At 3:17 p.m. on March 18, 1937, with just minutes left in the school day and more than 500 students and teachers inside the building, a massive explosion leveled most of what had been the wealthiest rural school in the nation.

Hundreds died at New London High School in Rusk County after odorless natural gas leaked into the basement and ignited. The sound of the explosion was heard four miles away. Parents, many of them roughnecks from the East Texas oilfield, rushed to the school.

Despite immediate rescue efforts, 298 died, most from grades 5 to 11 (dozens more later died of injuries). After an investigation, the cause of the school explosion was found to be an electric wood-shop sander that sparked the residue gas vapors (also called casinghead gas) that had pooled beneath and inside the walls of the school.

Roughnecks from the East Texas oilfield rushed to the New London school after the March 18, 1937, explosion — and searched for survivors throughout the night. Photo courtesy New London Museum.

“The school was newly built in the 1930s for close to $1 million and, from its inception, bought natural gas from Union Gas to supply its energy needs,” noted History.com. “The school’s natural gas bill averaged about $300 a month.”

In early 1937, the school board canceled its contract with Union Gas to save money and tapped into a pipeline of casinghead gas from Parade Gasoline Company, according to historian James Cornell.

“This practice — while not explicitly authorized by local oil companies — was widespread in the area,” he reported in The Great International Disaster Book. “The natural gas extracted with the oil was considered a waste product and was flared off.”

Natural gas produced from the top of an oil well — the casinghead — contains either dissolved or associated gas or both. The residue gas collects in the annular space between the casing and tubing in the oil well before separating during or shortly after production and is flared for safety.

In the early 20th century, processing plants began turning oilfield-associated gas into a lower quality but inexpensive gasoline of between 40 octane and 60 octane. The product was called white gas, condensation gasoline, and natural gasoline.

The East Texas explosion made headlines from the Alaska Territory to Washington, D.C., where President Franklin D. Roosevelt enlisted the Red Cross and federal agencies to send assistance. Image from The Evening Star, Washington, D.C., March 19, 1937.

By 1920, Oklahoma had 315 casinghead gas plants in operation, including the first built west of the Mississippi River (see Casinghead Gasoline at Glenn Pool). But the hazards of vapors from casinghead gas had been exposed on September 27, 1915, when a railroad car carrying casinghead gasoline exploded in downtown Ardmore, killing 43 people and injuring others.

Cronkite reaches the Scene

A young journalist working for United Press in Dallas, Walter Cronkite, was among the first reporters to reach the scene of the disaster south of Kilgore, between Tyler and Longview. It was dark and raining in East Texas.

“He got his first inkling of how bad the incident was when he saw a large number of cars lined up outside the funeral home in Tyler,” noted a local historian. Floodlights cast long shadows at the site of the disaster.

“We hurried on to New London,” Cronkite wrote in his book, A Reporter’s Life. “We reached it just at dusk. Huge floodlights from the oilfields illuminated a great pile of rubble at which men and women tore with their bare hands. Many were workers from the oilfields.”

The March 18, 1937, explosion hurled a concrete slab 200 feet onto a Chevrolet. Students had been preparing for the next day’s interscholastic meet in Henderson. Photos courtesy New London Museum.

Decades later, the retired CBS Evening News anchor added, “I did nothing in my studies nor in my life to prepare me for a story of the magnitude of that New London tragedy, nor has any story since that awful day equaled it.”

A Bad Decision

David M. Brown, who researched the tragedy for a 2012 book, described the “sad irony” of how the East Texas oil boom financed building the wealthiest rural school in the nation in 1934 — and the faulty heating system that permitted raw gas to accumulate beneath it.

According to Brown, the explosion was partly the result of school officials making a bad decision.

To save money on heating the school building, the trustees had authorized workers to tap into a pipeline carrying “waste” natural gas produced by a gasoline refinery. The resulting explosion laid waste to a town’s future, Brown concluded in his book Gone at 3:17, the Untold Story of the Worst School Disaster in American History. 

Opened in 1995 across the site of the original school, the New London Museum began in 1980 when a new generation of students started asking survivor Mollie Ward what she remembered.

