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.
April 29, 2004 – Last Oldsmobile rolls off Assembly Line
The last Oldsmobile ever built (a four-door Alero GLS) left the company’s production line in Lansing, Michigan. Founded by Ransom E. Olds in 1897 as “Olds Motor Vehicle Company,” Olds sold America’s first mass-produced car, the Model R “Curved Dash,” from 1902 to 1907, according to Robert Domm in this 2009 book Michigan Yesterday & Today. In 1908, Oldsmobile joined Buick to become part of the newly established General Motors eight years after the first U.S. auto show.
April 30, 1929 – Marland Oil and Continental Oil become Conoco
After discovering several Oklahoma oil and gas fields, Marland Oil Company acquired Continental Oil Company to create a network of service stations in 30 states. Future Oklahoma Governor Ernest W. Marland founded Marland Oil in 1921; Continental Oil Company was founded in 1875 in Utah, where it refined oil into kerosene.
After Continental Oil and Marland Oil combined in 1929, the new company used this logo until 1970.
Headquartered in Ponca City, the new company retained the name Continental Oil, but adopted the well-known Marland red triangle trademark, replacing the “Marland Oils” text with “Conoco.” The company in 2002 merged with Phillips Petroleum, incorporated in 1917, to become ConocoPhillips (see ConocoPhillips Petroleum Museums).
April 30, 1955 – Landmen form Trade Association
The American Association of Professional Landmen (AAPL) organized in Fort Worth, Texas, as an association of petroleum lease negotiators. AAPL members research records to determine well ownership, locate mineral and land owners, and negotiate oil and natural gas leases, trades and contracts. With 12,000 members, AAPL assists in compliance with state and federal regulations, according to the association, which will host its 71th annual meeting June 18-20, 2025, in Kansas City, Mo.
May 1, 1860 – First West Virginia Oil Well
As the Civil War approached, Virginia’s petroleum industry began when John Castelli ”Cass” Rathbone completed an oil well near Burning Springs Run in what today is West Virginia. His well — drilled using a spring pole — reached 300 feet and began producing 100 barrels of oil a day.
Rathbone drilled more wells in the valley of the Little Kanawha River southwest of Parkersburg. It was the first petroleum boom to take place outside the Pennsylvania oilfields, revealed by the first U.S. well at Titusville a year earlier.
Following the 1860 oil discovery at Burning Springs, Appalachian drillers applied cable-tool technologies to drill deeper. 1869 postcard courtesy West Virginia Humanities Council.
By the end of 1860, the “Burning Springs Oil Rush” resulted in more than 600 oil leases registered in the Wirt County courthouse. Warehouses were built along the Little Kanawha River, which reached the Ohio River at Parkersburg.
“These events truly mark the beginnings of the oil and gas industry in the United States,” proclaimed West Virginia historian David McKain in 1994, adding that the region’s oil wealth helped bring about statehood in June 1863. Many of the new state’s politicians were “oil men — governor, senator and congressman — who had made their fortunes at Burning Springs.”
Visit West Virginia’s oil and gas museum in downtown Parkersburg.
May 1, 1916 – Harry Sinclair founds Sinclair Oil & Refining
Harry Ford Sinclair combined several depressed oil properties, five small refineries and many untested leases — all acquired at bargain prices. He began with $50 million in assets and borrowed another $20 million to form Sinclair Oil & Refining Corporation.
Sinclair Oil & Refining Corporation founder Harry Sinclair on the U.S. Capitol steps in January 1923. Photo Courtesy Library of Congress.
In its first 14 months, Sinclair’s New York-based company produced six million barrels of oil for a net income of almost $9 million ($258 million in 2024 dollars). The company’s petroleum refining capacity grew to 150,000 barrels of oil a day in 1932.
Although Sinclair was implicated in the 1920s Teapot Dome Scandal, his oil and refining company became one of the oldest continuous names in the petroleum industry. The “Dino” marketing icon Sinclair Oil dinosaur was exhibited at the 1933-1934 World’s Fair in Chicago. Sinclair died in 1956 at age 80.
May 1, 1931 – Railroad Commission limits East Texas Oil Production
The first proration order for the East Texas oilfield from the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC) took effect less than one year after the Daisy Bradford No. 3 well discovered the “Black Giant” of the Great Depression. With hundreds of wells producing almost one million barrels a day, oil prices had collapsed to as low as 10 cents per barrel. The commission’s order — unpopular with independent producers but enforced by Texas Rangers — limited production and stabilized prices.
