by Bruce Wells | May 19, 2025 | This Week in Petroleum History
May 19, 1885 – Lima Oilfield discovered in Ohio –
Ohio’s petroleum industry began when Benjamin Faurot found oil at Lima in the northwestern part of the state. He had been searching for natural gas in the prolific Trenton Rock Limestone (see Indiana Natural Gas Boom). “If the well turns out, as it looks now that it will, look out for the biggest boom Lima ever had,” proclaimed Lima’s Daily Republican newspaper.
A 1919 postcard published by Robbins Bros., Boston, promotes the oil wealth of Lima, Ohio, with derricks, an oil gusher, and a burning oil tank.
Faurot organized the Trenton Rock Oil Company, and by 1886 the Lima oilfield was producing more than 20 million barrels of oil, the most in the nation. The Lima field’s heavy oil needed special refining, and Standard Oil Company of New Jersey in 1889 began construction on the Whiting refinery.
Learn more in Great Oil Boom of Lima, Ohio.
May 19, 1942 – Oklahoma Inventor patents Portable Drilling Rig
A pioneer in oilfield technologies, George E. Failing of Enid, Oklahoma, received a patent for his design of a drilling rig on a truck bed. “I designate the rear portion of a drilling rig such as used in drilling shallow wells, the taking of cores, drilling of shot-holes, and performing similar oil field operations,” Failing noted in his patent.
In 1931, he had mounted a rig on a 1927 Ford farm truck, “adding a power take-off assembly to transfer power from the truck engine to the drill,” according to the Oklahoma Historical Society. Failing would receive more than 300 patents for oilfield tools, “from rock bit cores to an apparatus for seismic surveying.”
George Failing’s rig design — powered by a pickup truck’s engine — proved ideal for rapidly drilling slanted wells.
Failing’s portable rig could drill ten slanted, 50-foot holes in a single day, while a traditional rotary rig took about a week to set up and drill to a similar depth. He demonstrated his portable drilling technology at a 1933 well disaster in Conroe, Texas, working with H. John Eastman, today considered the father of directional drilling (see Technology and the “Conroe Crater”).
May 19, 1969 – First Offshore Technology Conference
Houston’s largest convention and tradeshow, the Offshore Technology Conference, began in response to “growing technological needs of the global ocean extraction and environmental protection industries,” according to History of OTC. In 2013, more than 2,700 companies exhibited in “an area equivalent to 10 U.S. football fields.”
Since 1969, the conference has generated more than $3.2 billion for Houston. OTC Brasil was launched in 2011 along with an Arctic Technology Conference (2011-2016). OTC Asia was launched in 2012. The next Houston OTC will take place May 4-7, 2026.
May 20, 1930 – Geophysicists establish Professional Society
Earth scientists in Houston established the Society of Economic Geophysicists to encourage the ethical practice of geophysics in the exploration and development of natural resources. The organization in 1937 adopted the name Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG), which in 2024 reported 14,000 members in 114 countries.
The Doodlebugger by Oklahoma sculptor Jay O’Melia has welcomed visitors to SEG headquarters since 2002. Photo by Bruce Wells.
SEG’s journal Geophysics began publishing in 1936 with articles on exploration technologies, including seismic, gravity, and magnetic imaging. The journal warned of hucksters using vague or unproven properties of oil and geological formations. At its Tulsa headquarters in 2002, SEG unveiled The Doodlebugger, a 10-foot bronze statue by Oklahoma sculptor Jay O’Melia, who also sculpted the Oil Patch Warrior, a World War II memorial.
May 21, 1923 – “Esso” first used by Standard Oil Company
For the first time, Standard Oil Company of New Jersey used “Esso” to market the company’s “refined, semi-refined, and unrefined oils made from petroleum, both with and without admixture of animal, vegetable, or mineral oils, for illuminating, burning, power, fuel, and lubricating purposes, and greases.”
Standard Oil of New Jersey logo, 1923 to 1934, when text became plainer and inside an ellipse.
In 1923, Esso — the phonetic spelling of the abbreviation “S.O.” for Standard Oil — became a registered trademark. The future children’s book author Theodor Geisel — Dr. Seuss — began drawing Essolube product ads in the 1930s. Exxon (now ExxonMobil) removed its U.S. Esso brand in 1973.
