by Bruce Wells | Jul 15, 2024 | This Week in Petroleum History
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 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 Hughes Tool Company.
Learn more in Carl Baker and Howard Hughes.
July 16, 1926 – Oil Discovery launches Greater Seminole Area 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 Publisher produces 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 MacNick Company of Tulsa, maker of timing devices used to explode nitroglycerin in wells — and oilfield competitor of the Zero Hour Bomb Company (see Zebco Reel Oilfield History).
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, in 2019 erected 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 also was 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 a Petroleum Museum newsletter, adding that “voluntary proration proved to be difficult to maintain.”
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 about the 49th state 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.”
A 1923 Permian Basin well near Big Lake brought yet another Texas drilling boom — and helped establish the University of Texas (see Santa Rita taps Permian Basin).
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, Glomar Explorer became the pioneer of all modern drillships.
Learn more in Secret History of Drill Ship Glomar Explorer.
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).
Glenn McCarthy appeared on TIME magazine in 1950.
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.
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Recommended Reading: 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 Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes
(2009). Your Amazon purchase benefits the American Oil & Gas Historical Society. As an Amazon Associate, AOGHS earns a commission from qualifying purchases.
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (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. © 2024 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
by Bruce Wells | Jul 8, 2024 | This Week in Petroleum History
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. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Jul 1, 2024 | This Week in Petroleum History
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. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Jun 24, 2024 | This Week in Petroleum History
June 24, 1937 – Traces of Oil found in Minnesota –
In far western Minnesota, a remote wildcat well drilled in Traverse County began producing three barrels of oil a day from a depth of 864 feet. The unlikely discovery prompted more leasing, but no commercial quantities of oil.
Traverse County, Minnesota, where oil production peaked in 1937.
The lack of an oilfield reaffirmed geologists’ conclusions since 1889 that conditions for significant petroleum deposits did not exist in Minnesota, despite some water wells in southern Minnesota containing small amounts of natural gas.
“Not much oil and gas is obtained from Precambrian rocks, with which Minnesota is very amply blessed,” noted the 1984 book Minnesota’s Geology.
June 25, 1889 – First Oil Tanker catches Fire in California
The first oil tanker built for that purpose, a schooner named W.L. Hardison, burned at its wharf in Ventura, California. The Hardison & Stewart Oil Company (later Union Oil) commissioned the experimental vessel, which offered an alternative to paying for railroad oil tank cars charging one dollar per oil barrel to reach markets in San Francisco.
With oil-fired steam boilers and supplemental sails, the schooner could ship up to 6,500 barrels of oil below deck in specially constructed steel tanks. After the fire, the tanks were recovered and used at the company’s Santa Paula refinery. It took 11 years before the company launched a replacement tanker, the Santa Paula.
Rare photographs of the oil doomed tanker W.L. Hardison and Ventura pier courtesy the Museum of Ventura County.
The Ventura Wharf Company by April 1898 had exported 518,204 barrels of bulk oil during the previous year, according to the Los Angeles Times. The pier remained a working wharf until 1936, when it became the longest recreational wooden pier in California.
Designated a Ventura Historic Landmark in 1976 and now 1,600 feet long, California’s oldest pier was refurbished for $2.2 million in 2000, according to the Museum of Ventura County, which also operates archaeological and agricultural museums. In nearby Santa Paula, the 1890 headquarters building of Union Oil Company is home to the California Oil Museum.
June 25, 1901 – Red Fork Discovery leads to Tulsa Boom
Six years before statehood, Oklahoma witnessed a second oil discovery (some say the third — see Another First Oklahoma Oil Well) when two drillers from the Pennsylvania oil regions discovered an oilfield at Red Fork in the Creek Indian Nation.
John Wick and Jesse Heydrick drilled the Sue A. Bland No. 1 well near the Creek village across the Arkansas River from Tulsa. Sue Bland, a Creek citizen, was the wife of homesteader Dr. John C. W. Bland. Their Red Fork well produced just 10 barrels of oil a day from a depth of 550 feet, but created a drilling boom attracting petroleum companies to nearby Tulsa.
Learn more in Red Fork Gusher.
June 25, 1999 – Texas Post Office named Historic Place
The former U.S. Post Office building in Graham, Texas, with its Great Depression-era oilfield mural by Alexandre Hogue, joined the National Register of Historic Places. Hogue’s 1939 “Oil Fields of Graham” has been joined by other art exhibits in its historic Art Deco building on Third Street.
