by Bruce Wells | Aug 4, 2025 | This Week in Petroleum History
August 4, 1913 – Discovery of Oklahoma’s “Poor Man’s Field” –
The Crystal Oil Company completed its Wirt Franklin No. 1 well 20 miles northwest of Ardmore, Oklahoma. The wildcat well revealed the giant Healdton field, which became known as “the poor man’s field” because of its shallow depth and low cost of drilling. The area attracted many independent producers with limited financial backing.
Healdton Oil Museum exhibits include the 1920 Pierce-Arrow owned by Wirt Franklin, who in 1929 founded a national trade association of independent oil and natural gas producers.
Another oil discovery in 1919 revealed the Hewitt field, which extended production 22 miles across Carter County. The Greater Healdton-Hewitt oilfield produced “an astounding 320,753,000 barrels of crude by the close of the first half of the 20th century,” noted Kenny Franks in his 1989 book, Ragtown: A History of the Greater Healdton-Hewitt Oil Field.
A young Erle P. Halliburton perfected a new method of cementing oil wells in “the poor man’s field” (see Halliburton and the Healdton Oilfield). Wirt Franklin of Ardmore became the first president of the then Tulsa-based Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) in 1929.
August 4, 1977 – U.S. Department of Energy established
President Jimmy Carter signed the Department of Energy Organization Act, establishing the twelfth cabinet-level department by consolidating a dozen federal agencies and energy programs. The Act combined the Federal Energy Administration and the Energy Research and Development Administration, making the new Department of Energy (DOE) responsible for nuclear weapon programs and national labs. James Schlesinger was sworn in as the first Secretary of Energy.
August 5, 1882 – Rockefeller founds Standard Oil of New Jersey
Twelve years after launching Standard Oil Company of Ohio (bp America), John D. Rockefeller founded the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (ExxonMobil) as a refining and marketing arm of the Standard Oil Trust, which would reorganize as Standard Oil Interests in 1892, two years after the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
“Taking advantage of New Jersey laws that allowed corporations to own stock in other corporations, Standard Oil Company of New Jersey became a holding company that effectively replaced the Standard Oil Trust. In this capacity, it provided administrative coordination to Standard Oil Interests and held stock in forty-one other oil companies,” notes the American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1911 ordered Standard Oil of New Jersey to separate from its subsidiaries.
August 7, 1933 – Permian Basin inspires “Alley Oop” Comic Strip
Although the comic strip “Alley Oop” began syndication with the Newspaper Enterprise Association, the caveman character began in Permian Basin oilfields of the 1920s. A small, West Texas oil town would proclaim itself the inspiration for cartoonist Victor Hamlin.
A 1995 stamp commemorated “Alley Oop” by Victor Hamlin, who once worked in oilfields at Yates, Texas.
Iraan (pronounced eye-rah-ann) began as a company town following the October 1926 discovery of the giant Yates oilfield. The town’s name combined the names of Ira and Ann Yates. As petroleum drilling in the Permian Basin boomed, future Alley Oop cartoonist Hamlin worked as an oil company cartographer. He developed a lifelong interest in geology and paleontology that helped inspire his popular Depression Era comic strip.
Learn more in Alley Oop’s Oil Roots.
August 7, 1953 – Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act generates Revenue
The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act designated the Secretary of the Interior responsible for the administration of mineral exploration and development of America’s outer continental shelf. Forty-four Gulf of Mexico wells were already operating in 11 oilfields by 1949. As the offshore industry evolved in the 1950s, petroleum production became the second-largest revenue generator for the country, after income taxes.
Since 1982, the Interior Department has disbursed more than $387 billion in mineral leasing revenues. The Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR ) in 2024 reported a disbursement of $16.45 billion (down from $18.24 billion in 2023) generated from energy production on federal and Tribal lands and federal offshore areas. Monthly disbursements came from the royalties, rents, and bonuses collected from energy and mineral companies operating on federal lands and waters.
August 7, 2004 – Death of a Famed “Hellfighter”
Famed oilfield well control expert and firefighter Paul “Red” Adair died at age 89 in Houston. The son of a blacksmith, Adair was born in 1915 in Houston. He served with a U.S. Army bomb disposal unit during World War II.
Famed oilfield firefighter Paul “Red” Adair of Houston, Texas, in 1964.
Adair had begun his oilfield career working for Myron Macy Kinley, who patented a technology for using charges of high explosives to snuff out well fires. Kinley, whose father had been an oil well shooter in California in the early 1900s, mentored many other firefighters, including Asger “Boots” Hansen and Edward “Coots” Mathews (Boots & Coots International Well Control).
After founding the Red Adair Company in 1959, Adair developed new techniques as his company extinguished over 2,000 well fires worldwide, onshore and offshore. The oilfield firefighter’s skills, dramatized in the 1968 film “Hellfighters,” were put to the test in 1991, when his company extinguished 117 well fires set in Kuwait by the retreating Iraqi army. Innovative oilfield firefighting technologies began as early as the 1860s.
August 9, 1921 – Reflection Seismography reveals Geological Structure
A team led by University of Oklahoma geophysicist John C. Karcher conducted the world’s first reflection seismograph measurement of a geologic formation, pioneering the use of reflection seismic technology. The geological section measurement followed limited tests in June and July at Oklahoma City. His work led to the discovery of many of the world’s largest oil and natural gas fields.
A roadside sign on I-35 south of Oklahoma City includes a geologic illustration of the Arbuckle Anticline. A nearby marker describes how using reflection seismography for oil exploration began here. Photo by Bruce Wells.
The new geophysical method recorded reflected seismic waves as they traveled through the earth, helping to define oil-bearing formations. The Arbuckle Mountains of Oklahoma were selected for testing the technique and new equipment, according to a roadside marker at the site south of Oklahoma City on I-35.
Learn More in Exploring Seismic Waves.
August 9, 1922 – Giant Oilfield revealed in Luling, Texas
After drilling six dry holes near Luling, Texas, the United North & South Oil Company completed its Rafael Rios No. 1 well. Company President Edgar B. Davis remained determined to find oil in the Austin chalk geologic formation. His perseverance paid off with an oilfield 12 miles long and two miles wide. The Luling field annually produced 11 million barrels of oil by 1924.
The Luling Oil Museum in central Texas is in a restored 1885 mercantile store near the 1922 oilfield a psychic claimed to help discover. Photo courtesy Luling Oil Museum.