May 23, 1905 – Patent issued for Improved Metal Barrel Lid
Henry Wehrhahn, superintendent for the Iron Clad Manufacturing Company of Brooklyn, New York, received the first of two 1905 patents that presaged the modern 55-gallon oil drum. The first design included “a means for readily detaching and securing the head of a metal barrel.”
Wehrhahn assigned his patent rights to the widow of Robert Seaman, founder of Iron Clad Manufacturing, Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman — journalist Nellie Bly. In December 1905, Wehrhahn also assigned her the rights to his improved metal barrel patent.
Learn more in Remarkable Nellie Bly’s Oil Drum.
May 23, 1937 – Death of World’s Richest Man
Almost 70 years after founding Standard Oil Company in Ohio and 40 years after retiring from the company in 1897, John D. Rockefeller died in Ormond Beach, Florida, at age 97. His petroleum empire had peaked in 1912.
Born on July 8, 1839, in Richford, New York, Rockefeller attended high school in Cleveland, Ohio, from 1853 to 1855. He became an assistant bookkeeper with a produce shipping company before forming his own company in 1859 — the same year of the first U.S. oil well in Pennsylvania. Rockefeller was 24 in 1865 when he took control of his first refinery, which would be the largest in the world three years later.
John Rockefeller, 1839-1937. Photo courtesy of Cleveland State University.
By the time his petroleum fortune peaked at $900 million in 1912 ($29.7 billion in 2025 dollars), Rockefeller’s philanthropy was well known. His unprecedented wealth funded the University of Chicago, the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, (now the Rockefeller Foundation), and Spelman College in Atlanta.
May 24, 1902 – Oil & Gas Journal published
Holland Reavis founded the Oil Investors’ Journal In Beaumont, Texas, to report on financial issues facing operators and investors in the giant oilfield discovered nearby one year earlier at Spindletop Hill. Reavis sold his semimonthly publication to Patrick Boyle of Oil City, Pennsylvania, in 1910.
Norman Rockwell illustrated a 1962 ad promoting the Oil and Gas Journal.
Boyle, a former oilfield scout and publisher of the Oil City Derrick, increased publication frequency to weekly and renamed it the Oil & Gas Journal. Following his death in 1920, son-in-law Frank Lauinger moved operations to Tulsa and further expanded the company, which became PennWell Publishing in 1980. The Derrick newspaper in Oil City, which began in 1885, continues to be published by the Boyle family.
May 24, 1920 – Huntington Beach Oilfield discovered in California
A Standard Oil Company of California exploratory well discovered the Huntington Beach oilfield. The beach town’s population grew from 1,500 to 5,000 within a month of the well drilled at Clay Avenue and Golden West Street.
A forest of derricks crowd the Huntington Beach in 1926. The giant oilfield produced more than 16 million barrels of oil in 1964 alone and totaled more than one billion barrels by 2000. Photo courtesy Orange County Archives.
The field had 59 producing wells with daily production of 16,500 barrels of oil by November 1921. The activity brought national attention to Huntington Beach and renewed interest in the Los Angeles City oilfield.
By 2000, the giant oilfield had produced more than one billion barrels of oil, according to the Orange County Register, which noted that as production peaked, “the pressure of explosive population growth began pushing the wells off land that had become more valuable as sites for housing.”
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Recommended Reading: Ohio Oil and Gas (2008); History Of Oil Well Drilling
(2007); Careers in Geophysics
(2017); Offshore Pioneers: Brown & Root and the History of Offshore Oil and Gas
(1997); A Geophysicist’s Memoir: Searching for Oil on Six Continents
(2017); Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist
(1994); Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
(2004); Giant Under the Hill: A History of the Spindletop Oil Discovery
(2008); Huntington Beach, California, Postcard History Series
(2009). 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 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.
by Bruce Wells | May 12, 2025 | This Week in Petroleum History
May 12, 2007 – Oil Museums open in Oklahoma –
ConocoPhillips opened two petroleum museums as part of the 2007 Oklahoma statehood centennial celebrations (see ConocoPhillips Petroleum Museums). The company reportedly spent $10 million on state-of-the-art museums in Bartlesville and Ponca City.