May 1, 2001 – Oklahoma Plaza honors Oil Pioneers
The Sam Noble Museum at the University of Oklahoma in Norman dedicated a memorial to the state’s petroleum pioneers. “The individuals identified here are true Oklahoma Oil Pioneers whose work laid the groundwork for the oil and gas industry in a young state,” notes the Conoco Oil Pioneers of Oklahoma Plaza. “Their stories are not only inspirational, but serve as testaments to the extraordinary opportunities the early oil industry provided for individual achievements and public good.”
Wildcatter Tom Slick’s portrait in bronze bas-relief at the oil pioneers plaza of the Sam Noble Museum, University of Oklahoma, Norman.
Among the 60 honored are Tom Slick (1883-1930), Lloyd Noble (1896-1950), Robert S. Kerr (1896-1963) and service company pioneers George E. Failing (1889-1976), Erle P. Halliburton (1892-1957), and geophysicist John C. Karcher (1894-1978). “The history of the state of Oklahoma is inextricably linked with the remarkable history of the oil industry,” proclaimed Conoco Chairman Archie Dunham at the dedication.
May 2, 1921 – Oil discovered in Texas Panhandle
Following a series of discoveries revealing the giant Hugoton natural gas field in the Texas Panhandle, a well drilled in Carson County found an oilfield instead. Gulf Oil Company completed its wildcat well on the 6666 (the “Four Sixes”) Ranch of S.B. Burnett several miles east of the natural gas wells. The discovery attracted to Amarillo independent producers and oilfield service companies. In 1926, a giant oilfield was discovered northeast of Amarillo by A.P. “Ace” Borger, who founded the boom town of Borger. Learn more by visiting the Hutchinson County Historical Museum.
May 3, 1870 – Lantern with Two Spouts patented
Jonathan Dillen of Petroleum Centre, Pennsylvania, received a patent for his “safety derrick lamp,” a two-wicked lantern that became known as the “Yellow Dog” in America’s earliest oilfields. Dillen designed his lamp “for illuminating places out of doors, especially in and about derricks, and machinery in the oil regions, whereby explosions are more dangerous and destructive to life and property than in most other places.”
Patented in 1870, a popular two-wicked oilfield derrick lamp would become known as the “yellow dog.”
“My improved lamp is intended to burn crude petroleum as it comes from the wells fresh and gassy,” he added. How the once widely used lamp got its name has remained a mystery, but some say the two burning wicks resembled a dog’s glowing eyes at night.
Learn more in Yellow Dog – Oilfield Lantern.
May 4, 1869 – Offshore Drilling Platform Design patented
The first U.S. patent for an offshore drilling rig was issued to Thomas Rowland, owner of Continental Iron Works in Greenpoint, New York, for his “submarine drilling apparatus.” His remarkably advanced platform included a fixed, working platform for drilling in a water depth of up to 50 feet.
Thomas Rowland’s design for an offshore drilling platform with telescoping legs was ahead of its time.
Rowland’s anchored, four-legged tower concept would be adapted for modern platforms. His Continental Iron Works also became a world leader in gas fittings, welding, and oil tank design and construction (including a famous Civil War ironclad). The American Society of Civil Engineers in 1882 issued its first Thomas Fitch Rowland Prize awarded every year.
Learn more in Offshore Rig Patent.
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Recommended Reading: The Secret of Sherwood Forest: Oil Production in England During World War II
(1973); Michigan Yesterday & Today (2009); General Motors: A Photographic History
(1999); Oil And Gas In Oklahoma: Petroleum Geology In Oklahoma
(2013); Where it All Began: The story of the people and places where the oil & gas industry began: West Virginia and southeastern Ohio
(1994); “King of the Wildcatters:” The Life and Times of Tom Slick, 1883-1930
(2004); Offshore Pioneers: Brown & Root and the History of Offshore Oil and Gas
(1997). 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. Copyright © 2025 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
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.
April 22, 1920 – Natural Gas Well leads Arkansas Discoveries
Although natural gas was first discovered in 1887 at Fort Smith, the first commercial production began in southern Arkansas with a well completed southeast of El Dorado. Drilled to a depth of almost 2,250 feet, the well produced up to 60 million cubic feet of natural gas a day and showed signs of oil from the Nacatoch formation sandstone. The first Arkansas oil wells arrived one year later at El Dorado and at Smackover in 1922.
April 22, 1926 – Osage Oil Lease Auctioneer Statue dedicated
A statue commemorating the friendship between oil and gas lease auctioneer Colonel E.E. Walters and Osage Indian Chief Baconrind (phonetically, Wah-she-hah) was dedicated in Walters’ hometown of Skedee, Oklahoma. Beginning in 1912, Colonel Elmer Ellsworth Walters (his real name) and the popular Chief of the Osage Nation raised millions of dollars for the tribe from mineral lease sales.