On June 11, 1926, Davis sold his Luling leases to the Magnolia Petroleum Company for $12 million – the largest petroleum deal in Texas at the time. Success also produced local tales of Davis finding the Luling oilfield after consulting a psychic. Self-proclaimed clairvoyant Edgar Cayce reported he had helped Davis, but the psychic formed an exploration company that failed after drilling dry holes.
Learn more in Luling Oil Museum and Crudoleum.
On August 9, 1949 – Oil discovered in Western Nebraska
An oilfield discovery in western Nebraska ended decades of unsuccessful searching and helped start the state’s modern petroleum industry. The Marathon Oil Company Mary Egging No. 1 well, five miles southeast of the town of Gurley, produced 225 barrels of oil per day from a depth of 4,429 feet.
According to a nearby historical marker, the first exploratory well drilled in the area near Harrisburg failed in 1917. The success in western Nebraska came nine years after the first Nebraska oil well was completed in 1940 in the southeastern corner of the state.
Marathon Oil in May 2024 announced it was being acquired by ConocoPhillips in an all-stock transaction valued at $22.5 billion.
August 10, 1909 – Hughes patents Two-Cone Drill Bit
“Fishtail” drill bits became obsolete after Howard Hughes Sr. of Houston, Texas, patented the dual-cone roller bit with two rotating cones. By pulverizing hard rock, his bit led to faster and deeper rotary drilling. A few months before receiving the 1909 drill patent, Hughes and Walter Sharp established the manufacturing company Sharp-Hughes Tool (see Carl Baker and Howard Hughes).
Howard Hughes Sr. of Houston, Texas, received a 1909 patent for “roller drills such as are used for drilling holes in earth and rock.”
“Instead of scraping the rock, as does the fishtail bit, the Hughes bit, with its two conical cutters, took a different engineering approach,” reported the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). “By chipping, crushing, and powdering hard rock formations, the Hughes Two-Cone Drill Bit could reach vast amounts of oil in reservoirs thousands of feet below the surface. This new drilling technology would revolutionize the industry.”
In 1933, Hughes engineers invented the modern tri-cone bit; Frank and George Christensen developed the earliest diamond bit in 1941; and tungsten-carbide bits arrived in the early 1950s. By the 1970s, synthetic diamonds evolved into the polycrystalline diamond compact bit. ASME in 2009 designated the Hughes two-cone drill bit a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark (no. 246).
Learn more in Making Hole – Drilling Technology.
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Recommended Reading: Ragtown: A History of the Greater Healdton-Hewitt Oil Field
(1989); The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations (1999); Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
(2004); Yates: A family, A Company, and Some Cornfield Geology
(2000); An American Hero: The Red Adair Story
(1990); Oil And Gas In Oklahoma: Petroleum Geology In Oklahoma
(2013); Texas Art and a Wildcatter’s Dream: Edgar B. Davis and the San Antonio Art League
(1998); Drilling Technology in Nontechnical Language
(2012). 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. © 2025 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
by Bruce Wells | Jul 28, 2025 | This Week in Petroleum History
July 28, 1924 – Oil Scouts form National Group
The National Oil Scouts Association of America — today the International Oil Scouts Association (IOSA) — filed its charter in Austin, Texas, bringing new standards to an important oilfield profession.
Since the 1860s, oilfield scouts have gathered field intelligence on drilling operations — including often sensitive information about the operator, location, lease, depth of well, formations encountered, logs and other data, which may yield a competitive advantage.
Learn more in Oil Scouts – Oil Patch Detectives.
July 28, 1953 – Final Oilfield Patent for Zero Hour Bomb Company
Manufacturer of oilfield products since 1932, the Zero Hour Bomb Company of Tulsa, Oklahoma, received its last U.S. patent relating to electric timer explosives for fracturing geologic formations. The service company patented its device for positioning blasting cartridges in wells — a “well bridge” that automatically opened, “when the time bomb or weight reached a position at the bottom of the well.”
Oilfield service provider Zero Hour Bomb Company was founded in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1932. Photos courtesy Zebco.
The downhole apparatus was never built, because company executives already were manufacturing and marketing a new, “cannot backlash” fishing reel invented by Jasper “R.D.” Hull, who they had hired in 1947. Zero Hour Bomb Company changed its name to Zebco in 1956.
Learn more in Zebco Reel Oilfield History.
July 28, 1977 – Trans-Alaska Pipeline delivers Oil to Port of Valdez
The first barrel of oil from the North Slope’s Prudhoe Bay oilfield arrived at the Port of Valdez after an 800-mile journey through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.
The Trans-Alaska Pipeline delivered North Slope oil almost a decade after the Prudhoe Bay field’s discovery. OMAR refers to the Organization for Management of Alaska’s Resources, now the Resource Development Council for Alaska.
At peak flow in 1988, 11 pumping stations moved 2.1 million barrels of oil a day. The 48-inch-wide pipeline has been recognized as a landmark of engineering (see Trans-Alaska Pipeline History).
July 29, 1918 – “World’s Wonder Oil Pool” discovered in Texas
Less than a year after the “Roaring Ranger” discovered an oilfield to the south, the Fowler No. 1 well at the cotton farming community of Burkburnett, Texas, revealed a new giant field at a depth of 1,734 feet. Within three weeks, 56 rigs were drilling near the Fowler Farm Oil Company site along the Red River in North Texas.
Circa 1919 photo captioned, “Burkburnett, Texas, the World’s Wonder Oil Pool,” showing eight months’ phenomenal development, viewed from the northwest side, opposite Fowler farm.” A. Newman Photographic Company photo courtesy Library of Congress.
Fowler’s decision to drill a well on his Wichita County farm had been called “Fowler’s Folly” until his oil discovery brought hundreds of oil companies to the county. By January 1919, Burkburnett’s population reached more than 8,000 people — with a line of derricks two miles long greeting new arrivals.
As the “World’s Wonder Oil Pool” made national headlines, teenager Clark Gable was a 17-year-old roustabout working in Oklahoma. Gable and Spencer Tracy would star in Hollywood’s version of Burkburnett oil history, the popular 1940 movie “Boom Town.”
Learn more in Boom Town Burkburnett.
July 29, 1957 – Eisenhower limits Oil Imports
As America’s reliance on foreign oil continued to grow — discouraging domestic production — President Dwight D. Eisenhower established a Voluntary Oil Import Program with import quotas by region. The intent was to ensure adequate domestic petroleum in case of a national emergency.