Conoco began in the 1880s as the Continental Oil Company, a grease and kerosene distributor in Utah, before merging with Ponca City-based Marland Oil Company in 1929. Conoco merged with Phillips Petroleum Company of Bartlesville in 2002. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | May 5, 2025 | This Week in Petroleum History
May 5, 1889 – Construction begins on Giant Refinery –
On the southern shore of Lake Michigan near Chicago, Standard Oil Company began construction of its 235-acre refinery complex with advanced processing technologies. A newly patented refining method would allow the Standard Oil Whiting, Indiana, facility to process sulfurous “sour crude” from Lima, Ohio, oilfields. The oil would be transported on railroads owned or operated by the company. The Whiting refinery (today operated by BP) originally produced high-quality kerosene for lamps. BP completed a multi-year, multi-billion dollar modernization project there in 2013.
Learn more in Standard Oil Whiting Refinery.
May 5, 1907 – A Marker to North Texas Petroleum History
Outside Oil City (today Petrolia), Texas, the Clayco Oil & Pipe Line Company completed its Lochridge No.1 well, “site of the first gas well in Texas,” according to a granite marker that credits local rancher J.W. Lochridge for the discovery east of Wichita Falls.
“This discovery marked the beginning of intensive development of the gas industry in Texas,” the marker explains. Lochridge had been disappointed with a 1901 well that produced some oil, which he used in his dipping vats to rid his cattle of parasites, according to a 2016 article in North Texas Farm & Ranch.
Clayco Oil & Pipe Line Company commemorated its 1907 discovery in North Texas with a marker that has endured near Highway 148 south of Petrolia.
The Clayco Oil & Pipe Line Company marker in the Henrietta-Petrolia field acknowledges Lone Star Gas Company for constructing the state’s first large-diameter natural gas pipeline in 1920 to Fort Worth and Dallas. Lone Star Gas changed its name to Enserch Corporation in 1975.
May 7, 1920 – Halliburton founds Well Cementing Company
As mid-continent oil and gas discoveries continued, Erle Palmer Halliburton founded the Halliburton Company as an oilfield well service and cementing company. The Wilson, Oklahoma, venture succeeded his New Method Oil Cementing Company, established a year earlier during the Burkburnett oil boom in North Texas.
An Erle P. Halliburton statue was dedicated in 1993 in Duncan, Oklahoma.
In 1922, Halliburton patented an innovative “jet-cement” mixer that increased the speed and quality of the mixing process. By the end of the year, 17 Halliburton trucks were cementing wells in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Arkansas. Cement injection protects the well casing, seals off water formations from the oil, and minimizes the danger of blowouts.
The company introduced cement pumps powered by truck motors (instead of steam from the rig boiler) and a device that allowed testing of a formation without setting casing. Halliburton was the first to offer self-contained cementing units operating under their own power. More advances in cementing technology followed.
Learn more in Halliburton cements Wells.
May 8, 1918 – Shreveport Gassers go Extra Innings
As baseball became America’s favorite pastime, the Texas League’s Shreveport Gassers played 20 innings against the Fort Worth Panthers before the game was declared a tie. The Gassers were just one of many oilfield-related teams in the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, today known as Minor League Baseball.
Former Olinda Oil Wells pitcher Walter Johnson joined Babe Ruth for a 1924 exhibition game at Brea, California.
At the time, the leagues’ 96 teams included the Okmulgee Drillers, the Tulsa Oilers, the Independence Producers, the Beaumont Exporters, the Corsicana Oil Citys, the Wichita Falls Spudders, and the Iola Gasbags. In Oklahoma oilfields, the Okmulgee Drillers for the first time in baseball history had two players who combined to hit 100 home runs in a single season of 160 games.
Learn more in Oilfields of Dreams.
May 8, 1920 – Burbank field discovered in Oklahoma
Drilling for natural gas 20 miles east of Ponca City, Oklahoma, the Kay County Gas Company’s Bertha Hickman No. 1 well revealed a giant oilfield. Marland Oil & Refining Company assumed control of the discovery well, which produced 150 barrels of oil a day from a depth of about 3,000 feet. The Burbank field would extend over 33 square miles, mostly in Osage County, and produce between 20 million and 31 million barrels of oil annually for the next four years.