Following the disaster, a temporary morgue was set up near the school as well as nearby Overton and Henderson, according to Robert Hilliard, a volunteer for the New London Museum.

“Many burials were made in the local Pleasant Hill cemetery that to this day, still symbolize the great loss that families endured,” added Hilliard, among those who have maintained the museum’s website. “Many of the grave sites display porcelain pictures of the victims,” he said. “Marbles that were once played with were pushed into the cement border outlining the graves.”

Making Natural Gas Safer

As a result of the disaster, Texas was the first state to pass laws requiring that natural gas be mixed with a “malodorant” to give early warning of a gas leak. Other states quickly followed. The now-mandated rotten-egg smell associated with natural gas is mercaptan, the odorant added to indicate the potentially dangerous leaking of gas.

The New London School campus for grades 5 through 11 “was a new showplace in 1937, the product of new oil wealth that could not have been imagined 10 years earlier.”

New London’s community museum, across the highway from the school site, began in 1992 thanks to years of work by its founder and first curator, Mollie Ward, who was 10 when she survived the devastating explosion. She said in a 2001 interview that among the museum’s exhibits was a blackboard found in the rubble.

“Sometime in the night a worker found a blackboard that had been on the wall that read ‘Oil and natural gas are East Texas’ greatest mineral blessing,'” said Ward, who spent years helping start a former students association that reunited survivors of the New London explosion.

One museum exhibit is a recovered blackboard that reads, “Oil and natural gas are East Texas’ greatest mineral blessing.” Photo by Bruce Wells.

Near the museum is a 32-foot-high granite cenotaph dedicated in 1939. In December 1938, a contract for building a monument was awarded to the Premier Granite Quarries of Llano, Texas, with Donald Nelson of Dallas supervising architect.

After a competition between seven Texas sculptors who submitted preliminary designs, Herring Coe of Beaumont created the model for the sculptural block at the cenotaph’s top.

Near the New London museum stands a 32-foot granite cenotaph dedicated in 1939. Life-size figures represent children coming to school, bringing gifts and handing in homework.

The 20-ton sculptured block of Texas granite — supported by two monolithic granite columns — depicts 12 life-size figures to represent children coming to school, bringing gifts and handing in homework to two teachers.

The March 18, 1937, East Texas tragedy and those who died are remembered at the New London Museum. In 1977, Wayne Shaffer, an elementary student at the time of the explosion, helped organize memorials that have become reunions for all New London/West Rusk High graduates.

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Recommended Reading: Gone at 3:17, the Untold Story of the Worst School Disaster in American History (2012); A Texas Tragedy: The New London School Explosion (2012); The Great International Disaster Book (1976); A Reporter’s Life (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 support this energy education website, subscribe to our monthly email newsletter, and help expand historical research. Contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2026 Bruce A. Wells. 

Citation Information – Article Title: “New London School Explosion.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/oil-almanac/new-london-texas-school-explosion. Last Updated: March 10, 2025. Original Published Date: March 11, 2011.

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A 2019 book documents remarkable stories of women working in the petroleum industry and offers insights beyond the history of offshore exploration.

In Breaking the Gas Ceiling: Women in the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry, journalist Rebecca Ponton has assembled a rare collection of personal accounts from pioneering women who challenged convention, stereotypes, and more to work in the offshore oil and natural gas industry.

Journalist Rebecca Ponton has researched and written “condensed biographies” of 25 women — all offshore industry pioneers.

Like their onshore oilfield counterparts of all genders, these ocean roughnecks include petroleum engineers, geologists, landmen — and an increasing number of CEOs.

Offshore Pioneers

Ponton’s Breaking the Gas Ceiling, published by Modern History Press in 2019, tells the stories of the industry’s “WOW — Women on Water,” the title of her introductory chapter.

What follows are “condensed biographies” of women of all ages and nationalities. Their petroleum industry jobs have varied in responsibilities — and many of the women achieved a “first” in their fields.