Using a presidential proclamation two years later, Eisenhower made the program mandatory. By 1962, oil imports were limited to 12.2 percent of U.S. production. The program continued until suspended by President Richard Nixon in 1973 as domestic oil production reached new highs during the OPEC oil embargo.
July 30, 1942 – U-166 sinks, discovered 60 years later
A Navy patrol boat attacked and sank a German U-boat in the Gulf of Mexico after the submarine had torpedoed a U.S. freighter. Despite being depth-charged, the U-166 was believed to have escaped — until a natural gas pipeline survey revealed it 59 years later.
The U-166’s identity was not learned until advanced geophysical survey technologies arrived in 2001, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The discovery resulted from an archaeological survey prior to construction of a natural gas pipeline by the British company BP and Shell Offshore Inc.
A natural gas pipeline survey revealed the U-166 about 45 miles off the Louisiana coast in 2011.
Remotely operating vehicles (ROVs) and an autonomous side-scan sonar revealed U-166 separated from its last victim, the Robert E. Lee, by less than a mile. BP and Shell altered their proposed pipeline to preserve the site.
With the petroleum industry the principal user of advanced underwater technologies for seafloor mapping, other World War II vessels have been discovered during oil and natural gas surveys.
Learn more in Petroleum Survey discovers U-boat.
August 1, 1872 – Iron Pipeline delivers Pennsylvania Natural Gas
The first large-scale delivery of natural gas by pipeline began when gas was piped to more than 250 residential and commercial customers in Titusville, Pennsylvania, home of America’s first oil well, drilled in 1859. An iron pipeline two inches wide carried the natural gas five miles from a well producing four million cubic feet of gas a day.
Investors, including the mayor of Titusville, had formed the Keystone Gas & Water Company to construct the pipeline and deliver “the most powerful and voluminous gas well on record.” The well produced into the 1880s, according to the Drake Well Museum and Park.
August 2, 1956 – Missouri builds First U.S. Interstate Highway
Missouri became the first state to award a contract with interstate construction funding authorized two months earlier by the Federal-Aid Highway Act. The highway commission agreed to begin work on part of Route 66, now Interstate 44.
Missouri launched the U.S. interstate system after “inking a deal for work on U.S. Route 66.” Today, I-44 stretches across south central Missouri and is a major corridor linking the Midwest and the West Coast.
“There is no question that the creation of the interstate highway system has been the most significant development in the history of transportation in the United States,” proclaimed the Missouri Department of Transportation (also see America on the Move).
August 3, 1769 – La Brea Asphalt Pits discovered
A Spanish expedition discovered what would be called La Brea (the tar) pits on the West Coast. “We debated whether this substance, which flows melted from underneath the earth, could occasion so many earthquakes,” noted the expedition’s Franciscan friar in his diary.
The Page Museum of Los Angeles offers life-size replicas of extinct mammals at the Rancho La Brea in Hancock Park. Although called the “tar pits,” the pools are asphalt.
The friar, Juan Crespi, was the first person to use the term “bitumen” in describing these sticky pools in southern California — where crude oil has been seeping from the ground through fissures in the coastal plain sediments for more than 40,000 years. Native Americans used the substance for centuries to waterproof baskets and caulk canoes.
Sticky pools form when crude oil seeps to the surface through fissures in the earth’s crust.
Although popularly called the tar pits, the pools at Rancho La Brea are actually asphalt — not tar, which is a by-product made by the distillation of woody materials, such as peat. Asphalt is a naturally formed substance comprised of hydrocarbon molecules (see Asphalt Paves the Way).
Learn more in Discovering the Le Brea Tar Pits.
August 3, 1942 – War brings “Big Inch” and “Little Big Inch” Pipelines
War Emergency Pipelines Inc. began construction on the “Big Inch” line — the longest petroleum pipeline project ever undertaken in the United States. Conceived to supply wartime fuel demands — and in response to U-boat attacks on oil tankers along the eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico, the “Big Inch” and “Little Big Inch” lines were extolled as “the most amazing government-industry cooperation ever achieved.”
The longest petroleum pipeline project ever undertaken led to construction of a 24-inch pipeline from East Texas to Illinois, and a 20-inch line as far as New York City.
With a goal of transporting 300,000 barrels of oil per day, the $95 million project called for construction of a 24-inch pipeline (Big Inch) from East Texas to Illinois, and a 20-inch line (Little Big Inch) as far as New York and Philadelphia. The pipelines would reach more than 1,200 miles (the Trans-Alaska pipeline system is 800 miles long).
Learn more in Big Inch Pipelines of WWII.
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Recommended Reading: The Oil Scouts – Reminiscences of the Night Riders of the Hemlocks
(1986); Trek of the Oil Finders: A History of Exploration for Petroleum (1975); Amazing Pipeline Stories: How Building the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Transformed Life in America’s Last Frontier
(1997). Early Texas Oil: A Photographic History, 1866-1936
(2000); Eisenhower: Soldier and President
(1968); The Extraction State, A History of Natural Gas in America (2021); Torpedoes in the Gulf: Galveston and the U-Boats, 1942-1943
(1995). The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways
(2012); Monsters Of Old Los Angeles – The Prehistoric Animals Of The La Brea Tar Pits
(2008); Oil: From Prospect to Pipeline
(1971). Amazon purchases benefit 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 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.
by Bruce Wells | Jul 21, 2025 | This Week in Petroleum History
July 21, 1935 – “Diamond Glenn” McCarthy strikes Oil –
Glenn H. McCarthy struck oil 50 miles east of Houston in 1935, extending the already prolific Anahuac field. The well was the first of many for the Texas independent producer who would discover 11 Texas oilfields by 1945.
McCarthy became known as another “King of the Wildcatters” and “Diamond Glenn” by 1950, when his estimated worth reached $200 million ($2 billion today).
TIME magazine in 1950 featured Texas wildcatter Glenn McCarthy of Houston.
In addition to his McCarthy Oil and Gas Company, McCarthy eventually owned a gas company, a chemical company, a radio station, 14 newspapers, a magazine, two banks, and the Shell Building in Houston. In the late 1940s, he invested $21 million to build the 18-story, 1,100-room Shamrock Hotel — and reportedly spent $1 million on its St. Patrick’s Day 1949 opening gala, which newspapers dubbed “Houston’s biggest party.”
Learn more in “Diamond Glenn” McCarthy.