The town of Skedee, Oklahoma, has declined in population, but its 1926 statue of a famed auctioneer and Osage chief remains. Photo by Bruce Wells.
The auctions took place beneath an elm tree at the Tribal Council House in Pawhuska, where crowds gathered to witness bidding from Frank Phillips, E.W. Marland and William Skelly. The Skedee unveiling revealed “painted bronze” statues of Walters and Chief Baconrind shaking hands on a sandstone monument’s base.
Learn more in Million Dollar Auctioneer.
April 22, 1930 – E. W. Marland unveils Pioneer Woman
One block from the Marland Mansion in Ponca City, Ernest Whitworth “E.W.” Marland unveiled the Pioneer Woman statue, his gift to the state to honor the role of women who settled there. “Marland invited sculptors to submit competitive designs in the form of small models,” notes the Oklahoma Historical Society (OHS).
Thousands gathered in Ponca City for the 1930 unveiling of the Pioneer Woman, a 17-foot bronze stature commissioned by Marland Oil President E.W. Marland. A 1968 bronze cast of the winning model is on exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum until September 14, 2025.
A dozen models were exhibited across the country and after 750,000 votes, British-born American sculptor Bryant Baker won, and a 17-foot bronze statue was erected for $300,000. In 1968, the artist donated a bronze of the model to the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM). The contest’s other models are at the Woolaroc Ranch, established by Marland’s friend and rival Frank Phillips.
Marland founded Marland Oil in Ponca City in 1917 after losing a fortune in the Pennsylvania oilfields during the panic of 1907. He was among the earliest to use seismography and core drilling for petroleum exploration.
April 22, 1964 – Sinclair Dinoland returns to New York World’s Fair
Continuing its successful marketing campaign begun in the 1930s, Sinclair Oil opened a Dinoland pavilion at the 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair. The exhibition of giant, fiberglass dinosaurs proved a hit with the 50 million people attending the fair.
“For the first time in 70 million years a herd of dinosaurs will travel down the Hudson River this month,” noted Popular Science in September 1963.
The first Sinclair Oil Dinoland, which attracted crowds to the Texas Centennial Exposition in 1936, was expanded for the 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair. Following the 1964-1965 exhibition, the 70-foot green “Dino” and eight more dinosaurs traveled to parking lots at shopping centers, delighting children in 25 states.
April 23, 1878 – Oil Exchange Building opened in Pennsylvania
The Oil Exchange of Oil City, Pennsylvania, opened a new, $100,000 brick building on Seneca Street. Independent producers began meeting there to trade oil and pipeline certificates. They had earlier gathered at local hotels or along Oil City’s Centre Street, then known as the “Curbside Exchange.”
By 1877, Pennsylvania oil companies had created the third-largest financial exchange of any kind in America, behind only New York and San Francisco.
Before the 1870s, most Pennsylvania oil buyers had taken on-site delivery of oil in wooden barrels they provided themselves. A rapidly growing oil pipeline infrastructure created the need for a place to trade certificates as oil commerce expanded. The Standard Oil Company of New Jersey would bring an end to Pennsylvania’s highly speculative oil-trading markets.
Learn more in End of Oil Exchanges.
April 23, 1907 – Birthday of Shell
A telegram announced the merger of Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and Shell Transport and Trading Company to form the Royal Dutch Shell Group. Shell Transport and Trading was an 1897 British company founded by Sir Marcus Samuel for exporting “Shell” kerosene refined near Texas oilfields. Royal Dutch had begun to construct its own tankers as competition with Standard Oil intensified.
Sir Marcus Samuel received a telegram confirming the merger to create Royal Dutch Shell Group. In 1909. his transport company’s original logo would evolve from a mussel shell trademarked in 1900 to the familiar Shell scallop.
Samuel’s company marketed kerosene in red cans to “stand out against Standard Oil’s blue when the companies were competing back at the end of the 19th Century,” according to Shell. The yellow and red scallop shell logo began as a black and white mussel shell trademarked in 1900; the telegram’s 1907 date is celebrated as the birthday of Shell.
April 24, 1911 – Magnolia Petroleum founded
The Magnolia Petroleum Company was founded as an unincorporated joint-stock association — a consolidation of several companies, the first of which began in 1898 as a small refinery in Corsicana during the first Texas oil boom.
Magnolia Petroleum would merge with Socony Mobil Oil in the 1930s and replace its flower with the “Flying Pegasus” logo.