E.W. Marland in 1928 built his Ponca City mansion, now a museum. Fellow Oklahoman Will Rogers was a frequent guest.
With Oklahoma petroleum production booming since the Red Fork Gusher of 1901, independent producers agreed to use a 10-acre well spacing for oil conservation. Ernest W. Marland (Oklahoma governor from 1935 to 1939) applied new seismography technologies to discover the Tonkawa oilfield in June 1921. Visit the Marland Estate in Ponca City.
May 9, 1863 – Confederate Cavalry raids Oilfield
Confederate cavalry attacked a thriving oil town near the Ohio River in what would soon become West Virginia. Confederate Gen. William “Grumble” Jones led the rebel cavalry brigade raid on Burning Springs oilfield storage facilities containing thousands of barrels of oil.
Rebels attacked the Burning Springs oilfield on the banks of the Little Kanawha River, just a few miles southeast of Parkersburg and the Ohio River. Heritage district map courtesy Oil & Gas Museum, Parkersburg, West Virginia.
About 1,300 Confederate troopers raided Burning Springs, destroying cable-tools and burning 150,000 barrels of oil. “All the oil, the tanks, barrels, engines for pumping, engine-houses, and wagons — in a word, everything used for raising, holding, or sending it off was burned,” Gen. Jones reported to Gen. Robert E. Lee. The destruction and fires along the Kanawha River marked the first time an oilfield was targeted in warfare, according to West Virginia historian David McKain.
Learn more in Confederates attack Oilfield.
May 11, 1880 – Dresser patents Oil Well Device
Solomon R. Dresser of Bradford, Pennsylvania, patented a rubber “packer” for sealing downhole pressure in wells. The technology behind the patent (no. 227419) helped confine gas, “which enters the well from the lower rocks and utilizes its force or pressure to expel the oil from the well.”
Detail from Solomon R. Dresser 1880 patent for a rubber “packer” to seal downhole pressure in wells.
With the success of his Dresser “Cap Packer” in the giant Bradford oilfield, the inventor founded the S.R. Dresser Manufacturing Company. In 1885, he patented a flexible coupling known as a “Dresser Joint,” a widely adopted pipeline coupling method using rubber for tight seals, which permitted long-range transmission of natural gas.
After expanding into manufacturing oilfield pumps, engines, and compressors, Dresser’s company went public in 1928, moving its headquarters from Bradford to Dallas in 1950. Dresser Industries merged with oilfield supply rival Halliburton for about $7.7 billion in stock in 1998.
Recommended Reading: Erle P. Halliburton, Genius with Cement
(1959); Oil in Oklahoma
(1976); Textile League Baseball: South Carolina’s Mill Teams, 1880-1955
(2004); The Civil War and Northwestern Virginia
(2004); 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.
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please become an AOGHS annual supporter and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. Contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2025 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
by Bruce Wells | Apr 28, 2025 | This Week in Petroleum History
April 29, 1942 – Tanker SS Mobiloil torpedoed in Atlantic –
A German U-boat torpedoed the unescorted steam tanker SS Mobiloil (spelled in some reports as Mobil Oil) in the Atlantic northeast of the Bahamas. During multiple torpedo attacks, U-108 surfaced and shelled the 10,000-ton tanker owned by the Socony-Vacuum Oil Company of New York.
The Socony-Vacuum Oil Company tanker SS Mobiloil at its 1937 launching in Chester, Pennsylvania. Sunk by U-108 in 1942, the ship had not waited to join its assigned convoy. Photo courtesy Mobil.
After putting up a valiant defense, the tanker broke in half and sank, according to Ericwiberg.com. All 52 crew and passengers were rescued after about 86 hours in lifeboats, and the ship’s master was later convicted of violating convoy routing orders.
“The pressure of the convoys reached a peak in March 1943, when 98 ships were sunk,” adds the National Museums Liverpool. “Once again, the Allies appeared to be on the brink of defeat in the Atlantic.”
