Canadian geologist Abraham Gessner received a U.S. patent for a gas manufacturing process, “to enable others skilled in the art…for obtaining of illuminating gas from compact and fluid bitumen (crude oil), asphaltum, chapapote, or mineral pitch as found in mines, quarries and springs in the earth.” (more…)
The first U.S. multiple-still refinery was brought on-stream one mile south of Titusville, Pennsylvania, by William Barnsdall, who had drilled the second successful well after Edwin Drake’s first U.S. oil discovery.
Barnsdall and partners James Parker and W.H. Abbott spent about $15,000 to build six basic stills for refining kerosene. Much of the equipment was purchased in Pittsburgh and shipped up the Allegheny River to Oil City. The refinery produced two grades of kerosene, white and the less the expensive yellow.
Standard Oil Company of California (Socal) drilled its first successful oil well, a gusher in Kern County that initially produced 1,500 barrels of oil a day from the Midway-Sunset field, The discovery came after the 1906 merger of Pacific Coast Oil Company (see First California Oil Well) and Standard Oil Company of Iowa to create Socal.
Standard Oil Company of California (Socal) began in 1879 as the Pacific Coast Oil Company, and in 1981 renamed Chevron. Image courtesy Chevron.
The new company needed more oil reserves after it had “stepped up its marketing efforts, particularly in gasoline sales, which nearly doubled between 1906 and 1910,” according to a company history. “Until now, Standard had left the hunt for oil to others.”
The U.S. Supreme Court in 1911 ordered Socal separated from its parent, Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. After absorbing Standard Oil of Kansas in 1961 and making other acquisitions, the California company in 1984 rebranded as Chevron, headquartered in San Ramon.
Standard Oil Company of New Jersey’s purchasing agency in Oil City, Pennsylvania, notified independent oil producers it would only buy their oil at a price “as high as the markets of the world will justify” — and not “the price bid on the oil exchange for certificate oil.”
The Oil City, Pennsylvania, Oil Exchange incorporated in 1874. By 1877, it was the third largest financial exchange in the United States.
Oil City’s exchange had become the third largest financial exchange of any kind in America, behind New York and San Francisco. But with the Standard Oil Company buying 90 percent of oil production and setting its own price for certificates, all other oil exchanges soon closed.
Learn more in End of Oil Exchanges.
One of the earliest mass-produced products made from plastic, the “Frisbee” was introduced by Wham-O Manufacturing Company of California. The toy originated in 1948 when a company called Partners in Plastic sold its “Flyin’ Saucers” for 25 cents each. In 1955, Richard Knerr and Arthur “Spud” Melin’s Wham-O bought the rights.
U.S. patent detail of a 1967 polyethylene plastic Frisbee.
The Wham-O founders discovered that Phillips Petroleum had invented a high-density polyethylene (called Marlex). They used the new plastic to meet phenomenal demand for manufacturing Frisbees – and Hula Hoops beginning in 1958.
Learn more in Petroleum Product Hoopla.
The world’s largest oil spill began in the Persian Gulf when Saddam Hussein’s retreating Iraqi forces opened pipeline valves at oil terminals in Kuwait. About 11 million barrels of oil would cover an area extending 101 miles by 42 miles and reaching five inches thick in some places.
Iraqi soldiers sabotaged Kuwait’s main supertanker loading pier, dumping millions of gallons of oil into the Persian Gulf. By February, about 600 Kuwaiti wells had been set ablaze. It would take months to put out the well fires, with the last extinguished in early April 1991.
To counter Standard Oil Company’s market dominance, Pennsylvania oil producers, refiners, and pipeline operators organized what would become a major Chicago-based oil venture. Originally based in Pittsburgh, Pure Oil Company quickly grew into the second vertically integrated U.S. petroleum company after Standard Oil.
An Ohio firm adopted the old Pennsylvania name.
Beginning in early 1896, Pure Oil marketed its petroleum products by horse-drawn tank wagons in Philadelphia and New York — successfully competing with Standard Oil’s monopoly. The Ohio Cities Gas Company of Columbus acquired Pure Oil and in 1920 adopted the former Pennsylvania venture’s brand name.