As Magnolia Petroleum established service stations in southwestern states, Standard Oil Company of New York (Socony) began acquiring the company in 1925 before merging with the Vacuum Oil Company in 1931.
The new company, Socony-Vacuum Oil — the future Mobil Oil — included stations in 20 states operated by Magnolia Petroleum, headquartered in an early Dallas skyscraper. Magnolia adopted the Socony-Vacuum Oil Pegasus logo, which began rotating atop the building in 1934.
April 24, 1917 – Maybell trademarks “Lash-Brow-Ine”
Tom Lyle Williams, doing business in Chicago as Maybell Laboratories, trademarked the name Lash-Brow-Ine as mascara and “preparation for stimulating the growth of eyebrows and eyelashes.” Two years earlier, Williams had watched his sister Mabel perform what she called “a secret of the harem,” mixing petroleum jelly with coal dust and applying it to her eyelashes.
Toothpicks were once used to mix lamp black with Vaseline, but by the 1930s Maybelline mascara was available at local five-and-dime stores. Photo courtesy Sharrie Williams.
The mascara’s key ingredient, Vaseline, had been patented in 1872 by Robert Chesebrough, a young chemist in Brooklyn, New York (see The Crude Story of Mabel’s Eyelashes). Williams began selling tins of Mabel’s mixture by mail-order catalog, calling it “lash-brow-ine.” With sales exceeding $100,000 by 1920, Williams renamed the mascara Maybelline in honor of his sister, who worked with him in his Chicago office.
April 25, 1865 – Civil War Veteran patents Well Torpedo
Civil War veteran Col. Edward A.L. Roberts of New York City received the first of his many patents for an “Improvement in Exploding Torpedoes in Artesian Wells.” The invention used controlled downhole explosions “to fracture oil-bearing formations and increase oil production.”
A Pennsylvania historical marker notes the 1865 first demonstration of the invention of Union Col. E.A.L. Roberts.
The Roberts torpedoes were filled with gunpowder, lowered into wells, and ignited by a weight dropped along a suspension wire to percussion caps. In later models, nitroglycerin replaced gunpowder. Before the well torpedo’s invention, many early wells in the new oil regions of Pennsylvania, New York, and West Virginia often produced limited amounts of oil.
With its exclusive patent licenses, the Roberts Petroleum Torpedo Company charged up to $200 per torpedo “shoot” and a one-fifteenth royalty. Seeking to avoid the expense, unlicensed practitioners operated at night with their own explosive devices, reportedly leading to the term “moonlighter.”
Learn more in Shooters – A “Fracking” History.
April 26, 1947 – Oil Industry promoted on Radio
For the first time since its establishment in 1919, the American Petroleum Institute launched a national advertising campaign. “The theme of the drive is that the petroleum industry is a modern and progressive one, and is now turning out the best products in its history,” noted The Billboard.
Founded in 1919 in New York City, API moved its headquarters to the nation’s capital in 1929.
“Radio this week struck real pay dirt as a ‘Gusher’ will come mainly from expansion of current air time on spot local or regional levels by the thousands of petroleum and related corporations,” proclaimed the weekly publication. API today is a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying organization representing major petroleum companies. It issues industrywide recommended practices, “to promote the use of safe equipment and proven engineering.”
April 27, 1966 – Ariel Corporation founded
After receiving a degree in mechanical engineering in 1954, former eighth-grade teacher Jim Buchwald founded Ariel Corporation in Mount Vernon, Ohio. “With little money to pay for a facility to house the tools, a room in the basement of the Buchwald family home is cleaned up,” according to the Ariel website.
Buchwald bought a lathe, a small hand-cranked rotary table and a vertical drill for manufacturing valves. “This room becomes the first Ariel machine shop, with an adjoining room functioning as Ariel’s first official engineering department.”
Jim Buchwald with Ariel’s prototype compressor after it has completed a 10-hour run test. Photo courtesy Ariel.
By 1968, Buchwald had built a prototype gas compressor that ran at the unprecedented speed of 1,800 RPM. His Ohio machine shop soon transitioned into a manufacturing facility, and Buchwald named the company after his favorite 1948 Ariel motorcycle. His company has become one of the world’s largest manufacturers of reciprocating gas compressors.
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Recommended Reading: Down the Asphalt Path: The Automobile and the American City
(1994); The Discovery of Oil in South Arkansas, 1920-1924
(1974); The Osage Oil Boom
(1989); The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power (1991); Historic Photos of Texas Oil
(2012); The Maybelline Story: And the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind It
(2010); The Boom: How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World
(2015); The Seven Sisters: The great oil companies & the world
(1975); Oil and Gas Pipeline Fundamentals
(1993). 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. Copyright © 2025 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
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.