Learn more in Roughnecks of Sherwood Forest. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Apr 21, 2025 | This Week in Petroleum History
April 21, 1967 – GM celebrates its 100 Millionth Car –
General Motors celebrated its 100 millionth American-made car (a two-door Chevrolet Caprice). Founded in 1908 by William Durant, the Flint, Michigan, company began as a manufacturer of horse-drawn carriages. After leaving GM, Durant and partner Louis Chevrolet founded the Chevrolet Motor Company in 1911, which became part of GM five years later.
After World War II, GM was the first American corporation to pay more than $1 billion in taxes, according to the Detroit Historical Society, which also notes the company declared bankruptcy in 2009 and emerged less than 40 days later after a federal bailout that saved more than a million jobs. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Apr 14, 2025 | This Week in Petroleum History
April 14, 1865 – Failed Oilman turns Assassin –
After failing to make his fortune in Pennsylvania oilfields, John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C. Booth had left his acting career a year earlier to drill an oil well in booming Venango County.
In January 1864, Booth visited Franklin, Pennsylvania, where he leased 3.5 acres on a farm, about one mile south of the village of Franklin and on the east side of the Allegheny River. With several partners, including his friends from the stage, Booth formed the Dramatic Oil Company and raised money to drill a well.
John Wilkes Booth made his first trip to the oil boom town of Franklin, Pennsylvania, in January 1864. He purchased a 3.5-acre lease on the Fuller farm (lower left). Circa 1865 photo of Booth by Alexander Gardner, courtesy Library of Congress.
Although the Dramatic Oil Company’s well found oil and began producing about 25 barrels a day, Booth and his partners wanted more and tried “shooting” the well to increase production. When the well was ruined, the failed oilman left the Pennsylvania oil region for good in July 1864.
Learn more in Dramatic Oil Company.
April 14, 1903 – Patent for Self-Heating Iron fueled by Gasoline
John Lake of Big Prairie, Ohio, received a U.S. patent (No. 725,261) for his gasoline-fueled “Self-Heating Sad Iron.” Lake had served in the 16th Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the Civil War. The ironing innovation for homes brought prosperity to his Amish community, where he established the Monitor Sad Iron Company on the Pennsylvania Railroad line. His manufacturing company made the petroleum-fueled irons for the next 50 years.
Learn more in Ironing with Gasoline.
April 15, 1857 – First Natural Gas Company incorporated
Two years before the first U.S. oil well in Titusville, Pennsylvania, the Fredonia Gas Light and Water Works Company incorporated in Fredonia, New York, where a well drilled by local machinist and gunsmith William A. Hart supplied natural gas to a mill as early as 1825. Hart found the gas after drilling three wells, according to historian Lois Barris.
“He left a broken drill in one shallow hole and abandoned a second site at a depth of forty feet because of the small volume of gas found,” Barris noted in her “Fredonia Gaslight and Waterworks Company.”
Circa 1950 souvenir postcard of a bronze plaque on a boulder in Fredonia, New York, dedicated in 1925 by the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Hart’s third well produced natural gas from 70 feet beneath a “bubbling gas spring in the bed of a creek,” Barris reported, adding that after constructing a simple gasometer, he “proceeded to pipe and market the first natural gas sold in this country.”
As other communities adopted public lighting burning gas made from coal (manufactured gas street lamps began illuminating Baltimore in 1817), Fredonia Gas Light and Water Works built the first U.S. natural gas pipeline network.
April 15, 1897 – Birth of Oklahoma Oil Industry
With a crowd gathered at the Nellie Johnstone No. 1 well near Bartlesville in Indian Territory, George Keeler’s stepdaughter dropped a “Go Devil” that set off a downhole canister of nitroglycerin. The resulting gusher heralded the start of Oklahoma’s oil and natural gas industry.
A 2017 water gusher demonstration of the Nellie Johnstone No. 1 replica in Discovery One Park, Bartlesville, Oklahoma.
Drilling had begun in January 1897, the same month that Bartlesville incorporated with a population of about 200 people. Four months later, at 1,320 feet, the Nellie Johnstone No.1 well showed its first signs of oil. There had been earlier marginal producers, including a Cherokee Nation 1890 oil well; the Johnstone well revealed the giant Bartlesville-Dewey field.
By the time of statehood in 1907, Oklahoma would lead the world in oil production. An 84-foot derrick in Discovery One Park helps educate visitors about Oklahoma’s petroleum industry. The surrounding land was donated by Nellie Johnstone Cannon, the descendant of a Delaware chief.