Pure Oil Company in 1926 moved into its new 40-story Chicago headquarters building at 35 East Wacker Drive.
With a new Chicago headquarters opened in 1926, Pure Oil began exploring offshore technologies within a decade. The company developed early freestanding drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.
After meeting in Wichita Falls to protest “the recent drastic price cut in crude oil, inaugurated by some of the major purchasing companies,” 50 independent producers organized the North Texas Oil and Gas Association. Other issues included seeking a tariff on foreign oil imports and stopping “hot oil” oilfield thefts. The association merged with the West Central Texas Oil & Gas Association in 1998 to become the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers.
As East Texas farmers struggled to survive the Great Depression, an oil discovery confirmed the existence of a massive oilfield. W.A. “Monty” Moncrief of Fort Worth completed the Lathrop No. 1 well, which produced 7,680 barrels of oil a day from 3,587 feet deep. Geologists at first thought a third oilfield had been found.
Moncrief’s discovery well was 25 miles north of the famous Daisy Bradford No. 3 well of October 1930, drilled by Columbus Marion “Dad” Joiner. It was 15 miles north of the Lou Della Crim No. 1 well, completed at Kilgore three days after Christmas 1930. The 130,000-acre East Texas oilfield would become the largest in the lower-48 states.
Learn more in Moncrief makes East Texas History.
After reaching a depth of 3,710 feet, drillers of the W.C. Newman well near Lamar, Oklahoma, “hit into a strata of oil, the like of which never before, nor since has been found,” reported the Daily Oklahoman in a 1933 retrospective of the well, which “caused oil men to marvel then, as today, since it produces the same Vaseline-like content.”
High-viscosity oil from the 1921 Oklahoma well was featured by the syndicated Believe It or Not by Ripley. Illustration courtesy Hughes County Historical Society Facebook Page.
The Hughes County well erupted a dark green oil that “turned into a brilliant yellow when it came into contact with the outside air” and sprayed 200 feet of a semi-solid mass that “hung like gum from the nearby fences, trees and other structures,” noted the newspaper.
“Ordinary pipelines would not carry the oil, so a special line, sandwiched between four steam pipes to heat the almost solid lubricant enabled it to flow to storage tanks,” the article added. Featured as the “jelly” well in the syndicated Believe it or Not by Ripley, by 1933 daily production of 350 barrels of the high-viscosity oil had declined to 15 barrels.
After drilling 3,500 feet below the Pacific Ocean floor, a Union Oil Company drilling platform six miles off Santa Barbara suffered a blowout. The accident spilled an estimated 100,000 barrels of oil into the ocean with some reaching southern California’s beaches, including Summerland — where early U.S. offshore petroleum history began in 1896 with wells drilled from piers.
Beyond the 1969 Santa Barbara spill, marine scientists have noted California’s natural oil seeps continue to leak tons of petroleum every day.
The drilling crew had begun to retrieve pipe in order to replace a drill bit when the mud used to maintain pressure became dangerously low, causing a natural gas blowout, according to the University of California, Santa Barbara. The well, which was brought under control after 12 days, turned public opinion against offshore exploration and helped lead to creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in December 1970.
Naturally occurring oil seeps in the Santa Barbara Channel have been significantly reduced by offshore oil production, according to “History of Oil in the Santa Barbara Channel,” a 2018 exhibit at the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum.
Learn more in Oil Seeps and the Santa Barbara Spill.
Among the biggest drilling rigs in the world, Parker Drilling Company’s Rig No. 114, was erected in a vacant lot in downtown Elk City, Oklahoma, after civic leaders realized that the massive rig, visible from I-40 and historic Route 66, could draw tourists. The Parker rig had once drilled deep wells for testing nuclear bombs.
Parker Rig No. 114 has welcomed visitors to Elk City, Oklahoma, since 1991. Photo by Bruce Wells.
In 1969, Parker Drilling signed a contract with the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission to drill a series of holes up to 120 inches in diameter and 6,500 feet deep in Alaska and Nevada. After the experiments, the company modified its rig to drill conventional wells that set records by reaching beyond four miles deep into the Anadarko Basin.