Ponton, a professional landman, and  interviewed this diverse collection of energy industry professionals, producing an “outstanding compilation of role models,” according to Dave Payne, vice president, Chevron Drilling and Completions.

“Everyone needs role models — and role models that look like you are even better. For women, the oil and gas industry has historically been pretty thin on role models for young women to look up to,” noted the Chevron executive. “Rebecca Ponton has provided an outstanding compilation of role models for all women who aspire to success in one of the most important industries of modern times.”

Each chapter offers an account of finding success in the traditionally male-dominated industry — sometimes with humor but always with determination.

Among the offshore jobs described are stories from mechanical and chemical engineers, a helicopter pilot, a logistics superintendent, a photographer, an artist, a federal offshore agency director, and the first female saturation diver in the Gulf of Mexico — Marni Zabarski, who describes her career and 2001 achievement.

Additional insights are provided from water safety pioneer Margaret McMillan (1920-2016), who in 1988 was instrumental in creating the Marine Survival Training Center at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

Offshore oil and natural gas platforms are typically seen at the Port of Galveston, Texas. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Most U.S. offshore oil and natural gas leasing and development activity takes place in the central and western Gulf of Mexico — with thousands of platforms operating in waters up to 6,000 feet deep.

In 2004, McMillan became the first woman to be inducted into the Oilfield Energy Center’s Hall of Fame in Houston.

Another of Ponton’s chapters features 2018 Hall of Fame inductee Eve Howell, a petroleum geologist who was the first woman to work — and eventually supervise — production from Australia’s prolific North West Shelf.

Ponton also relates the story of 21-year-old Alyssa Michalke, an Ocean Engineering major who was the first female commander of the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets.

As the publisher Modern History Press explained, Ponton offers insights beyond documenting remarkable women in petroleum history. “In order to reach as wide an audience as possible, including the up and coming generation of energy industry leaders, Rebecca made it a point to seek out and interview young women who are making their mark in the sector as well.”

The milestones of these notable “women on water” may not receive the attention given to NASA’s women spacewalkers, but they also deserve recognition. The modern offshore petroleum industry needs all the skilled workers it can get of any gender.

In 2021, Women Offshore featured Ponton. Books about the accomplishments of these neglected oilfield careers should help.

A remarkable account of women petroleum geologists was authored in 2017 by Robbie Rice Gries on the 100th anniversary of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (see  AAPG — Geology Pros since 1917). Anomalies, Pioneering Women in Petroleum Geology, 1917-2017 includes vivid oil patch personal stories, correspondence and photographs dating to the first decade of the 20th century.

Also see Petroleum Industry Women.

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Recommended Reading: Breaking the Gas Ceiling: Women in the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry (2019); Offshore Pioneers: Brown & Root and the History of Offshore Oil and Gas (1997); Anomalies, Pioneering Women in Petroleum Geology, 1917-2017 (2017). 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 support this energy education website, subscribe to our monthly email newsletter, and help expand historical research. Contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2026 Bruce A. Wells. 

Citation Information – Article Title: “Women of the Offshore Petroleum Industry tell Their Stories.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/oil-almanac/women-of-the-offshore-petroleum-industry-tell-their-stories. Last Updated: March 8, 2026. Original Published Date: February 18, 2020.

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Old West lawman and gambler Wyatt Earp and his wife Josie in 1920 bet oil could be found on a barren piece of California scrub land. A century later, his Kern County lease still paid royalties.

Ushered into modest retirement by notoriety, Mr. and Mrs. Wyatt Earp were known — if not successful — entrepreneurs with abundant experience running saloons, gambling houses, bordellos (Wichita, Kansas, 1874), real estate, and finally western mining ventures. 

Circa 1906 photo of Wyatt Earp and wife Josie at their mining camp with dog “Earpie.”

Quietly retired in California, the couple alternately lived in suburban Los Angeles or tended to gold and copper mining holdings at their “Happy Days” camp in the Whipple Mountains near Vidal. Josephine “Josie” Marcus Earp had been by Wyatt’s side since his famous 1881 O.K. Corral gunfight in Tombstone, Arizona.

