7,000 barrels of oil a day.
Louisiana’s first commercial oil well, the Jules Clements No. 1, was completed on the Clements farm, about seven miles northeast of the small town of Jennings.
Mrs. Scott Heywood, “the widow of Louisiana’s oil discoverer, the late W. Scott Heywood,” unveiled a historical marker on September 23, 1951, as part of the Louisiana Golden Oil Jubilee. Times Picayune (New Orleans) image courtesy Calcasieu Parish Public Library.
Local investors earlier had formed the Jennings Oil Company and hired Scott, who recognized that natural gas seeps found nearby were nearly identical to the conditions observed at Spindletop. Scott would insist on drilling deeper than many investors thought wise.
The Jennings Oil Company No. 1 well, which discovered the first commercial oilfield in Louisiana on September 21, 1901. Photo courtesy Louisiana Geological Survey.
“At the age 29, W. Scott Haywood was already a seasoned, experienced and successful explorer,” noted Scott Smiley, a Louisiana Geological Survey (LGS) historian. “He had gone to Alaska in 1897 during the great Yukon gold rush, sinking a shaft and mining a profitable gold deposit.”
Haywood, who also had drilled several successful oil wells in California, was one of the first to reach Spindletop following news of the January 1901 oilfield discovery. Haywood eventually convinced the reluctant Clements to allow drilling in the farmer’s Acadia Parish rice field. The Clements farm was at the small, unincorporated community of Evangeline, northeast of Jennings.
Walter Scott Heywood (1872-1950)
However, after drilling to 1,000 feet without finding oil or natural gas, the Jennings Oil Company’s investors wanted to abandon the first attempt.
“After all, 1,000 feet had been deep enough to discover the tremendous oil gushers at Spindletop field,” explained Smiley in a 2001 history of the Jennings field. “Instead of drilling two wells to a depth of 1,000 feet each, Heywood persuaded the investors to change the contract to accept a single well drilled to a depth of 1,500 feet.”
More drilling pipe was brought in and the well deepened.
Deeper Drilling Pays Off
Heywood found signs of oil at a depth of 1,700 feet – after some discouraged investors had sold their stock when drilling reached 1,000 feet. By 1,500 feet, shares of the Jennings Oil Company still sold for as little as 25 cents each. Patient investors were rewarded when 7,000 barrels of oil per day suddenly erupted from the well.
“The well flowed sand and oil for seven hours and covered Clement’s rice field with a lake of oil and sand, ruining several acres of rice,” reported the Jennings Daily News.
W. Scott Heywood (5) and Elmer Dobbins (3) — “one of the drillers of the original Spindletop discovery in Texas.” Photo courtesy Louisiana Geological Survey.
Although the Jules Clements No. 1 well is on only a 1/32 of an acre lease, it marked the state’s first oil production and launched the Louisiana petroleum industry. It opened the prolific Jennings field, which Heywood developed by securing leases and building pipelines and storage tanks. The Jennings oilfield reached its peak production of more than nine million barrels in 1906.
Meanwhile, an October 1905 discovery in northern Louisiana further expanded the state’s young petroleum industry. Another giant oilfield arrived in January 1919 when Consolidated Progressive Oil Company completed a well four miles west of Homer in Claiborne Parish.
“Homer was a happening place and all people could think about was oil, notes Wesley Harris in Oil Boom Overwhelmed Homer. “Imagine Homer’s courthouse square with no place to park, nowhere to eat, and business establishments packed to overflowing.” Visit the Louisiana Oil Museum in aptly named Oil City.
According to Smiley, Scott Haywood returned to Alaska in 1908 on a big-game hunting trip. The geologist then retraced much of his travels to the Klondike gold fields.
“After a brief retirement in California, he returned to Jennings and drilled several wells at Jennings and elsewhere in Louisiana,” Smiley reports, adding that as an independent producer, Haywood found success drilling in the Borger and Panhandle oilfields in Texas.