The 17-story Parker No. 114 today stands in downtown Elk City next to the former Casa Grande Hotel at the intersection of 3rd Street and Route 66. Casa Grande, which opened in 1928 to lodge the highway’s travelers, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. It also was once home to a natural history museum that included petroleum exhibits.
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Recommended Reading: Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
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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.
The Producers Oil Company discovered the Electra oilfield in North Texas, bringing the first commercial oil production to Wichita County. The Waggoner No. 5 well produced 50 barrels per day from a depth of 1,825 feet on land owned by local rancher William Waggoner, who had found traces of oil while drilling a water well for his cattle.
Named after rancher William Waggoner’s daughter, Electra, would become the “Pump Jack Capital of Texas.” Photo by Bruce Wells.
“At first, there weren’t any cars, and about the only thing oil was good for was to help repel chicken house mites,” noted a county historian about the discovery well, which brought more exploration. The Clayco No. 1 gusher of April 1 would send Electra’s oil fortunes further skyward, helping it become the Pump Jack Capital of Texas.
World War I had ended two months earlier as oil production continued to soar in North Texas. Reporting on “Roaring Ranger” oilfields, the New York Times noted that speculators had offered $1 million for rights to drill in the Merriman Baptist Church cemetery, but the congregation could not be persuaded to disturb the interred.
“Lone Star Bonanza, the Ranger Oil Boom of 1917-1923,” photograph of a North Texas church cemetery by Robert Vann.
Posted on a barbed-wire fence surrounding the graves not far from producing oil wells, a sign proclaimed, “Respect the Dead.” Today, the cemetery — and a new church — can be found three miles south of Ranger.
Learn more in Oil Riches of Merriman Baptist Church.
The U.S. Geological Survey predicted America’s oil supplies would run out in 20 years. It was not the first or last false alarm. Warnings of shortages had been made for most of the 20th century, according to geologist David Deming of the University of Oklahoma. His 1950 report, A Case History of Oil-Shortage Scares, documented six claims prior to 1950 alone.
Among the end of oil supplies predictions named in the report: The Model T Scare of 1916; the Gasless Sunday Scare of 1918; the John Bull (United Kingdom) Scare of 1920-1923; the Ickes (Interior Secretary Harold Ickes) Petroleum Reserves Scare of 1943-1944; and the Cold War Scare of 1946-1948.
Predictions of U.S. oil shortages began as early as 1879, when the Pennsylvania state geologist said remaining oil supplies would keep kerosene lamps burning for only four more years.
Howard Shatto Jr. received a 1965 U.S. patent for his “underwater manipulator with suction support device.” His concept led to the modern remotely operated vehicle (ROV) now used most widely by the offshore petroleum industry. Shatto helped make Shell Oil Company an early leader in offshore oilfield technologies.
Howard Shatto Jr. would become “a world-respected innovator in the areas of dynamic positioning and remotely operated vehicles.”
Underwater robot technology can trace its roots to the late 1950s, when Hughes Aircraft developed a Manipulator Operated Robot — MOBOT — for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Beginning in 1960, Shell Oil began transforming the landlocked MOBOT into a marine robot, “basically a swimming socket wrench,” noted one engineer.
In his 1965 patent — one of many he received — Shatto explained how his robot could install production equipment at greater depths than divers could safely work. The ROV inventor also would become known as the offshore industry’s father of dynamic positioning.
Learn more in ROV – Swimming Socket Wrench.
The spectacular natural gas well – the “Great Karg Well” of Findlay, Ohio — erupted with an initial flow of 12 million cubic feet a day. The well’s gas pressure could not be controlled by technology of the day, and it ignited into a towering flame that burned for four months — becoming a popular Ohio tourist attraction. Eight years earlier, another natural gas well in Pennsylvania had made similar headlines (see Natural Gas is King in Pittsburgh).
A plaque dedicated in 1937 in Findlay, Ohio, commemorated the state’s giant natural gas discovery of 1886.
Although Ohio’s first natural gas well was drilled in Findlay in 1884 by Findlay Natural Gas Company, the Karg well launched the state’s first major gas boom and brought many new industries. Glass companies like the Richardson Glass Works were lured by the inexpensive gas.