Also in California, Josie’s younger sister, Henrietta Marcus, had married into wealth and thrived in Oakland society while Josie and Wyatt roamed the West. “Hattie” Lehnhardt had the genteel life sister Josie always wanted but never had. When Hattie’s husband Emil died by suicide in 1912, the widow inherited a $225,000 estate.

Money had always been an issue between the Earps, according to John Gilchriese, amateur historian and longtime collector of Earp memorabilia.

Josie liked to remind Wyatt he had once employed a struggling gold miner — Edward Doheny — as a faro lookout (armed bouncer) in a Tombstone saloon. Doheny later drilled for oil and discovered the giant Los Angeles oilfield in the early 1880s.

The Los Angeles field launched Southern California’s petroleum industry, creating many unlikely oil millionaires — including local piano teacher Emma Summers, whose astute business sense earned her the title “Oil Queen of California.”

In addition to oilman Doheny, Earp socialized with prominent Californians like George Randolph Hearst (father of San Francisco Examiner publisher William), whom he knew from mining days in Tombstone. But the former lawman’s ride into the California oil patch began in 1920 when he gambled on an abandoned placer claim.

Kern County Lease

In 1901, a petroleum exploration venture had drilled a wildcat well about five miles north of Bakersfield in Kern County. The attempt generated brief excitement, but nothing ultimately came of it. When Shasta Oil Company drilled into bankruptcy after three dry holes, the land returned to its former reputation — worthless except for sheep grazing.

Earp decided to bet on black gold where Shasta Oil had failed. But first, California required that he post a “Notice of Intent to File Prospectors Permit.” He sent his wife to make the application. But on her way to pay the fees with paperwork in hand, Josie was diverted by gaming tables. She lost all the money, infuriating Wyatt and delaying his oil exploration venture.

Earp later secured the Kern County lease claim he sought, mostly with money from his sister-in-law, Hattie Lehnhardt, 

Wyatt Earp purchased a mineral lease in Kern County, PLSS (Public Land Survey System) Section 14, Township 28 South, Range 27 East.

The San Francisco Examiner declared, “Old Property Believed Worthless for Years West of Kern Field Relocated by Old-Timers.” The newspaper — describing Earp as the “pioneer mining man of Tombstone” — reported that the old Shasta Oil Company parcel had been newly assessed.

“Indications are that a great lake of oil lies beneath the surface in this territory,” the article proclaimed. “Should this prove to be the case, the locators of the old Shasta property have stumbled onto some very valuable holdings.”

Meanwhile, competition among big players like Standard Oil of California and Getty Oil energized the California petroleum market. By July 1924, Getty Oil had won the competition and began to drill on the Earp lease.

On February 25, 1926, a well on the lease was completed with production of 150 barrels of oil a day. During 1926, nine of the wells produced a total of almost 153,000 barrels of oil. “Getty has been getting some nice production in the Kern River field ever since operations were started,” reported the Los Angeles Times.

Rarely exceeding 300 barrels of oil a day, the Getty wells were not as large as other recent California discoveries (see Signal Hill Oil Boom), but they produced oil from less than 2,000 feet deep, keeping production costs low. Royalty checks would begin arriving in the mail.

With the Oil and Gas Journal reporting “Kern River Front” oil selling for 75 cents per barrel, the Earps received $3,174 from 12 active wells producing 282,116 barrels of oil from February 1927 to January 1928, according to the 2019 book A Wyatt Earp Anthology: Long May His Story Be Told.

At age 78, Wyatt Earp’s oil gamble finally paid off — but there was a catch.

No Royalty Riches

Because of her gambling, Josie Earp had become so notoriously incapable of managing money that Earp gave control of the lease to her younger sister, Hattie Lehnhardt. At the same time, he directed that his wife “receive at all times a reasonable portion of any and all benefits, rights and interests.”

From February 1928 to January 1929, production from the dozen Earp wells declined to 91,770 barrels, “grossing $68,827 with Josie’s royalties amounting to a mere $1,032,” noted the anthology’s editors.

Circa 1887 portrait of Wyatt Earp at about 39 years old.