July 22, 1933 – Phillips Petroleum sponsors Flight around the World
Before 50,000 cheering New York City onlookers, former roughneck Wiley Post landed his Lockheed 5C Vega “Winnie Mae,” becoming the first person to fly solo around the world. Post had worked in oilfields near Walters, Oklahoma, when he took his first airplane ride with a barnstormer in 1919 and was inspired to take lessons.
Thanks to a friendship with Frank Phillips, Wiley Post set altitude records and became the first person to fly solo around the world.
In 1926, on the first day of working at a well near Seminole, a metal splinter severely damaged his left eye, causing loss of sight. Post used the $1,700 in compensation to buy his first airplane. He became friends with Frank Phillips, president of Phillips Petroleum, sponsor of several high-altitude experimental flights. Phillips also sponsored the “Woolaroc” — winning plane of an August 1926 air race across the Pacific.
July 22, 1959 – Marker erected for Second U.S. Oil Well
The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission dedicated a state marker to commemorate the man who drilled for oil just a few days after Edwin Drake completed the first U.S. commercial well on August 27, 1859. “After Drake’s discovery of oil in Titusville, some area residents attempted to sink their own well,” noted historians at Explore Pennsylvania. “The vast majority of such efforts failed.”
Pennsylvania historical marker for the 1859 Grandin well — America’s second oil well, which was a dry hole.
Using a simple spring pole, 22-year-old John Grandin and a local blacksmith began to “kick down” a well that would reach almost twice as deep as Drake’s cable-tool depth of 69.5 feet. Despite not finding the oil-producing formation (the Venango Sands), Grandin’s well produced several “firsts” for the young U.S. petroleum industry.
Learn more in First Dry Hole.
July 23, 1872 – “Real McCoy” Steam-Engine Lubricator
Using petroleum for improving the performance of locomotives became widespread when Elijah McCoy patented an automatic lubricator for steam engines. McCoy designed a device that applied oil through a drip cup to locomotive and ship steam engines. Instead of stopping engines to apply necessary lubrication, McCoy’s device provided it while they ran, saving railroads time and money.
Elijah McCoy invented lubrication systems for steam engines, early beneficiaries of petroleum. Awarded more than 60 patents, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2001.
The Canadian-born McCoy was the son of slaves who had escaped Kentucky. After his family settled in Michigan, 15-year-old McCoy traveled to Scotland to study mechanical engineering. By the time he died in 1929, the inventor had received 60 patents, according to a 1994 Michigan historical marker.
The expression “the real McCoy” reportedly came from railroad engineers not wanting to buy low-quality copycats of his popular device. Before purchasing the lubricator, buyers would ask if it was “the real McCoy.”
July 23, 1951 – Desk & Derrick Clubs organize
After a secretary at Humble Oil and Refining Company organized the first club in New Orleans, the Association of Desk & Derrick Clubs (ADDC) of North America officially began with articles of association signed by the presidents of clubs in Jackson, Mississippi, New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Houston. By 1952, representatives from 40 clubs would attend the first ADDC convention, held at Houston’s Shamrock Hotel.
Learn more in Desk and Derrick Educators.
July 24, 2000 – BP unveils New Green and Yellow Logo
BP — the official name of a group of companies including Amoco, ARCO and Castrol — unveiled a new corporate identity brand, replacing the “Green Shield” logo with a green and yellow sunflower pattern.
The company also introduced a new corporate slogan: “Beyond Petroleum.” When BP — then British Petroleum — merged with Amoco in 1998, the company’s name briefly changed to BP Amoco before all stations converted to the BP brand.
July 25, 1543 – Oil reported in New World
The first documented report of oil in the New World resulted when a storm forced Spanish explorer Don Luis de Moscoso to land two of his brigantines at the mouth of the Sabine River. He had succeeded expedition leader Hernando de Soto and built seven of the small vessels to sail down the newly discovered Mississippi River and westward along the Gulf Coast.
Spanish explorers used brigantines to sail along the Gulf Coast in 1543.
According to an account of the expedition, Indians knew of the future Texas’ natural seeps. “There was found a skumme, which they call Copee, which the Sea casteth up, and it is like Pitch, wherewith in some places, where Pitch is wanting, they pitch their ships; there they pitched their Brigandines.”
Learn more about the first reports of oil worldwide in Earliest Signs of Oil.
July 27, 1918 – Standard Oil of New York launches Concrete Tanker
America’s first concrete vessel designed to carry oil, the Socony, left its shipyard at Flushing Bay, New York. Built for the Standard Oil Company of New York, the barge was 98 feet long with a 32-foot beam and carried oil in six center and two wing compartments, “oil-proofed by a special process,” according to the journal Cement and Engineering News.
Socony, the first concrete oil tanker, launched in 1918. Below is a second version of the oil barge.
“Eight-inch cast iron pipe lines lead to each compartment and the oil pump is located on a concrete pump room aft,” the journal explained. Steel shortages during World War II would lead to the construction of larger reinforced concrete oil tankers.
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Recommended Reading: The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes
(2009); From Oklahoma to Eternity: The Life of Wiley Post and the Winnie Mae
(1998); Myth, Legend, Reality: Edwin Laurentine Drake and the Early Oil Industry
(2009); Western Pennsylvania’s Oil Heritage
(2008); Trek of the Oil Finders: A History of Exploration for Petroleum (1975); Anomalies, Pioneering Women in Petroleum Geology, 1917-2017; Breaking the Gas Ceiling: Women in the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry (2019). 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 AOGHS annual supporter and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. © 2025 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
by Bruce Wells | Jul 14, 2025 | This Week in Petroleum History
July 14, 1863 – Patent issued for “Tool for Boring Rock” –
French tunnel engineer Rodolphe Leschot received a U.S. patent for a “Tool for Boring Rock.” His concept included a ring of industrial-grade diamonds on the end of a tubular drill rod designed to cut a cylindrical core. Water pumped through the drill rod, washed away cuttings and cooled the bit. Leschot’s system proved successful in drilling blast holes for tunneling.
French engineer Rodolphe Leschot’s cutting-edge 1863 drilling technology.
At the same time, the use of diamond bits in oil well drilling was being examined in the petroleum regions of western Pennsylvania. It is not known if there is any connection between the 1865 experimental diamond core drilling in Pennsylvania and the Leschot blast hole drilling in France.
July 14, 1891 – Rockefeller expands Tank Car Empire
John D. Rockefeller incorporated the Union Tank Line Company in New Jersey and transferred his fleet of several thousand oil tank cars to the Standard Oil Trust. He then systematically acquired control of all but 200 of America’s 3,200 tank cars. By 1904, the rolling fleet had grown to 10,000.