New manufacturers included eight window glass factories, two bottle, two chimney lamp, one light bulb, one novelty, and five for tableware. By 1887, Findlay became known as the “City of Light,” according to a historical marker erected in 1987 at the first field office of the Ohio Oil Company, which adopted the name Marathon Oil in 1962.
The Hancock Historical Museum in Findlay includes Great Karg Well exhibits less than two miles from the site of the famous well.
Civil War veteran Col. Edward A.L. Roberts (1829-1881) conducted his first experiment to increase oil production by using an explosive charge deep in the well. Roberts twice detonated eight pounds of black powder 465 feet deep in the bore of the “Ladies Well” on Watson’s Flats south of Titusville, Pennsylvania.
Civil War veteran Col. E.A.L. Roberts demonstrated his oil well “torpedo” south of Titusville, Pennsylvania.
The “shooting” of the well was a success, increasing daily production from a few barrels of oil to more than 40 barrels, according to Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine.
In April 1865, Roberts received the first of many patents for his “exploding torpedo.” The Titusville Morning Herald in 1866 reported, “Our attention has been called to a series of experiments that have been made in the wells of various localities by Col. Roberts, with his newly patented torpedo. The results have in many cases been astonishing.”
By 1870, Roberts’ torpedo technology using nitroglycerin became common in oilfields (see Shooters – A “Fracking” History).
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Recommended Reading: Early Texas Oil: A Photographic History, 1866-1936
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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.
Founded a year earlier in Beaumont, Texas, the Texas Company struck oil with its Fee No. 3 well, which flowed at 5,000 barrels a day, securing the company’s success in petroleum exploration, production, transportation and refining.
A monument marks the site where the Fee No. 3 well flowed at 5,000 barrels of oil a day in 1903, helping the Texas Company become Texaco.
“After gambling its future on the site’s drilling rights, the discovery during a heavy downpour near Sour Lake’s mineral springs, turned the company into a major oil producer overnight, validating the risk-taking insight of company co-founder J.S. Cullinan and the ability of driller Walter Sharp,” explained a Texaco historian.
The Sour Lake field — and wells drilled in the Humble oilfield two years later — led to the Texas Company becoming Texaco (acquired by Chevron in 2001). Learn more in Sour Lake produces Texaco.
The Elizabeth Watts arrived at London’s Victoria dock after a six-week voyage from Philadelphia. The brig carried 901 barrels of oil and 428 barrels of kerosene from Pennsylvania oilfields. It was the first time America exported oil. Within a year, Philadelphia would export 239,000 barrels of oil. The United States first imported oil in 1948.
John D. Rockefeller and five partners incorporated the Standard Oil Company in Cleveland, Ohio. The new oil and refining venture immediately focused on efficiency and growth. Instead of buying barrels, the company bought tracts of oak timber, hauled the dried timber to Cleveland on its own wagons, and built its own 42-gallon oil barrels.
A stock certificate issued in 1878 for Standard Oil Company, which would become Standard Oil of Ohio (Sohio) following the 1911 breakup of John D. Rockefeller’s oil monopolies.
Standard Oil’s cost per wooden barrel dropped from $3 to less than $1.50 as the company improved refining methods to extract more kerosene per barrel of oil (there was no market for gasoline). By purchasing properties through subsidiaries, dominating railroads and using local price-cutting, Standard Oil captured 90 percent of America’s refining capacity.
The modern U.S. petroleum industry began 123 years ago on a small hill in southeastern Texas when a wildcat well erupted near Beaumont. The Spindletop oilfield, which yielded 3.59 million barrels of oil by the end of 1901, would produce more oil in one day than all the rest of the world’s oilfields combined.
The Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum in Beaumont, Texas, opened in 1976 to educate visitors about the importance of the 1901 “Lucas Gusher.”
The “Lucas Gusher” and other nearby discoveries changed American transportation by providing abundant oil for cheap gasoline. The drilling boom would bring hope to a region devastated just a few months earlier by the Galveston Hurricane, still the deadliest in U.S. history. Petroleum production from the well’s geologic salt dome had been predicted by Patillo Higgins, a self-taught geologist and Sunday school teacher.