With that, Earp’s venture in the Kern County petroleum business became a footnote to his legend, already well into the making. By the time of his death on January 13, 1929, his gamble on oil, still known as the Lehnhardt Lease, had paid Josie a total of almost $6,000.

The disappointing results would prompt Josie to write, “I was in hopes they would bring in a two or three hundred barrel well. But I must be satisfied as it could have been a duster, too.”

When benefactor Hattie Lehnhardt died in 1936, her children (and some litigation) put an end to the 20 percent of the 7.5 percent of the Getty Oil royalties formerly paid to their widowed aunt Josephine. Eight years later, when Josephine died, she left a total estate of $175, including a $50 radio and a $25 trunk.

The Lehnhardt lease in Kern County would remain active. From January 2018 to December 2022, improved secondary recovery in the Lehnhardt oil properties of the California Resources Production Corporation produced 440,560 barrels of oil, according to records at ShaleXP.

Kern County Museums

Beginning in 1941, the Kern County Museum in Bakersfield has educated visitors with petroleum exhibits on a 16-acre site just north of downtown. The museum offers “Black Gold: The Oil Experience,” a permanent $4 million science, technology, and history exhibition.

The museum also preserves a large collection of historic photographs.

A roughneck monument with a 30-foot-tall derrick was dedicated in Taft, California, in 2010. Photo courtesy West Kern Oil Museum.

In Taft, the West Kern Oil Museum also has images from the 1920s showing more than 7,000 wooden derricks covering 21 miles in southwestern Kern County, according to Executive Director Arianna Mace. 

Run almost entirely by volunteers — and celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2023 — the oil museum collects, preserves, and exhibits equipment telling the story of the Midway-Sunset field, which, by 1915, produced half of the oil in California. The state led the nation in oil production at the time.

Since 1946, Taft residents have annually celebrated “Oildorado.” The community in 2010 dedicated a 30-foot Oil Worker Monument with a derrick and bronze sculptures of Kern County petroleum pioneers.

Both Kern County museums played credited roles in the 2008 Academy Award-winning movie “There Will Be Blood.” Production staff visited each museum while researching realistic California wooden derricks and oil production machinery. During a visit to the West Kern Oil Museum, the film’s production designer purchased copies of authentic 1914 cable-tool derrick blueprints.

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Recommended Reading: A Wyatt Earp Anthology: Long May His Story Be Told (2019); Black Gold in California: The Story of California Petroleum Industry (2016); Early California Oil: A Photographic History, 1865-1940 (1985); Pico Canyon Chronicles: The Story of California’s Pioneer Oil Field (1985); Black Gold, the Artwork of JoAnn Cowans (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 support AOGHS to help maintain this energy education website, a monthly email newsletter, This Week in Oil and Gas History News, and expand historical research. Contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2026 Bruce A. Wells.

Citation Information – Article Title: “Wyatt Earp’s California Oil Wells.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/oil-almanac/wyatt-earps-california-oil-wells. Last Updated: February 19, 2026. Original Published Date: October 30, 2013.

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During much of the 1920s, a Texas Ranger became known for strictly enforcing the law in oilfield communities. By 1930, the discovery year of the largest oilfield in the lower 48 states, he was known as “El Lobo Solo” — the lone wolf — the Ranger who brought law and order to East Texas boom towns.

Manuel Trazazas Gonzaullas was born in 1891 in Cádiz, Spain, to a Spanish father and Canadian mother who were naturalized U.S. citizens. At age 15 he witnessed the murder of his only two brothers and the wounding of his parents when bandits raided their home. Fourteen years later, Gonzaullas joined the Texas Rangers.

“Give Texas more Rangers of the caliber of ‘Lone Wolf’ Gonzaullas, and the crime wave we are going through will not be of long duration,” reported the Dallas Morning News in 1934.

“He was a soft-spoken man and his trigger finger was slightly bent,” independent producer Watson W. Wise characterized him during a 1985 interview in Tyler, Texas. “He always told me it was geared to that .45 of his.”