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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 | Apr 7, 2025 | This Week in Petroleum History
April 7, 1902 – Spindletop Boom brings The Texas Company –
Joseph “Buckskin Joe” Cullinan and Arnold Schlaet established The Texas Company in Beaumont to transport and refine oil from Spindletop Hill, a giant oilfield discovered in January 1901. The new company constructed a kerosene refinery in Port Arthur — and discovered an oilfield at Sour Lake Springs, where its Fee No. 3 well produced 5,000 barrels of oil a day in 1903.
The National Route 66 Museum in Elk City, Oklahoma, preserves the heritage of Texaco, the first petroleum company to market products in all 50 states. Photo by Bruce Wells.
The Texas Company telegraph address at its New York office was “Texaco,” a name soon adopted for its petroleum products. In 1909 a red star with a green capital “T” was trademarked and by 1928 the Texaco brand operated more than 4,000 service stations nationwide. The Texas Company, which officially renamed itself Texaco in 1959, was acquired by Chevron in 2001.
Learn more in Sour Lake produces Texaco.
April 7, 1966 – Cold War Accident boosts Offshore Technology
A robotic technology soon adopted by the offshore petroleum industry was first used to retrieve an atomic bomb. America’s first cable-controlled underwater research vehicle (CURV) attached cables to recover the weapon lost in the Mediterranean Sea.
The U.S. Navy in 1966 used its CURV (Cable-Controlled Underwater Recovery Vehicle) to recover a lost nuclear bomb in the Mediterranean.
The 70-kiloton hydrogen bomb, which had been lost when a B-52 crashed off the coast of Spain in January, was safely hoisted from a depth of 2,850 feet.
“It was located and fished up by the most fabulous array of underwater machines ever assembled,” proclaimed Popular Science magazine. During the Cold War, the Navy developed deep-sea technologies that the offshore petroleum industry would adopt and continue to advance.
Learn more in ROV – Swimming Socket Wrench.
April 8, 1929 – Sinclair vs. United States
The Supreme Court unanimously upheld a lower court ruling that Congress had the right to investigate Sinclair Oil founder Harry Sinclair’s personal dealings with Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall regarding the leasing of federal oil reserves. In 1922, Fall had leased land in the Teapot Dome oilfield (Navy Reserve No. 3) to the Mammoth Oil Company, a Sinclair subsidiary. He also leased land in California’s Elk Hills reserve to Edward Doheny, the 1892 discoverer of the Los Angeles Field.
After several trials, proceedings concluded with Doheny being acquitted of conspiracy and Fall convicted of accepting bribes and serving nine months in prison, notes the Federal Judicial Center. He was the first cabinet official to go to prison. Sinclair was acquitted of conspiracy but convicted of contempt of Congress and served six and a half months in prison in 1929.
April 9, 1914 – Ohio Cities Gas Company founded
Beman Dawes and Fletcher Heath organized the Ohio Cities Gas Company in Columbus, Ohio, before building an oil refinery in West Virginia. Ohio Cities Gas acquired Pennsylvania-based Pure Oil Company in 1917 and adopted that name three years later. Pure Oil was founded in Pittsburgh in 1895 by independent oil producers, refiners, and pipeline operators to counter the market dominance of Standard Oil Company.
Ohio Cities Gas Company became Pure Oil in 1917.
By producing, refining and selling its products, Pure Oil became the second vertically integrated petroleum company after Standard Oil. Headquartered in a now iconic Chicago skyscraper it built in 1926, the company joined the 100 largest U.S. industrial corporations. It was acquired in 1965 by Union Oil Company of California, now a division of Chevron.
April 9, 1966 – Birthday of Tula’s Golden Driller
A 76-foot statue of an oilfield worker today known as “The Golden Driller” made its debut at the International Petroleum Exposition in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After several refurbishments, the 22-ton statue would contain 2.5 miles of rods and mesh with tons of plaster and concrete — withstanding winds up to 200 mph. A smaller version of Tulsa’s iconic roughneck originally appeared at the 1953 petroleum exposition as a promotion for the Mid-Continent Supply Company of Fort Worth, Texas.
April 10, 1866 – Densmore Brothers patent Railroad Oil Tank Car
James and Amos Densmore of Meadville, Pennsylvania, received a patent for their “Improved Car for Transporting Petroleum,” developed a year earlier in the northwestern Pennsylvania oil regions. Their patent illustrated a simple but sturdy design for securing two re-enforced containers on a typical railroad car.