Learn more in Spindletop launches Modern Petroleum Industry.
Standard Oil of California discovered the Elk Hills field in Kern County, and the San Joaquin Valley soon ranked among the most productive oilfields in the country. It became embroiled in the 1920s Teapot Dome lease scandals and yielded its billionth barrel of oil in 1992. Visit the “Black Gold” exhibits of the Kern County Museum in Bakersfield and at the West Kern Oil Museum in Taft.
“Suddenly, with a deafening roar, a thick black column of gas and oil and water shot out of the well,” noted one observer in 1921 when the Busey-Armstrong No. 1 well struck oil near El Dorado, Arkansas. H.L. Hunt would soon arrive from Texas (with $50 he had borrowed) and join lease traders and speculators at the Garrett Hotel — where fortunes were soon made and lost. “Union County’s dream of oil had come true,” reported the local paper.
The giant Arkansas field would lead U.S. oil output in 1925 — with production reaching 70 million barrels. Learn more in First Arkansas Oil Wells.
Thousands rushed to the Texas Panhandle seeking “black gold” after the Dixon Creek Oil and Refining Company completed its Smith No. 1 well, which flowed at 10,000 barrels a day in southern Hutchinson County. A.P. “Ace” Borger of Tulsa, Oklahoma, had leased a 240-acre tract.
By September 1926, the Borger oilfield would produce more than 165,000 barrels of oil a day.
A downtown museum exhibits Borger’s oil heritage. Photo by Bruce Wells.
After establishing his Borger Townsite Company, Borger laid out streets and sold lots for the town, which grew to 15,000 residents in 90 days. When the oilfield produced large amounts of natural gas, the town named its minor league baseball team the Borger Gassers. The team left the league in 1955 (owners blamed air-conditioning and television for reducing attendance).
Dedicated in 1977, the Hutchinson County Boom Town Museum in Borger celebrates “Oil Boom Heritage” every March.
Seeking to prove his cars were built better than most, Henry Ford set a world land speed record on a frozen Michigan lake. At the time his Ford Motor Company was struggling to get financial backing for its first car, the Model T. It was just four years after America’s first auto auto show.
The Ford No. 999 used an 18.8 liter inline four-cylinder engine to produce up to 100 hp. Image courtesy Henry Ford Museum.
Ford drove his No. 999 Ford Arrow across Lake St. Clair, which separates Michigan and Ontario, Canada, at a top speed of 91.37 mph. The frozen lake “played an important role in automobile testing in the early part of the century,” explained Mark DIll in “Racing on Lake St. Clair” in 2009. “Roads were atrocious and there were no speedways.”
Learn about a 1973 natural gas-powered world speed record in Blue Flame Natural Gas Rocket Car.
Seeking to end dangerous and wasteful oil gushers, James Abercrombie and Harry Cameron received a patent for a hydraulic ram-type blowout preventer (BOP). About four years earlier, Abercrombie had sketched out the design on the sawdust floor of Cameron’s machine shop in Humble, Texas. Petroleum companies embraced the new technology, which would be improved in the 1930s.
James Abercrombie’s design used hydrostatic pistons to close on the drill stem. His improved blowout preventer set a new standard for safe drilling
First used during the Oklahoma City oilfield boom, the BOP helped control production of the highly pressurized Wilcox sandstone (see World-Famous “Wild Mary Sudik”). The American Society of Mechanical Engineers recognized the Cameron Ram-Type Blowout Preventer as an “Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark” in 2003.
Learn more in Ending Oil Gushers – BOP.
New York City’s Judge magazine published its first cartoon drawn by Theodor Seuss Geisel — who would develop his skills as “Dr. Seuss” while working for the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey.
Standard Oil’s “Flit” was a popular bug spray.
In the 1928 cartoon that launched his professional career as an advertising illustrator, Geisel drew a peculiar dragon trying to dodge Flit, a popular bug spray of the day. “Quick, Henry, the Flit!” soon became a catchphrase nationwide. Flit was one of Standard Oil of New Jersey’s many consumer products derived from petroleum.
During the Great Depression, Theodor S. Geisel — Dr. Seuss — created popular advertising campaigns for the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey.