Rapid development of the Jennings oilfield in the early 1900s led to new conservation laws. A lack of spacing regulations forced “each leaseholder to drill their own well to prevent the draining of oil from the lease by an adjacent well.” Circa early 1900s photo courtesy Louisiana Geological Survey.
Gulf Refining Company in 1911 drilled Ferry Lake No. 1 on Caddo Lake, Louisiana, using a fleet of tugboats, barges, and floating pile drivers. When the first well produced 450 barrels of oil per day, Gulf constructed platforms every 600 feet on each 10-acre lakebed (see Offshore Drilling History).
Although the Caddo Lake wells were often cited as the birthplace of America’s offshore drilling industry, oil patch historian in Mercer County, Ohio, discovered oil was produced from platforms on Grand Lake St. Marys as early as 1887.
In Pennsylvania, about 15 miles east of the first U.S. well at Titusville, dozens of wells produced oil on Tidioute Island and from rafts in the Alleghany River in the fall of 1860, according to the according to the Warren County Historical Society.
Challenging Louisiana Oil History
Extensive research by a retired professor at McNeese State University in Lake Charles challenged Louisiana petroleum history in 2011, according to the Southwest Daily News in Sulphur. The newspaper reported a September presentation at a Lake Charles library by Thomas Watson, PhD, who taught at McNeese State for 35 years, including a decade as the head of the history department.
“Dr. Thomas Watson has uncovered evidence that the first producing oil well in Louisiana was at the Sulphur Mines in 1886,” noted the newspaper, which was closed in 2024 after being acquired by MediaNews Group.
“This information could alter the history of oil production in Louisiana,” proclaimed the article, adding, “The interesting fact he has discovered in his research was announced formally at the Carnegie Library during a 10 a.m. presentation entitled ‘Oil and Sulphur Drilling’ on Sept. 6, 2011.”
The Weekly Echo was established in 1868, the same year Lake Charles was officially incorporated. The paper dropped the word “weekly” from its title in 1876, becoming the Lake Charles Echo, which ceased in 1898. Image courtesy Library of Congress (LOC).
Professor Thomas Watson’s 2011 Carnegie Library presentation on Louisiana petroleum history began with a story, according to the Southwest Daily News article “Retired Professor Challenges Louisiana Oil History.”
“There’s a story of D.S. Perkins, who saw a bear come out of the woods with oil on its paw. The group traced the tracks back to a spring (Choupique Bayou) with oil collecting on top. It came to be known as Oil Springs,” began Watson slowly. He explained that the oil spring produced a useable lubricant that was collected by people living around the area.
But the dream of oil was still alive. The Sulphur company decided to drill again in 1886.
During these years the Weekly Echo was the Lake Charles newspaper at the time, with editor John Wesley Bryan and publisher Dr. William H. Kirkman. Dr. Kirkman, along with the Perkins brothers from Sulphur, Eli and William, was following the activity at the mine and they, along with other investors, decided to drill again.
When the news broke out, the Weekly Echo announced a blow out! Gas came rushing back up to the surface. The well was capped, and the flow of oil was evaluated to [be] 25 barrels a day.
Watson said he considered it to be a heavy oil because it was perceived to be a first class lubricant. Good lube oil sold for more that thin oil (what Pennsylvania was selling). Louisiana crude would go for $5 a gallon as opposed to Pennsylvania oil at $1 a gallon.
The Weekly Echo documented the production and sale of oil from that Sulphur Mine source for three years. One report indicated maximum production hit 100 barrels a day. There were writings at the time that reported that the land around the Sulphur Mines was the richest 54 acres in the US at that time and this was true from 1895 until the 1920’s.
Therefore, 15 years earlier than the production of oil in Evangeline, they were marketing oil from Sulphur. Watson concluded his presentation citing Samuel Lockett documents.
Citation Information – Article Title: “First Louisiana Oil Well.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/petroleum-pioneers/first-louisiana-oil-well. Last Updated: September 15, 2025. Original Published Date: September 1, 2005.
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