Learn more in First Oklahoma Oil Well.
April 16, 1855 – Scientist sees Value in “Rock Oil”
Yale chemist Benjamin Silliman Jr. reported Pennsylvania “Rock Oil” could be distilled into a high-quality illuminating oil. The professor’s “Report on Rock Oil or Petroleum” convinced a businessman George Bissell and a group of New Haven, Connecticut, investors to finance Edwin Drake to drill where Bissell had found oil seeps at a creek in northwestern Pennsylvania.
The Yale chemist’s 1855 report about oil’s potential for refining as an illuminant led to America’s first commercial well four years later.
“Gentlemen,” Silliman wrote, “it appears to me that there is much ground for encouragement in the belief that your company have in their possession a raw material from which, by simple and not expensive processes, they may manufacture very valuable products.”
Learn more in George Bissell’s Oil Seeps.
April 16, 1920 – First Arkansas Oil Well
Col. Samuel S. Hunter of the Hunter Oil Company of Shreveport, Louisiana, completed the first oil well in Arkansas. His Hunter No. 1 well had been drilled to 2,100 feet. Natural gas was discovered a few days later by Constantine Oil and Refining Company north of what would become the El Dorado field in Union County.
The Arkansas Museum of Natural Resources is just north of El Dorado.
Although Col. Hunter’s oil well yielded only small quantities, his discovery was followed by a January 1921 gusher — the S.T. Busey well — in the same field. These wells made headlines and launched the Arkansas petroleum industry, according to the Arkansas Museum of Natural Resources. Hunter later sold his original lease of 20,000 acres to the Standard Oil Company of Louisiana for more than $2.2 million.
Learn more in First Arkansas Oil Wells.
April 17, 1861 – Deadly Oil Well Fire in Pennsylvania
The lack of technologies for controlling wells led to a fatal oil well fire at Rouseville, Pennsylvania. Among the 19 people killed was leading citizen Henry Rouse, who subleased the land along Oil Creek. When his well erupted oil from a depth of 320 feet, the good news had attracted most Rouseville residents. “Henry Rouse and the others stood by wondering how to control the phenomenon,” noted the local newspaper. Then the gusher erupted into flames, perhaps ignited by a steam-engine boiler.
“Burning Oil Well at Night, near Rouseville, Pennsylvania,” a painting by James Hamilton, circa 1861, at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
The oilfield tragedy near Titusville would be overshadowed by the Civil War, but it was immortalized in 1861 by Philadelphia artist James Hamilton’s “Burning Oil Well at Night, near Rouseville, Pennsylvania,” which was added to the Smithsonian American Art Museum collection in 2017.
Learn more in Fatal 1861 Rouseville Oil Well Fire.
April 17, 1919 – North Texas Burkburnett Boom grows
Yet another drilling boom began in Wichita County, Texas, when the Bob Waggoner Well No. 1 well began producing 4,800 barrels of oil a day — extending to the northwest a 1918 oilfield found on the Burkburnett farm of S.L. Fowler. Wichita County had been producing oil since the 1911 discovery of the Electra oilfield.
At Burkburnett, a 2006 historical marker of the Texas Historical Commission notes the 1919 discovery “became known as the Northwest Extension Oilfield, comprised of approximately 27 square miles on the former S. Burk Burnett Wild Horse Ranch.” The marker adds “the area was suddenly thick with oil derricks” thanks to the oilfield discoveries that created the boom town Burkburnett.
April 18, 1939 – Patent for perforating Well Casing
Ira McCullough of Los Angeles patented a multiple bullet-shot casing perforator and mechanical firing system. He explained the object of his oilfield invention was “to provide a device for perforating casing after it has been installed in a well in which projectiles or perforating elements are shot through the casing and into the formation.”
Ira McCullough’s 1937 patent drawing for perforating wells.
The innovation of simultaneous firing from several levels in the borehole greatly enhanced the flow of oil. McCullough’s device included a “disconnectable means” that rendered percussion inoperative until the charges were lowered into the borehole, acting as “a safeguard against accidental or inadvertent operation.”