Standard Oil established the Union Tank Line Company to exclusively ship its petroleum.
Union Tank Line Company shipped only Standard Oil products until 1911, when the U.S. Supreme Court mandated the dissolution of Standard Oil. The new shipping company changed its name to Union Tank Car Company (keeping Standard Oil’s UTL or UTLX markings seen today). The company introduced a 50,000-gallon tank car in 1963, the largest in rail service at the time.
July 16, 1907 – Drilling Pioneer patents Casing Shoe
After drilling wells in Kern River oilfields, R. Carlton “Carl” Baker (1872-1957) of Coalinga, California, patented the Baker well-casing shoe. His cable-tool innovation at the bottom of the casing string increased efficiency and reliability for ensuring oil flowed through a well.
Reuben Carlton “Carl” Baker standing next to Baker Casing Shoes in 1914. Photo courtesy R.C. Baker Memorial Museum.
Baker, who in 1903 founded the Coalinga Oil Company, by 1913 had established the Baker Casing Shoe Company (renamed Baker Tools two years later). The inventor opened his first manufacturing plant in Coalinga before moving headquarters to Los Angeles in the 1930s. The company became Baker International in 1976 and Baker Hughes after a 1987 merger with Hughes Tool Company.
Learn more in Carl Baker and Howard Hughes.
July 16, 1926 – Oil Discovery launches Seminole Drilling Boom
Three years after an oil well was completed near Bowlegs, Oklahoma, a gusher south of Seminole revealed the true oil potential of Seminole County. The Fixico No. 1 well penetrated the prolific Wilcox Sands formation at a depth of 4,073 feet.
“Oil workers working on lowered traveling block” at well in Seminole oilfield, August 1939. Photo by Russell Lee (1903-1986) courtesy Library of Congress.
Drilled by R.F. Garland and his Independent Oil Company, the well was among more than 50 Greater Seminole Area oil reservoirs discovered; six were giants that produced more than one million barrels of oil each. With the Oklahoma City oilfield added in 1928, Oklahoma became the largest supplier of oil in the world by 1935.
Learn more in Seminole Oil Boom.
July 16, 1935 – Oklahoma Oil Boom brings First Parking Meter
As the booming Oklahoma City oilfield added to the congestion of cars downtown, the world’s first parking meter was installed at the corner of First Street and Robinson Avenue. Carl C. Magee, publisher of the Oklahoma News, designed the Park-O-Meter No. 1, today preserved by the Oklahoma Historical Society.
Oklahoma college students helped Carl Magee design the Park-O-Meter No. 1. Photo courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society.
“The meter charged five cents for one hour of parking, and naturally citizens hated it, viewing it as a tax for owning a car,” noted historian Josh Miller in 2012. “But retailers loved the meter, as it encouraged a quick turnover of customers.”
Park-O-Meters were manufactured by the MacNick Company of Tulsa, maker of timing devices used to detonate nitroglycerin in wells — and an oilfield services competitor of Zebco, the Zero Hour Bomb Company.
July 16, 1969 – Kerosene fuels launch of Saturn V Moon Rocket
A 19th-century petroleum product made America’s 1969 moon landing possible. Kerosene powered the first-stage rocket engines of the Saturn V when it launched the Apollo 11 mission on July 16. Four days later, astronaut Neil Armstrong announced, “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”
Powered by five first-stage engines fueled by “rocket grade” kerosene, the Saturn V was the tallest, heaviest and most powerful rocket ever built until the SpaceX Starship. Photos courtesy NASA.
Five engines of the Saturn V’s first stage burned “Rocket Grade Kerosene Propellant” at 2,230 gallons per second, generating almost eight million pounds of thrust. The fuel was a highly refined kerosene RP-1 (Rocket Propellant-1) that began as “coal oil” for lamps.
When Canadian Abraham Gesner (1797-1864) first refined the lamp fuel from coal in 1846, he coined the term kerosene from the Greek word keros (wax), but many people called it “coal oil.” A highly refined version of his product now fuels rockets, including the SpaceX Falcon 9.
Learn more in Kerosene Rocket Fuel.
July 18, 1929 – Darst Creek Oilfield discovered in West Texas
With initial production of 1,000 barrels of oil a day, the Texas Company No. 1 Dallas Wilson well revealed a new West Texas oilfield at Darst Creek in Guadalupe County, about five miles from the southwestern edge of the Luling oilfield. The field would be developed by Humble Oil and Refining (later Exxon), Gulf Production Company, Magnolia Petroleum (later Mobil), as well as the Texas Company (later Texaco).
The Petroleum Museum of Midland, Texas, erected in 2019 a circa 1930 derrick used in the Darst Creek oilfield. Photo courtesy the Petroleum Museum.
By December 1931, the Darst Creek field produced more than 19.7 million barrels of oil from an average depth of 2,650 feet, according to a Humble Oil geologist, who noted that of the 291 wells drilled, just 19 were dry holes. The West Texas field was also among the first to operate under proration.
“To avoid the risks of unregulated production with a resulting loss of reservoir pressure, water encroachment and cheap crude prices, the operators agreed to voluntary proration in the field,” noted the Petroleum Museum, adding that “voluntary proration proved to be difficult to maintain.” The Midland museum celebrates its 50th year of preserving Permian Basin history this September.
July 19, 1915 – Petroleum powers Washers and Mowers
Howard Snyder applied to patent his internal combustion-powered washing machine, assigning the rights to the Maytag Company. His washer for “the ordinary farmer” who lacked access to electricity used a one-cylinder, two-cycle engine that could operate using gasoline, kerosene, or alcohol.
Advertisements featured two popular consumer products powered by air-cooled internal combustion engines.
Four years later, Edwin George of Detroit removed the engine from his wife’s Maytag washing machine and added it to a reel-type lawnmower. His invention launched the Moto-Mower Company, which sold America’s first commercially successful gasoline-powered lawn mower.
July 19, 1957 – Oilfield discovered in Alaska Territory
Although some oil production had occurred earlier in the territory, Alaska’s first commercial oilfield was discovered by Richfield Oil Company, which completed its Swanson River Unit No. 1 in Cook Inlet Basin. The well yielded 900 barrels of oil per day from a depth of 11,215 feet.
Even the Anchorage Daily Times could not predict oil production would account for more than 90 percent of Alaska’s revenue.