“Oil Fields of Graham” by Alexandre Hogue, a 1939 mural restored in the Old Post Office Museum & Art Center of Graham, Texas. The white-haired gentleman was Graham mayor.
Hogue’s artwork included many southwestern scenes as part of the New Deal Federal Arts Program. His murals on the walls of public buildings often portrayed scenes of the Texas petroleum industry. In Graham’s historic building on Third Street, “Oil Fields of Graham,” 12 feet wide and 7 feet high, is among exhibits at the Old Post Office Museum & Art Center, which opened in 2002.
Learn more in Oil Art of Graham, Texas.
June 26, 1885 – Natural Gas Utility established in Pennsylvania
Peoples Natural Gas Company incorporated — the first Pennsylvania natural gas company chartered by the state to regulate production, transmission, and distribution of natural gas. A similar utility incorporation had taken place a year earlier in New York City when six competing companies combined to form Consolidated Edison.
By 1891, the Pittsburgh-based limited liability company had consolidated pipelines and facilities of Pittsburgh Natural Gas, Lawrence Natural Gas, Conemaugh Gas, and Columbia Natural Gas companies. More than a dozen more companies would be acquired between 1903 and 1961. The large utility added Saxonburg Heat and Light in 1979 and Equitable Gas in 2017, expanding natural gas services in West Virginia and Kentucky.
June 28, 1887 – Kansans celebrate First Natural Gas Jubilee
After erecting flambeau arches at the four corners of the town square, Paola, Kansas, hosted what local leaders described as “the first natural gas celebration ever held in the West.” Excursion trains from Kansas City brought about 2,000 people, “to witness the wonders of natural gas,” according to the Miami County Historical Museum, which preserves the region’s petroleum history.
Paola’s giant natural gas field attracted more petroleum exploration to Miami County, including this circa 1920 oil well. Photo courtesy Kansas Historical Society.
The town’s special event included a “grand illumination” of natural gas street lights, where “gas was attached to a yard sprinkler by a rubber hose, and when it was ignited there appeared nests of small blazes which were beautiful and attractive.”
Learn more in First Kansas Oil Well.
June 28, 1967 – Hall of Petroleum opens in Smithsonian Museum
The Hall of Petroleum opened at the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of History and Technology in Washington, D.C. Exhibits included cable-tool and rotary rig drilling technologies and counterbalanced pumping units, The Hall of Petroleum also featured 1967 developments in offshore exploration and production.
Visitors to what in 1980 became the National Museum of American History were greeted by a mural painted by Delbert Jackson of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jackson spent two years creating his 13-foot by 56-foot painting with scenes of oil and natural gas exploration, production, refining, and transportation.
A “Panorama of Petroleum” once greeted visitors to the Smithsonian’s American History Museum in Washington, D.C. The 13-foot by 56-foot mural today is exhibited inside Tulsa International Airport.
Jackson’s “Panorama of Petroleum” featured industry pioneers and served as a visual map to the hall’s oilfield technology exhibits. “If the hall can increase the public’s knowledge of and respect for the technical skill and know-how of those who make this energy available, it will have served its purpose,” noted the exhibit’s 1967 catalog. The mural ended up in storage for three decades, until finding a home at Tulsa International Airport.
Learn more in Smithsonian’s “Hall of Petroleum.“
June 29, 1956 – Interstate Highway System enacted
The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, popularly known as the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act, became law. Passed at the urging of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the act provided 90 percent federal funding for a “system of interstate and defense highways,” and authorized spending $25 billion through 1969 for construction of about 41,000 miles of interstates.
The U.S. interstate system had a total length of 48,191 miles by 2016. Federal regulations initially banned collecting tolls, but some now include tolls.
“Of all his domestic programs, Eisenhower’s favorite by far was the Interstate System,” noted historian Stephen Ambrose. The thirty-fourth president urged passage of the act for national defense; interstates would be needed for evacuating major cities during a nuclear war.
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, featured prominently on the $1 “greenback,” advocated an oil tax.
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.