Throughout the Great Depression, hundreds of Geisel’s fanciful critters populated Standard Oil advertisements, providing him much-needed income. Advertising campaigns included cartoon creatures for Esso gasolines, lubricating oils, and Essomarine engine oil and greases. The famed children’s book author would later acknowledge this Standard Oil experience, “taught me conciseness and how to marry pictures with words.”
Learn more in Seuss I am, an Oilman.
A Shell Oil Company wildcat well in Harding County, South Dakota, began producing oil from about 9,300 feet deep, revealing South Dakota’s first oilfield. Drilled in what proved to be the Buffalo field, the well produced more than 341,000 barrels of oil in five decades.
A wooden cable-tool rig in 1929 drilled a “dry hole” in Custer County of the “Mount Rushmore State.” Photo courtesy South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
Although South Dakota had a long history of petroleum exploration (natural gas production began in 1899), Harding County produced most of the state’s oil. Since the 1980s, South Dakota oil production has ranged between about 1 million and 2 million barrels of oil per year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA).
Although modern Bakken shale production does not extend into South Dakota, exploration companies have found other oil-producing formations (also see First North Dakota Oil Well).
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Recommended Reading: Giant Under the Hill: A History of the Spindletop Oil Discovery at Beaumont, Texas, in 1901
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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.
After one year of test marketing the new name, Standard Oil of New Jersey became Exxon, officially replacing U.S. Esso brands and subsidiary Humble Oil and Refining’s Enco brands. The nationwide rebranding applied to 28,600 Esso and Humble Enco stations, costing $100 million in research, product relabeling, and advertising, according to TIME magazine.
“Plans call for Humble to be renamed Exxon U.S., and for Standard Oil of New Jersey to become Exxon Inc.,” TIME reported in 1971, adding the company recognized existing brands could become global. The Enco name was discarded because it means “stalled car” in Japanese. Exxon would become ExxonMobil in 1999 after merging with Mobil Oil.
Peter Sweeney of New York City received a U.S. patent for an “Improvement in Rock Drills” design that included basic elements of the modern rotary rig. The inventor described his idea as a “peculiar construction particularly adapted for boring deep wells.”
Peter Sweeney’s innovative 1866 “Stone Drill” patent included a roller bit using “rapid rotary motion” similar to modern rotary drilling technologies.
Sweeney’s drilling patent, which improved upon an 1844 British patent by Robert Beart, used a roller bit with replaceable cutting wheels such “that by giving the head a rapid rotary motion the wheels cut into the ground or rock and a clean hole is produced.”
The rig’s “drill-rod” was hollow and connected with a hose through which “a current of steam or water can be introduced in such a manner that the discharge of the dirt and dust from the bottom of the hole is facilitated.” The petroleum industry soon improved upon Sweeney’s 1866 rotary rig.
John D. Rockefeller continued to expand his Standard Oil Company empire by reorganizing his assets into the Standard Oil Trust, which controlled much of the U.S. petroleum industry through 40 producing, refining and marketing affiliates. The trust also operated all of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s tank cars (also see Densmore Oil Tank Cars) until a U.S. Supreme Court ruling broke it up in 1911.
The Union Oil Company “76” brand was launched at service stations in western states. The brand’s orange circle with blue type logo was adopted in the 1940s, and the “76” orange orb first appeared at the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle. A smaller version of the ball proved so popular that millions would be given away as bright attachments to car antennas.
The Union 76 ball debuted in 1962.
The California Oil Museum in Santa Paula is in the original Union Oil headquarters of the 1890s.
Although setting speed limits earlier had been left to each state, when OPEC cut U.S. oil supplies in October 1973, President Richard Nixon signed the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act to reduce gas consumption. As a national speed limit of 55 mph became law, the embargo’s higher gas prices boosted sales of smaller, more fuel-efficient cars from Japan.
In 1995, President Bill Clinton repealed the federal limit, returning the power to the states. In 2023, the highest U.S. posted speed limit was 85 mph — only on Texas State Highway 130.