The Densmore dual tank car briefly revolutionized the bulk transportation of oil to market. Hundreds of the twin tank railroad cars were in use by 1866.
Although the Densmore cars were an improvement, they would be replaced by the more practical single, horizontal tank. After leaving the business, Amos Densmore in 1875 invented a new way for arranging “type writing machines” so commonly used letters would not collide — the “Q-W-E-R-T-Y” keyboard. James Densmore’s continued success in oilfields helped finance the start of the Densmore Typewriter Company.
Learn more in Densmore Brothers invent First Oil Tank Car.
April 11, 1957 – Independent Producer William Skelly dies
William Grove Skelly (1878 -1957) died in Tulsa after a long career as an independent producer he began as a 15-year-old tool dresser in early Pennsylvania oilfields. Prior to World War I, he found success in the El Dorado field outside Wichita, Kansas. Skelly incorporated Skelly Oil Company in Tulsa in 1919. In 1923, Skelly organized the first International Petroleum Exposition while serving as president of the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce. Skelly in 1947 helped establish KWGS, Tulsa’s first FM radio station and one of the earliest educational stations in the nation.
April 13, 1974 – Depth Record set in Oklahoma Anadarko Basin
After drilling for 504 days and spending about $7 million, the Bertha Rogers No. 1 well reached a total depth of 31,441 feet (5.95 miles) before being stopped by liquid sulfur. Drilled in Oklahoma’s Anadarko Basin, it held the record of the world’s deepest well for more than a decade.
The GHK Company of Robert Hefner III and partner Lone Star Producing Company believed natural gas reserves resided deep in the Anadarko Basin extending across West-Central Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle. Their first high-tech drilling attempt began in 1967 and took two years to reach a then record depth of 24,473 feet.
A 1974 souvenir plaque of the Bertha Rogers No. 1 well, which reached almost six miles deep in Oklahoma’s Anadarko Basin.
The 1969 well found plenty of natural gas, according to historian Robert Dorman, but because of federal price controls, “the sale of the gas could not cover the high cost of drilling so deeply – $6.5 million, as opposed to a few hundred thousand dollars for a conventional well.”
The drilling of the Bertha Rogers well began in November 1972 and averaged about 60 feet per day. By April 1974, bottom-hole pressure reached almost 25,000 pounds per square inch with a temperature of 475 degrees. The well’s 1.5 million pounds of casing was the heaviest ever handled by a drilling rig, and it took eight hours for cuttings to reach the surface.
Learn more in Anadarko Basin in Depth.
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Recommended Reading: The Texaco Story: The First Fifty Years, 1902-1952
(2012); Mapping the Deep: The Extraordinary Story of Ocean Science
(2002); Diving & ROV: Commercial Diving offshore (2021); The American Railroad Freight Car (1995); Story of the Typewriter, 1873-1923 (2019); Tulsa Where the Streets Were Paved With Gold – Images of America
(2000); Oil in Oklahoma (1976); History Of Oil Well Drilling
(2007). 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.
by Bruce Wells | Mar 31, 2025 | This Week in Petroleum History
March 31, 1919 – Oklahoma’s Other First Oil Well –
The Cherokee-Warren Oil and Gas Company incorporated — taking over the remaining assets of the exploration venture that drilled Oklahoma’s “other first oil well” in Indian Territory. That well, drilled in 1889 but abandoned by the United States Oil and Gas Company, was on a 100,000-acre lease in the Cherokee Nation.
Edward Byrd, a Cherokee by marriage, had found oil seeps southwest of Chelsea in 1882. Two years later the Cherokee Nation authorized his United States Oil and Gas Company, “for the purpose of finding petroleum, or rock oil, and thus increasing the revenue of the Cherokee Nation.”
Learn more in Another First Oklahoma Oil Well.
April 1, 1911 – First Gusher of “Pump Jack Capital of Texas”
South of the Red River border with Oklahoma, near Electra, Texas, the Clayco Oil & Pipe Line Company’s Clayco No. 1 well launched an oil boom that would last decades. “As news of the gusher spread through town, people thought it was an April Fools joke and didn’t take it seriously until they saw for themselves the plume of black oil spewing high into the sky,” noted a local historian. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Mar 24, 2025 | This Week in Petroleum History
March 24, 1989 – Exxon Valdez hits Bligh Reef –
After almost 12 years of routine passages by oil tankers through Prince William Sound, Alaska, supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef, resulting in an oil spill affecting 1,300 miles of shoreline. Vessels carrying North Slope oil had safely passed through the sound more than 8,700 times.