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Recommended Reading: Minnesota’s Geology (1982); Black Gold in California: The Story of California Petroleum Industry 
(2016); Early California Oil: A Photographic History, 1865-1940
(1985); Tulsa Oil Capital of the World, Images of America
(2004); Oil in West Texas and New Mexico
(1982); Official Guide to the Smithsonian
(2016); Eisenhower: Soldier and President
(1968); Western Pennsylvania’s Oil Heritage
(2008). 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. © 2024 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
by Bruce Wells | Jun 17, 2024 | This Week in Petroleum History
June 18, 1889 – Rockefeller builds Giant Refinery –
Standard Oil Company of New Jersey incorporated a new subsidiary, Standard Oil Company of Indiana, and began processing oil at a new refinery in Whiting, Indiana, southeast of Chicago. The refinery, which became the largest in the United States by the mid-1890s, in 1910 added pipelines connecting it to Kansas and Oklahoma oilfields. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Jun 10, 2024 | This Week in Petroleum History
June 11, 1816 – Manufactured Gas lights Art Museum in Baltimore –
The first commercial gas lighting of residences, streets and businesses began when Rembrandt Peale impressed Baltimore civic leaders by illuminating a room in his Holliday Street Museum by burning “manufactured gas.” His display (using gas distilled from coal, tar or wood) dazzled them with a “ring beset with gems of light.”
Lighted with manufactured gas, this Baltimore museum opened in 1814, America’s first building erected as a museum. Photo courtesy Maryland Historical Trust.
The Baltimore museum became the first U.S. public building to use gas lighting, according to the Maryland Historical Trust. Within a week, the city council approved plans to light the city’s main streets. Peale and a group of investors founded the Gas Light Company of Baltimore — the first gas company in America — and now the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company. Manufactured gas street lighting began in 1817.
Learn more about manufactured gas history in Illuminating Gaslight.
June 11, 1911 – E.W. Marland discovers Ponca Nation Oilfield
Ernest W. Marland, founder of the 101 Ranch Oil Company in 1908, discovered an oilfield near Ponca City, Oklahoma, after reorganizing the company in his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Almost broke after drilling eight uneconomical wells, Marland had turned to childhood friend John McCaskey of Pittsburgh, known as the “Sauerkraut King.”
Circa 1910 map detail from a newspaper promotion of the101 Ranch Oil Company following discoveries near Ponca (City), west of the Osage Nation’s oilfields.
Partnered with McCaskey and the owners of the 101 Ranch, Marland received permission from White Eagle, chief of the Ponca Nation, to drill near a reservation burial ground. The oilfield discovery well and many that followed produced oil on a reservation allotment owned by Willie-Cries-For-War, age 19, who had leased his 160 acres to Marland for $1,000 a year and 12.5 cents a barrel of oil produced.
Marland would found Marland Oil Company in 1917, merge it with Continental Oil in 1928, and become governor of Oklahoma in 1935. ConocoPhillips opened a Conoco Museum in Ponca City in 2007.
June 11, 1929 – Independent Producers get Organized
Ninety-five years ago, Wirt Franklin of Ardmore, Oklahoma, spoke on behalf of small exploration and production companies during President Herbert Hoover’s Oil Conservation Conference at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Franklin and other independent producers opposed creating a federal commission that could restrict production and allow more imported foreign oil.
“If this condition should be brought about, it would mean the annihilation and destruction of the small producer of crude oil, ” proclaimed Franklin, who had found success in the shallow but prolific Healdton oilfield. Before returning to Ardmore, Franklin and other independents established the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA).
June 12, 1879 – Allegheny Oilfield discovered by O.P. Taylor
Orville “O.P.” Taylor completed the Triangle No. 1 well at a depth of 1,177 feet in Allegheny County, New York, revealing an oilfield that extended into Pennsylvania. His discovery came after two failed wells drilled near oil seeps first reported by a French missionary in 1627. The Allegheny oilfield would launch a drilling boom and create the town of Petrolia.
Confederate Army veteran Taylor had worked in the cigar manufacturing business in Virginia before catching “oil fever” after reading about Pennsylvania oil discoveries along the Allegheny River (see Derricks of Triumph Hill). Taylor’s success led to his election as mayor of Wellsville, New York, and the title of “Father of the Allegheny Oilfield.” A Liberty Ship was named for him during World War II.
June 13, 1917 – Phillips Petroleum Company founded
During the early months of America’s entry into World War I, as oil prices rose above $1 per barrel, Phillips Petroleum Company was founded in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Brothers Frank and Lee Eldas “L.E.” Phillips consolidated their oil companies and began operating throughout Oklahoma and Kansas. Assets rose from $3 million to $100 million within a few years.
Brothers L.E. Phillips (left) and Frank Phillips established Phillips Petroleum Company in Bartlesville in 1917. Photo courtesy ConocoPhillips.
In 1927, Phillips Petroleum began selling its gasoline in Wichita, Kansas, the first of more than 10,000 Phillips 66 service stations. Phillips chemists received thousands of U.S. patents, including one in 1954 for Marlex, a high-density polyethylene. Wham-O toy company was the first to buy the new plastic (see Petroleum Product Hoopla). The oil company’s high-octane Nu-Aviation fuel played an important role in winning World War II.