Alaska’s first governor, William Egan, proclaimed the oilfield discovery provided “the economic justification for statehood for Alaska” in 1959. Richfield leased more than 71,000 acres of the Kenai National Moose Range, now part of the 1.92 million-acre Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.
By June 1962, about 50 wells were producing more than 20,000 barrels of oil a day. Richfield Oil Company merged with Atlantic Refining Company in 1966, becoming Atlantic Richfield (ARCO), which with Exxon discovered the giant Prudhoe Bay field in 1968.
Learn more in First Alaska Oil Wells.
July 20, 1920 – Discovery Well of the Permian Basin
The Permian Basin made headlines in 1920 when a wildcat well erupted oil from a depth of 2,750 feet on land owned by Texas Pacific Land Trust agent William H. Abrams, who just weeks earlier had discovered the West Columbia oilfield in Brazoria County south of Houston.
The latest W.H. Abrams No. 1 well — “shot” with nitroglycerin by the Texas Company (later Texaco) — proved to be part of the Permian Basin, encompassing 75,000 square miles in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico.
The Permian Basin would become the leading source of U.S. oil. Image courtesy Rigzone.
According to a Mitchell County historical marker, “land that sold for 10 cents an acre in 1840 and $5 an acre in 1888 now brought $96,000 an acre for mineral rights, irrespective of surface values…the flow of oil money led to better schools, roads and general social conditions.”
In 1923, the Santa Rita No. 1 discovery well near Big Lake brought yet another Texas drilling boom — and helped establish the University of Texas.
July 20, 2006 – Hughes Glomar Explorer recognized as Engineering Landmark
Former top-secret CIA ship Hughes Glomar Explorer, which became a pioneering petroleum industry drillship, was designated a mechanical engineering landmark during a Houston awards ceremony that included members of the original engineering team and the ship’s crew.
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) in 2006 proclaimed Hughes Glomar Explorer, “a technologically remarkable ship.” Illustration courtesy ASME.
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) designated the vessel, a technologically remarkable ship and historic mechanical engineering landmark. Built in 1972 as a clandestine Soviet submarine recovery project, the vessel’s design was “decades ahead of its time for working at extreme depths.” Modified and relaunched in 1998, the highly advanced Glomar Explorer became a pioneer of modern drillships.
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Recommended Reading: History Of Oil Well Drilling
(2007); Drilling Technology in Nontechnical Language
(2012); The American Railroad Freight Car (1995); Early Days of Oil: A Pictorial History of the Beginnings of the Industry in Pennsylvania
(2000); Western Pennsylvania’s Oil Heritage (2008); Stages to Saturn: A Technological History of the Apollo/Saturn Launch Vehicles
(2003); Wildcatters: Texas Independent Oilmen
(1984); From the Rio Grande to the Arctic: The Story of the Richfield Oil Corporation
(1972); Kenai Peninsula Borough, Alaska
(2012); Texon: Legacy of an Oil Town, Images of America
(2011); Oil in West Texas and New Mexico
(1982); The CIA’s Greatest Covert Operation: Inside the Daring Mission to Recover a Nuclear-Armed Soviet Sub (2012); Project Azorian: The CIA and the Raising of the K-129 (2012). 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 AOGHS annual supporter and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. © 2025 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
by Bruce Wells | Jul 7, 2025 | This Week in Petroleum History
July 7, 1919 – Start of First Transcontinental Motor Convoy –
Beginning with the dedication of a “Zero Milestone” marker on the Ellipse south of the White House, a convoy of U.S. Army military vehicles began a cross-country trek to San Francisco. Lt. Col. Dwight Eisenhower participated as an observer for the War Department during the “truck train,” which traveled to Gettysburg to connect to the Lincoln Highway, the first auto road across the United States — but not completely paved until 1935.
The July 7, 1919, dedication of a “Zero Milestone” on the Ellipse south of the White House preceded the Army’s first attempt to send a convoy of military vehicles across the country. Photos courtesy Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library.
The convoy’s 81 motorized vehicles took 62 days to travel 3,251 miles. It included five ambulances, four kitchens, a truck-mounted blacksmith shop, two machine shops, and a trailer hauling an artillery tractor. Firestone Tire and Rubber Company provided two trucks filled with spare tires.
According to the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, “Lt. Col. Eisenhower learned firsthand of the difficulties faced in traveling great distances on roads that were impassable and resulted in frequent breakdowns of the military vehicles. These early experiences influenced his later decisions concerning the building of the interstate highway system during his presidential administration.”
July 7, 1935 — Oil Boom comes to Rodessa, Louisiana
Although natural gas had been discovered near Rodessa, Louisiana, five years earlier, an oil well completed by United Gas Public Service Company brought a drilling boom to the Caddo Parish community. The well produced 8,000 barrels of oil a day from a depth of 6,048 feet.
“Tents and cots dotted the area, even in the cemetery,” notes a Rodessa historical marker. “Shotgun houses of tin and corrugated iron sprang up everywhere. By the spring of 1936, more than 100 rigs were running in the field.” But production from the Rodessa oilfield, which by 1937 extended into two Texas counties, declined by the early 1940s. The discovery well was plugged after eight years of production, ending the community’s reign as an oil boom town.
July 7, 1947 – Sid Richardson establishes Foundation
Independent producer and Western art collector Sid Williams Richardson (1891-1959) established the Sid Richardson Foundation to benefit Texas hospitals, schools, and colleges.
Sid Richardson’s friends included President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
One of the wealthiest men in the nation, Richardson had made oil discoveries as early as 1919, but struggled in the exploration and production industry until 1933. The lifelong Texas resident’s partnerships later included the Richardson and Bass Oil Producers Company of Fort Worth. “Mr. Sid” also became a leading collector of paintings by Frederic Remington and Charles Russell, many on display in Fort Worth’s Sid Richardson Museum.
July 8, 1848 – Congress charters Gas Light Company
Four days after the laying of the Washington Monument cornerstone, an Act of Congress established the Washington Gas Light Company, which manufactured “town gas” for lighting and heat. The new utility constructed giant tanks (gasometers) on 6.5 acres of gasworks in the D.C. neighborhood of Foggy Bottom.
Washington Monument view of manufactured gas works and gasometer tank at Foggy Bottom in Northwest D.C. Photo courtesy Washington Gas Light Company, operating 175 years in 2023.
The public clamored for gas lighting like that already available in Baltimore and Philadelphia (see Illuminating Gaslight), and after multiple unsuccessful petitions to Congress, the utility received its charter, according to local historian Kent Mountford. George Riggs and William Corcoran played significant roles in the company, which supplied the Capitol building with illuminating gas.
