“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). (more…)
A West Coast Spanish expedition discovered natural seeps that became known as La Brea (the tar). “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. (more…)
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. (more…)
Glenn H. McCarthy struck oil 50 miles east of Houston in 1935, extending the already prolific Anahuac field. The well extended by three miles to the north of the already productive Anahuac field, which McCarthy had earlier discovered. The well was the first of many for the Texas independent producer who would discover 11 Texas oilfields by 1945. He was known as “Diamond Glenn” by 1950, when his estimated worth reached $200 million ($2.8 billion in 2026). (more…)
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.
Rodolphe Leschot’s cutting-edge 1863 drilling technology.
At the same time, the use of diamond bits for drilling oil wells 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.
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 ship 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.
After 87 days, the Deepwater Horizon offshore well was sealed by a cap after about 3.19 million barrels of oil leaked into the Gulf of Mexico, surpassing the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill as the largest ever in U.S.-controlled waters. The April 20 platform explosion, fire, and eventual sinking killed 11 workers and injured 17 others. The spill damaged more than 1,300 miles of shoreline, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It resulted in the largest environmental damage assessment settlement in U.S. history — $20.8 billion — to resolve claims for civil and criminal penalties.
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 of Coalinga, California, stands next to his Baker Casing Shoes in 1914. Photo courtesy the now closed 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 the Hughes Tool Company.
Learn more in Baker, Sharp, and Hughes.
Three years after an oilfield discovery near Bowlegs, Oklahoma, a gusher south of Seminole revealed the true petroleum 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 as part of the Federal Art Project, 1935 to 1943, 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.
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.
Students helped Carl Magee design his Park-O-Meter for Oklahoma City retailers who wanted a quick turnover of customers. 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.
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 simply 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.
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), and 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 — with only 19 “dry holes” of the 291 wells drilled. “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,” notes the Petroleum Museum, adding, “voluntary proration proved to be difficult to maintain.”
Chevron announced completion of its $53 billion all-stock acquisition of Hess Corporation, founded in the 1930s as Hess Oil and Chemical by Leon Hess. One day earlier, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lifted an earlier restriction, clearing the way for his son John B. Hess to join Chevron’s board of directors. In 1968, Hess Corporation merged with Amerada Petroleum, which in 1951 had revealed the potential of North Dakota’s Bakken formation. Amerada Hess completed the first well in Prudhoe Bay on Alaska’s North Slope in 1970. Chevron began in California as the Pacific Coast Oil Company in 1879.
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, manufacturer of America’s first commercially successful gasoline-powered lawn mower.
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.
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Recommended Reading: History Of Oil Well Drilling
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Support this energy education website, our monthly email newsletter, This Week in Oil and Gas History News, and help expand historical research. Contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2026 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
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.”
Beginning with the dedication of a Zero Milestone marker on the Ellipse south of the White House, a convoy of U.S. Army 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.”
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.
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.
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.
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 Arthur, 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.
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.”
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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Recommended Reading: Death and Oil: A True Story of the Piper Alpha Disaster on the North Sea
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Support this energy education website, our monthly email newsletter, This Week in Oil and Gas History News, and help expand historical research. Contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2026 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