Phillips Petroleum merged with Conoco in 2002 to become ConocoPhillips, which in 2007 established petroleum museums in Ponca City and Bartlesville as part of the 100th anniversary of Oklahoma statehood.
June 13, 1928 – Hobbs Oilfield discovered in New Mexico
The New Mexico petroleum industry was launched with the discovery of the Hobbs oilfield near the southeastern corner of the state. After months of difficult cable-tool drilling, the Midwest State No. 1 well produced oil for the Midwest Refining Company, which had drilled the state’s first oil well in 1922.
A June 1928 oilfield discovery brought many decades of petroleum prosperity to downtown Hobbs, New Mexico.
The Hobbs well revealed a giant field, later cited by the New Mexico Bureau of Mines & Mineral Resources as “the most important single discovery of oil in New Mexico’s history.” But after months of drilling, the well had reached a depth of 1,500 feet when an engine house fire consumed the wooden derrick. “Men with less vision would have given up, but not the drillers of Midwest,” noted the state geologist.
As the Great Depression approached, oil production from the Hobbs field attracted investors and drilling companies, quickly transforming Hobbs from “sand, mesquite, bear grass and jackrabbits” to the fastest-growing town in the nation.
Learn more in First New Mexico Oil Wells.
June 14, 1865 – First Daily Oil Region Newspaper
Pennsylvania’s oil region got its first daily newspaper when brothers William and Henry Bloss published a four-page broadsheet, the Titusville Morning Herald. Initial circulation was 300 for the community newspaper for the Titusville Herald. The first edition’s articles included a reference to John Wilkes Booth’s visits to the region and his August 1864 oil interests.
The Pennsylvania newspaper’s first edition in 1865 noted John Wilkes Booth had oil interests.
The newspaper reported: “John Wilkes Booth purchased a one-thirteenth interest in the territory in August 1864. We are credibly informed that this Homestead well in which Booth was interested was destroyed by fire on the day he assassinated President Lincoln.”
Learn more in Dramatic Oil Company.
June 14, 1938 – United States regulates Natural Gas
The federal government for the first time assumed regulatory control of U.S. natural gas sales to limit the growing market power of interstate pipeline companies.
Although the Natural Gas Act of 1938 did not apply to production, gathering or local distribution, it sought to establish “just and reasonable rates” for pipeline company transmission or sales of natural gas in interstate commerce. Regulatory functions were assigned to the Federal Power Commission (established in 1920), which became the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in 1977.
June 15, 1954 – Launch of First Mobile Offshore Rig
The offshore barge oil drilling platform, Mr. Charlie left its Louisiana shipyard and went to work for Shell Oil Company in a new oilfield in East Bay, near the mouth of the Mississippi River. The vessel’s design, which would revolutionize the offshore industry, originated with Alden “Doc” LaBorde, a marine superintendent for the Kerr-McGee Company in Morgan City, Louisiana.
Beginning in 1954 and capable of drilling wells in water up to 40 feet in depth, Mr. Charlie was the first mobile offshore drilling unit (MODU). Photos courtesy Murphy Oil Corporation.
Despite Kerr-McGee’s experience with many post-World War II offshore technologies, including drilling the first oil well out of sight of land in 1947, the company decided against LaBorde’s idea for a transportable, submersible drilling barge. The inventor, a Navy veteran, eventually found support from Charles Murphy Jr., founder of Murphy Oil Company.
A major offshore technology advancement, Mr. Charlie used a column-stabilized design.
LaBorde formed the Ocean Drilling & Exploration and contracted with J. Ray McDermott Company to convert a 220-foot barge into a drilling platform — the world’s first mobile offshore drilling unit (MODU). Today moored in Morgan City as an international petroleum museum, Mr. Charlie is under consideration for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
Learn more in Mr. Charlie, First Mobile Offshore Drilling Rig.
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Recommended Reading: In Pursuit of Fame: Rembrandt Peale, 1778-1860 (1993); The Extraction State, A History of Natural Gas in America (2021); Oil And Gas In Oklahoma: Petroleum Geology In Oklahoma
(2013); Oil Man: The Story of Frank Phillips and the Birth of Phillips Petroleum
(2014); Oil in West Texas and New Mexico (1982); Around Titusville, Pa., Images of America
(2004); Offshore Pioneers: Brown & Root and the History of Offshore Oil and Gas
(2011); 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.
_______________________
The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Become an AOGHS annual supporting member and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2024 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