Natural gas service to the D.C. region began in 1931 when President Herbert Hoover opened a pipeline valve to start the flow from natural gas fields in Kentucky and West Virginia. WGL celebrated its 175th anniversary in 2023.
July 8, 1937 – War Secretary approves Drilling Pier Experiment
Secretary of War Harry Woodring approved an ambitious engineering plan to build a Gulf of Mexico pier one mile long to search for oilfields in offshore salt dome formations. Woodring approved exploratory wells by the Humble Oil and Refining Company near McFaddin Beach at Port Author, Texas. The company built an experimental pier on a 60-acre lease eight miles east of High Island in Galveston County and drilled using three rigs, but found no oil. A hurricane destroyed the pier in 1938.
July 9, 1815 – West Virginia Natural Gas Discovery
Natural gas was discovered accidentally by Capt. James Wilson while digging a brine well within the present city limits of Charleston, West Virginia (Virginia in 1815). Earlier, a young surveyor — George Washington — had written about “burning springs” and petroleum seeps northward, along the Kanawha River.
Awarded a land grant for his service in the French and Indian War, Washington acquired 250 acres along the river. He later explained choosing the location, “on account of a bituminous spring which it contains, of so inflammable a nature that it burns as freely as spirits.”
In his 1994 history of West Virginia’s oil industry, David L. McKain concluded, “This was in 1771, making the father of our country the first petroleum industry speculator.”
July 9, 1883 – Finding Oil in the Land of Oz
The future author of the children’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz operated a business selling petroleum products in Syracuse, New York. The store offered lubricants, oils, greases — and “Baum’s Castorine, the Great Axle Oil.”
L. Frank Baum’s many “Castorine” oil sales trips may have led to his idea of a Tin Woodman character with an oil can.
L. Frank Baum — whose father had found success in Pennsylvania oilfields — served as chief salesman for Baum’s Castorine Company, which operates today in Rome, New York. Reporting on the opening, the Syracuse Daily Courier newspaper said Baum’s Castorine was a rust-resistant axle grease concoction for machinery, buggies, and wagons. The axle grease was advertised to be “so smooth it makes the horses laugh.”
L. Frank Baum and his brother Benjamin in 1883 launched their successful business venture offering lubricants, oils, greases, and “Baum’s Castorine, the great axle oil.”
Although Baum sold the Castorine business in 1900, an Oz historian researched company records in Rome, New York, and found the idea for the Tin Man character began with Baum’s oil.
Learn more in Oil in the Land of Oz.
July 10, 2000 – DOE establishes Home Heating Oil Reserve
President Bill Clinton directed Energy Secretary Bill Richardson to establish the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve (NEHHOR) for use during severe winters and other supply emergencies. The reserve of 2 million barrels was expected to last 10 days, the time required for tankers to bring more heating oil from the Gulf of Mexico to New York Harbor.
One million barrels of NEHHOR oil are stored in commercial facilities in the Boston area (400,000), the New York Harbor area (300,000), and 300,000 barrels in Groton, Connecticut. Photo courtesy DOE.
Established by the George W. Bush Administration in 2001 and separated from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, NEHHOR would be reduced in size to 1 million barrels a decade later. The stored fuel was changed from No. 2 heating oil to cleaner burning, low-sulfur diesel held in New England commercial storage facilities.
The first emergency use of NEHHOR took place in 2012, following Hurricane Sandy’s landfall in northeastern states. But with no drawdown since, “the utility and benefits provided by the NEHHOR have been questioned,” according to an August 2022 report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
July 11, 2008 – World Oil Price hits Historic High
The price of oil reached a record high of $147.27 a barrel before dropping back to $145.08. Prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange had peaked at $145.29 a barrel eight days earlier. As supply fears subsided, oil prices fell below $37 a barrel by early 2009. Rising global demand beginning in 2011 resulted in prices peaking at $107.95 per barrel in June 2014, before falling more than 50 percent by the end of 2015.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) reached $113.66 per barrel before declining to near $100 in mid-2022. The WTI wholesale spot price was $85.19 on July 3, 2024, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). The price was $71.76 one year earlier.
July 11, 2013 – Pitch drips After 69 Years
Physicists at Trinity College Dublin photographed a falling drip of pitch — “one of the most anticipated drips in science,” according to the journal Nature.
Pitch (bitumen) is a naturally occurring hydrocarbon that flows very, very slowly.
Set up in 1944, the pitch-drop experiment demonstrated the high viscosity (low fluidity) of pitch, a natural hydrocarbon also known as bitumen or asphalt that appears solid at room temperature but is flowing extremely slowly.
“The Trinity College team has estimated the viscosity of the pitch by monitoring the evolution of this one drop, and puts it in the region of two million times more viscous than honey, or 20 billion times the viscosity of water, ” the magazine noted. Another “Pitch Drop Experiment” that began in 1927 continues today at the University of Queensland in Australia.
Learn more in Asphalt paves the Way.
July 12, 1934 – Emory Clark launches “Clark Super 100” Stations
Two years after paying $14 for a closed, one-pump gas station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Emory Clark incorporated what would become the Clark Oil & Refining Corporation.
Clark established a network of simplified filling stations that focused on selling premium gasoline only, Super 100 Premium. His marketing strategy began with eliminating common services like maintenance, engine repair, and tire changing.
Founded in 1934, Clark operated about 1,500 gas stations by 1970.
Sales reached $21.1 million in 1949, and by 1953, the company operated more than 150 service stations in the Midwest under the brand name Clark Super 100. After purchasing a refinery at Wood River, Illinois, in 1967, Clark began selling high-octane gas from 1,500 stations.
In 1981, the Clark family sold their company holdings, which began with Emory T. Clark’s $14 purchase, to Missouri-based Apex Oil for $483 million.
by Bruce Wells | Jun 30, 2025 | This Week in Petroleum History
June 30, 1864 – Oil Tax funds Civil War –
The federal government taxed oil for the first time when it levied a $1 per barrel tax on production from Pennsylvania oilfields.
Seeking ways to pay for the Civil War, Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase advocated an oil tax of $6.30 per barrel.
Desperate for revenue to fund the Civil War as early as 1862, Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase advocated a $6.30 tax per barrel of oil and $10.50 per barrel on refined products. Angry oil producers rallied against the tax in Oil City, Pennsylvania, and sent delegates to Washington, D.C., where they negotiated a tax of $1 per 42-gallon barrel of oil.