Another inventor, Henry Mohaupt, in 1951 used anti-tank technology from World War II to improve the concept by using a conically hollowed-out explosive for perforating wells.
Learn more in Downhole Bazooka.
April 19, 1892 – First U.S. Gasoline Powered Automobile
Brothers Charles and Frank Duryea test drove a gasoline-powered automobile they had built in their Springfield, Massachusetts, workshop. Considered the first model to be regularly manufactured for sale in the United States, 13 were produced by the Duryea Motor Wagon Company.
The Duryea brothers (above) built their pioneering autos in Springfield, Massachusetts.
The brothers sold their first Duryea motor wagon in March 1918. Two months later, a motorist driving a Duryea in New York City hit a bicyclist — reportedly America’s first auto traffic accident. By the time of the first U.S. automobile show in November 1900 at Madison Square Garden, of the 4,200 automobiles sold in the United States, gasoline powers less than 1,000.
April 20, 1875 – Improved Well Pumping Technology
Pumping multiple wells with a single steam engine boosted efficiency in early oilfields when Albert Nickerson and Levi Streeter of Venango County, Pennsylvania, patented their “Improvement In Means For Pumping Wells.” The new technology used a system of linked and balanced walking beams to pump oil wells.
U.S. oilfield technologies advanced in 1875 with an “Improvement In Means For Pumping Wells.”
“By an examination of the drawing it will be seen that the walking-beam to well No. l is lifting or raising fluid from the well. Well No. 3 is also lifting, while at the same time wells 2 and 4 are moving in an opposite direction, or plunging, and vice versa,” the inventors explained. Their system was the forerunner of rod-line (or jerk-line) eccentric wheel systems that operated into the 20th century using iron rods instead of rope and pulleys.
Learn more in All Pumped Up – Oilfield Technology.
April 20, 1892 – Prospector discovers Los Angeles City Oilfield
The giant Los Angeles oilfield was discovered when a struggling prospector, Edward Doheny, and his mining partner Charles Canfield drilled into the tar seeps between Beverly Boulevard and Colton Avenue. Their well produced about 45 barrels of oil a day.
Artfully camouflaged petroleum production continues today in downtown Los Angeles. Edward Doheny discovered the oilfield in 1892. Photo courtesy the Center for Land Use Interpretation, Culver City, California.
Although the first California oil well had been drilled after the Civil War, Doheny’s 1892 discovery near present-day Dodger Stadium launched California’s petroleum industry. In 1897, about 500 Los Angeles City wells pumped more than half of the state’s annual production of 1.2 million barrels of oil. By 1925, California supplied half of all the world’s oil.
Learn more in Discovering Los Angeles Oilfields.
April 20, 2010 – Deepwater Horizon Gulf of Mexico Disaster
At 10 a.m., while completing a well in the Macondo Prospect, 50 miles off the Louisiana coast, the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank, killing 11 and injuring another 17 workers. An estimated 3.2 million barrels of oil flowed into the Gulf of Mexico after the platform’s 400-ton blowout preventer failed, resulting in the largest accidental marine oil spill in U.S. history.
The April 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and fire killed 11 and injured 17 workers. USGS Photo.
Six months earlier at another site, the advanced, semi-submersible drilling rig had set a world record for the deepest offshore well (35,050 feet vertical depth in 4,130 feet of water). When the Macondo Prospect well was capped in mid-July, a National Commission on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling launched an eight-month investigation. The commission released its final report on January 11, 2011.
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Recommended Reading: Recommended Reading: Sketches in Crude-Oil (1902); Myth, Legend, Reality: Edwin Laurentine Drake and the Early Oil Industry
(2009); The Extraction State, A History of Natural Gas in America (2021); Oil in Oklahoma (1976); Early Louisiana and Arkansas Oil: A Photographic History, 1901-1946
(1982); Cherry Run Valley: Plumer, Pithole, and Oil City, Pennsylvania (2000); Early Texas Oil: A Photographic History, 1866-1936
(2000); Wireline: A History of the Well Logging and Perforating Business in the Oil Fields
(1990); Dark Side of Fortune: Triumph and Scandal in the Life of Oil Tycoon Edward L. Doheny (2001); Deep Water: The Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling: Report to the President
(2011). 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 become an AOGHS annual 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.