Eight of Exxon Valdez’s 11 tanks were punctured and an estimated 260,000 barrels of oil spilled, affecting hundreds of miles of coastline. Investigators later found that an error in navigation by the third mate, possibly due to fatigue or excessive workload, had caused the accident.
Shown being towed away from Bligh Reef, the Exxon Valdez had been outside shipping lanes when it ran aground in March 1989. Photo courtesy Erik Hill, Anchorage Daily News.
When the 987-foot tanker hit the reef that night, “the system designed to carry two million barrels of North Slope oil to West Coast and Gulf Coast markets daily had worked perhaps too well,” noted the Alaska Oil Spill Commission. “At least partly because of the success of the Valdez tanker trade, a general complacency had come to permeate the operation and oversight of the entire system.”
Learn more in Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.
March 26, 1930 – “Wild Mary Sudik” makes Headlines
What would become one of Oklahoma’s most famous wells struck a high-pressure formation about 6,500 feet beneath Oklahoma City and oil erupted skyward. The Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Company’s Mary Sudik No. 1 flowed for 11 days before being brought under control. It produced about 20,000 barrels of oil and 200 million cubic feet of natural gas daily, becoming a worldwide sensation.
Highly pressured natural gas from the Wilcox formation proved difficult to control in the prolific Oklahoma City oilfield. Within a week of a 1930 gusher, Hollywood newsreels of it appeared in theaters across America. Photo courtesy Oklahoma History Center.
Efforts to control the well in Oklahoma City’s prolific oilfield (discovered in 1928) were featured on movie newsreels and national radio broadcasts. It was later learned that after drilling more than a mile deep, the exhausted crew did not realize the Wilcox Sand oil formation was permeated with highly pressurized natural gas.
Map of the Wilcox sands formation of the Oklahoma City oilfield in the 1940s.
Although the first ram-type blowout preventer (BOP) had been patented in 1926, deep oil and natural gas fields would take time to tame.
Learn more in “Wild Mary Sudik.”
March 27, 1855 – Canadian Chemist trademarks Kerosene
Canadian physician and chemist Abraham Gesner (1797-1864) patented a process to distill coal into kerosene. “I have invented and discovered a new and useful manufacture or composition of matter, being a new liquid hydrocarbon, which I denominate Kerosene,” he proclaimed. Because his new illuminating fluid was extracted from coal, consumers called it “coal oil” as often as kerosene.
On March 17, 2000, Canada issued one million commemorative stamps featuring kerosene inventor Abraham Gesner.
Gesner, considered the father of the Canadian petroleum industry, in 1842 established Canada’s first natural history museum, the New Brunswick Museum, which today houses one of Canada’s oldest geological collections. America’s petroleum industry began when it was learned oil could be distilled into a lamp fuel.
Learn more in Camphene to Kerosene Lamps.
March 27, 1975 – First Pipe laid for Trans-Alaskan Pipeline
With the laying of the first section of pipe in Alaska, construction began on the largest private construction project in American history at the time. Recognized as a landmark of engineering, the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline system, including pumping stations and the Valdez Marine Terminal, would cost $8 billion by the time it was completed in 1977.
Learn more in Trans-Alaska Pipeline History.
March 27, 1999 – Offshore Platform Rocket Launch Test
The Ocean Odyssey, a converted semi-submersible drilling platform, launched a Russian rocket that placed a demonstration satellite into geostationary orbit.
The Zenit-3SL rocket, fueled by liquid oxygen and kerosene rocket fuel, was part of Sea Launch, a Boeing-led consortium of companies from the United States, Russia, Ukraine, and Norway. The platform had once been used by Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) for North Sea exploration.
With an orbital test on March 27, 1999, the Ocean Odyssey, a converted semi-submersible drilling platform, became the world’s first floating equatorial launch pad. Photo courtesy Sea Launch.
“The Sea Launch rocket successfully completed its maiden flight today,” Boeing announced. “The event, which placed a demonstration payload into geostationary transfer orbit, marked the first commercial launch from a floating platform at sea.”
The Sea Launch consortium provided orbital launch services until 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula of Ukraine.
Learn more in Offshore Rocket Launcher.
March 28, 1886 – Natural Gas Boom begins in Indiana
Petroleum exploration companies converged on Portland, Indiana, after the Eureka Gas and Oil Company discovered a natural gas field after drilling just 700 feet deep. The well began producing two months after a spectacular natural gas well about 100 miles to the northeast — the “Great Karg Well” of Findlay, Ohio.