July 1, 1919 – Top Independent Producers associate in Tulsa –
The two-year-old Mid-Continent Oil & Gas Association established its Kansas-Oklahoma Division in boom town Tulsa. Members were a “who’s who” of top independent oil and natural gas producers.
Alf Landon served as Kansas governor and was the 1936 Republican presidential candidate.
Today the U.S. Oil & Gas Association, membership in 1919 included Frank Phillips of Phillips Petroleum; E.W. Marland, whose company became Conoco; W.G. Skelly, founder of Skelly Oil; H.H. Champlin, founder of Champlin Oil; and Alf Landon, the 1936 Republican presidential candidate. Robert Kerr of Kerr-McGee Oil Company presided as president of the Mid-Continent Division from 1935 through 1941.
July 1, 1922 – Smackover Field brings Arkansas Drilling Boom
First settled by French fur trappers in 1844, Smackover, Arkansas, had a population of just 90 people in 1922 when a wildcat well erupted oil. The well, drilled to 2,066 feet by sawmill owner Sidney Umsted, discovered the 25,000-acre Smackover field. Within six months, 1,000 wells were drilled with a success rate of 92 percent.
Roughnecks photographed following the July 1, 1922, discovery of the Smackover (Richardson) field in Union County. Photo courtesy of the Southwest Arkansas Regional Archives.
Smackover’s population grew to 25,000 and its uncommon name quickly attained national attention. Nearby less than two years earlier, the first commercial oil well in Arkansas, the Busey-Armstrong No. 1, had revealed the giant El Dorado field and launched the career of a young H.L. Hunt.
Learn more in First Arkansas Oil Wells.
July 1, 1938 – The Texas Company discovers Illinois Oilfield
Using a newly introduced technology of seismic exploration, petroleum geologists found hidden anticlines with commercial quantities of oil in Marion County, Illinois. By January 1939 the Salem field was ranked seventh in U.S. daily production. In one year the field produced more than 20 million barrels of oil.
Natural gas production in Illinois began as early as 1853 when marsh or “drift gas” was produced from two water wells drilled near Champaign. The state’s first drilling boom arrived in 1906, thanks to the John Shore No. 1 oil well in Crawford County, according to the Illinois Oilfield Museum.
July 2, 1910 – President Taft establishes Naval Petroleum Reserves
As the Navy converted from coal to oil-burning ships, President William Howard Taft established three Naval Petroleum Reserves.
“As a prospective large consumer of oil by reason of the increasing use of fuel oil by the Navy, the federal government is directly concerned both in encouraging rational development and at the same time ensuring the longest possible life to the oil supply,” the president declared in a message to Congress.
Commissioned in 1914 with coal-powered boilers that were converted to use fuel oil in 1925, the U.S.S. Texas “was the most powerful weapon in the world.”
The last U.S. battleship to be built with coal-fired boilers, the U.S.S. Texas, was launched in 1912 and converted to oil-fired boilers in 1926.
Learn more in Petroleum and Sea Power.
July 2, 1913 – First Gasoline-Electric Hybrid Locomotive
While most U.S. trains were still steam-powered, General Electric built the first commercially successful gasoline-powered engine locomotive. Two General Motors 175-horsepower V-8s powered two 600-volt, direct current generators to propel the 57-ton locomotive to a top speed of 51 miles per hour.
Many consider the locomotive “Dan Patch” the first successful internal combustion engine locomotive in the United States.
The Electric Line of Minnesota Company purchased the new gasoline-powered electric hybrid for $34,500, naming it “Dan Patch” in honor of the world’s champion harness horse of the time. By 1930, diesel engines with G.E. generators launched the modern train industry with Streamliners.
July 2, 1920 – West Columbia Oilfield discovered in Texas
The Abrams No. 1 well erupted oil in Brazoria County, Texas, revealing the West Columbia oilfield southwest of Houston. Drilled by the Texas Company (the future Texaco), the well initially produced up to 30,000 barrels of oil a day. The well was completed on a 1,650-acre tract owned by railroad official William H. Abrams (1843–1926), who administered millions of acres for the Texas Pacific Land Trust.
Abrams also invested in Mitchell County leases in West Texas, where another 1920 wildcat well discovered the first oil production of the Permian Basin. Three years later, drillers from El Paso completed the Santa Rita No. 1 well.
July 5, 1900 – Edison films New Jersey Refinery Fire
An early morning lightning strike at the Standard Oil Company refinery at Bayonne, New Jersey, set off explosions in three storage tanks, each with a capacity of 40,000 barrels of oil. Within minutes, the company’s fire department and tugboats rushed to fight the blaze.
Screenshots from Thomas Edison’s film of the destruction of Standard Oil Company’s refinery at Bayonne, New Jersey, on July 5, 1900, courtesy Library of Congress.
“The tugboats moved the company ships and oil-filled barges away from its burning docks to safe waters,” noted the Jersey Journal in 2017. The Bayonne refinery fire was one of the first newsreels produced by the Thomas A. Edison Company (it can be viewed here). As bad as the conflagration was, there were no fatalities.
July 6, 1988 – Piper Alpha North Sea Tragedy
An explosion and fire on Occidental Petroleum’s Piper Alpha offshore production platform in the North Sea resulted in the deaths of 167 out of 224 personnel. It remains the most deadly offshore disaster in petroleum history.
“Smoke pouring from Piper Alpha throws a pall over the North Sea 18 hours after the explosion,” reported The Daily Telegraph of London on July 8, 1988.
Piper Alpha had been receiving natural gas from two platforms while exporting gas to a compression platform. The initial explosion was caused “by a misunderstanding of the readiness of a gas condensate pump that had been removed from service for maintenance of its pressure safety valve,” according to safety expert Gary Karasek.
Improved offshore platform designs, operations engineering, evacuation technologies, and safety procedures emerged following the official inquiry, noted Karasek. “It was a ground-breaking effort, with numerous detailed findings and 106 recommendations, which were readily accepted by industry.”
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Recommended Reading: Tulsa Where the Streets Were Paved With Gold – Images of America
(2000); The Discovery of Oil in South Arkansas, 1920-1924 (1974); Historic Battleship Texas: The Last Dreadnought
(2007); Evolution of the American Diesel Locomotive, Railroads Past and Present
(2007); Early Texas Oil: A Photographic History, 1866-1936 (2000) Death and Oil: A True Story of the Piper Alpha Disaster on the North Sea
(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. © 2025 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