Exploration of the Permian Basin in Texas intensified when a wildcat well found oil and natural gas in a deep geologic formation. The Slick-Urschel Oil Company drilled the well after partnering with Michael Late Benedum, a renowned geologist who had discovered Pennsylvania and West Virginia oilfields as early as the 1890s.
Tom Slick Jr. of Oklahoma helped Michael Benedum of Pennsylvania discover a deep Permian Basin field in Texas. Image from February 16, 1948, LIFE magazine.
The Permian Basin discovery, the Alford No. 1 well, 50 miles south of Midland, was completed at 12,011 feet. A famous West Texas well completed two decades earlier, Santa-Rita No. 1, had produced oil from just 440 feet deep. The Slick-Urschel Oil well reached a depth of 10,000 feet in less than five months; it took another seven months to penetrate 384 feet.
Help came from Tom Slick Jr., the son of Oklahoma’s King of the Wildcatters, who branched off the well using a “whipstock” and reached the prolific limestone formation. The field was named in 1950 by the Texas Railroad Commission in honor of Benedum, “who devoted 69 of his 90 years to the oil business.”
The once famous Pithole Creek
Tourists can explore oil history in a Pennsylvania park where they walk the grass paths of former streets in boom town Pithole. Photo by Bruce Wells.
Adding to the boom were Civil War veterans eager to invest in the new industry. Newspapers stories added to the oil fever — as did the Legend of “Coal Oil Johnny.”
Tourists today can visit Oil Creek State Park and its education center on the grassy expanse that was once Pithole.
C.E. Barrett discovered the Humble oilfield in Harris County, Texas, with his Beatty No. 2 well, which brought another Texas oil boom four years after a gusher at Spindletop Hill launched the modern petroleum industry. Barrett’s well produced 8,500 barrels of oil per day from a depth of 1,012 feet.
The population of Humble jumped from 700 to 20,000 within months as production reached almost 16 million barrels of oil, the largest in Texas at the time. The field directly led to the 1911 founding of the Humble Oil Company by a group that included Ross Sterling, a future governor of Texas.
An embossed postcard circa 1905 from the Postal Card & Novelty Company, courtesy the University of Houston Digital Library.
“Production from several strata here exceeded the total for fabulous Spindletop by 1946,” notes a local historic marker. “Known as the greatest salt dome field, Humble still produces and the town for which it was named continues to thrive.” Another giant oilfield discovery in 1903 at nearby Sour Lake helped establish the Texaco Company.
Humble Oil, renamed Humble Oil and Refining Company in 1917, consolidated operations with Standard Oil of New Jersey two years later, eventually leading to ExxonMobil.
After two years of drilling, a wildcat well on Ferne Houseknecht’s Michigan dairy farm discovered the state’s largest oilfield. The 3,576-foot-deep well produced from the Black River formation of the Trenton zone.
After 20 months of on again, off again drilling, Ferne Houseknecht’s well revealed a giant oilfield in the southern Michigan basin.
The Houseknecht No. 1 discovery well at “Rattlesnake Gulch” revealed a producing region 29 miles long and more than one mile wide. It prompted a drilling boom that led to production of 150 million barrels of oil and 250 billion cubic feet of natural gas from the giant Albion-Scipio field in the southern Michigan basin.
The formation represented a classic “fracture-controlled dolomite reservoir,” according to petroleum geologists. “The story of the discovery well of Michigan’s only ‘giant’ oil field, using the worldwide definition of having produced more than 100 million barrels of oil from a single contiguous reservoir is the stuff of dreams,” noted Michigan historian Jack Westbrook
Learn more in Michigan’s “Golden Gulch” of Oil.
William Burton of the Standard Oil Company’s Whiting, Indiana, refinery received a patent for a process that doubled the amount of gasoline produced from each barrel of oil refined. Burton’s invention came as demand for gasoline was rapidly growing with the popularity of automobiles. His thermal cracking concept was an important refining advancement, although the process would be superseded by catalytic cracking in 1937.
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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. 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.
Inventor Henry Wehrhahn of Brooklyn, New York, received two patents that would lead to the modern 55-gallon steel drum. He assigned both to his employer, the famous journalist Nellie Bly, who was president of the Iron Clad Manufacturing Company.