According to industrialist Andrew Carnegie, natural gas daily replaced 10,000 tons of coal for making steel.
Portland foundry owner Henry Sees had followed the news from Findlay. He persuaded local investors to drill for Indiana natural gas. In western Pennsylvania, reserves found near Pittsburg had encouraged industrialists there to replace their coal-fired steel and glass foundries with the first large-scale industrial use of natural gas.
Indiana would become the world’s largest natural gas producer, thanks to its Trenton limestone stretching more than 5,100 square miles across 17 counties. Within three years, more than 200 companies were drilling, distributing, and selling natural gas.
Learn more in Indiana Natural Gas Boom.
March 28, 1905 – Oil Discovered in North Louisiana
A small oil discovery in Caddo Parish launched a drilling boom in northern Louisiana and brought economic prosperity to Oil City. The Offenhauser No. 1 well was completed at a depth of 1,556 feet, but yielded just five barrels of oil a day and was abandoned. Far more productive wells quickly followed as the Caddo-Pine Island oilfield 20 miles northwest of Shreveport expanded into 80,000 acres.
The Shreveport Chamber of Commerce in 1955 dedicated a 40-foot monument commemorating the 50th anniversary of oil in Caddo Parish. Photo by Bruce Wells.
“This part of Louisiana, of course, was built on the oil and gas industry, and those visitors interested in the technical aspects of oilfield work will find the museum particularly appealing,” notes the Louisiana State Oil and Gas Museum (formerly the Caddo-Pine Island Oil and Historical Museum). More oilfield history can be found in Shreveport, where natural gas was discovered in 1870 — thanks to an ice plant’s water well. To discourage natural gas flaring, Louisiana passed its first conservation law in 1906.
Learn more in Louisiana Oil City Museum.
March 29, 1819 – Birthday of Father of the Petroleum Industry
Edwin Laurentine Drake (1819-1880) was born in Greenville, New York. Forty years later, he used a steam-powered cable-tool rig to drill the first commercial U.S. oil well at Titusville, Pennsylvania. The former railroad conductor overcame many financial and technical obstacles to make “Drake’s Folly” a milestone in U.S. petroleum history.
Edwin L. Drake (1819-1880) invented a method of driving a pipe down to protect the integrity of the first U.S. oil well. Photo courtesy Drake Well Museum.
Drake pioneered using iron casing to isolate his well from nearby Oil Creek. “In order to overcome the hurdles before him, he invented a ‘drive pipe’ or ‘conductor,’ an invention he unfortunately did not patent,” noted historian Urja Davé in 2008. “Mr. Drake conceived the idea of driving a pipe down to the rock through which to start the drill.”
Determined to find oil for refining into kerosene, Drake drilled near natural seeps and found oil on August 27, 1859, at a depth of 69.5 feet at a site today on the grounds of the Drake Well Museum.
Learn more in Edwin Drake and his Oil Well.
March 29, 1938 – Magnolia Oilfield found in Arkansas
“Kerlyn Wildcat Strike In Southern Arkansas is Sensation of the Oil Country,” proclaimed the local newspaper when a well drilled by Kerlyn Oil Company revealed the 100-million-barrel Magnolia oilfield, adding to the 1920s giant oilfield discoveries at El Dorado and Smackover.
Drilling on the Barnett No. 1 well had been suspended because of a lack of money, but geologist and company Vice President Dean McGee urged drilling deeper. He was rewarded with a giant oilfield discovery at the depth of 7,650 feet. McGee later would become an industry pioneer in offshore exploration.
Visit the Arkansas Museum of Natural Resources in Smackover.
March 30, 1980 – Deadly North Sea Gale
Massive waves during a North Sea gale capsized a floating apartment for Phillips Petroleum Company workers, killing 123 people. The Alexander Kielland platform, 235 miles east of Dundee, Scotland, housed 208 men who worked on a nearby rig in the Ekofisk field. Most of the Phillips workers were from Norway. The platform, converted from a semi-submersible drilling rig, served as overflow accommodation for the Phillips production platform 300 yards away.
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Recommended Reading: The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, Perspectives on Modern World History
(2011); The Oklahoma Petroleum Industry
(1980); Oil Lamps The Kerosene Era In North America
(1978); Amazing Pipeline Stories: How Building the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Transformed Life in America’s Last Frontier
(1997); The Extraction State, A History of Natural Gas in America (2021); Myth, Legend, Reality: Edwin Laurentine Drake and the Early Oil Industry
(2009); Texas Oil and Gas, Postcard History
(2013); Early Louisiana and Arkansas Oil: A Photographic History, 1901-1946 (1982). 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.