When Kilgore became “the most lawless town in Texas” after the October 1930 oil boom started, Manuel “Lone Wolf” Gonzaullas was the Texas Ranger sent out to tame it, according to Wise, who moved to East Texas in 1925 after graduating from Yale University.

Taming East Texas

At five feet, nine inches tall, with a scarred face, and no sense of humor, Ranger Gonzaullas Gonzaullas was “a very serious type fella,” Wise recalled. “He was sent out to Pecos one time to stop a riot out there,” added Wise.

“When he got off the train there was a great posse waiting to greet him, and when they saw he was alone, they said, ‘Where’s all your help, Mr. Gonzaullas?’ and he said, ‘There’s only one riot isn’t there?’”

Gonzaullas rode a black stallion named Tony and often sported two pearl-handled, silver-mounted .45 pistols. On his chest was a shining Texas Ranger star. Everybody in Kilgore soon knew he was around, according to Wise, who founded several oil companies in the 140,000-acre East Texas oilfield.

Lone Wolf’s “working pistols” had the trigger guards cut away. His holsters were cut deep. His collection included gold-plated Colt .38 Detective Special (with miniature Texas Ranger captain badge) and 1911 Colt .45s with his initials. Photos courtesy Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum.

“He came down there, one man, and shot about three people and cleaned the place out. He used to show me that finger and say that it gets itchy,” said Wise. “He’d give you a warning, and if you didn’t heed it, he’d shoot you. Sometimes he would just shoot for your leg.”

According to another veteran of the East Texas field, Herman A. Engel, who at the time was taking turns with another oilman sleeping on a two-dollar-a-day cot in Kilgore, Lone Wolf acted as judge, jury, and jailer.

The 1930s East Texas oil boom brought all kinds of people to Kilgore as the town’s streets sprouted oil derricks. Buildings were shortened to accommodate new wells. Even the bank was torn down for a well site, recalled Engel in 1985. Kilgore’s population increased from 700 to 10,000 in two weeks.

No quarter in Kilgore

In addition to Kilgore, nearby communities of Tyler and Longview also grew at an incredible pace, thanks to being above an oil field 43 miles long and 12.5 miles wide. The East Texas field would become the largest and most prolific oil reservoir ever discovered in the contiguous United States.

According to Engel, Gonzaullas was “highly suspicious of anyone without calluses on his hands.” To make his presence known, the Texas lawman paraded his suspects down Kilgore’s muddy, crowded streets on a “trotline.”

The “World’s Richest Acre Park” today is a tourist site in downtown Kilgore — where once stood the world’s greatest concentration of oil wells. Photo courtesy East Texas Oil Museum.

One evening, after two weeks of investigation and raids, Gonzaullas triumphantly marched more than 300 men before the town’s law-abiding citizens. “He chained them to a long steel cable,” Engle said. “Their identities were checked. They were told they could go free – if they left town in four hours; most left in ten minutes.”

The Ranger gave potential criminals and ne’er-do-wells what he considered fair warning. “Crime may expect no quarter in Kilgore,” Gonzaullas proclaimed.

“Gambling houses, slot machines, whiskey rings and dope peddlers might as well save the trouble of opening, because they will not be tolerated in any degree,” the Ranger added. “Drifters and transients have their choice of three things: engaging in a legitimate business, getting out of town or going to jail!”

As drilling and production derricks proliferated, the oil boom kept Kilgore’s many unpaved streets in crowded chaos, even when dry. With the frequent rains, roads became virtually impassable. Cars, trucks, and wagons sank into the mud, sometimes stuck in place until dry weather returned.

“Boomtown, USA” is a popular exhibit in Kilgore’s East Texas Oil Museum, which opened in 1980. It is a full-scale town full of stores, people, animals, and machinery of the 1930s. Photos by Brice Wells.

The clamor of drilling went on around the clock as Gonzaullas relentlessly practiced his craft, showing neither patience nor indulgence for the host of criminal opportunists that inevitably followed sudden oil money. A popular local story claimed the Ranger shot a total of 75 men, but Lone Wolf himself said, “That is a gross exaggeration.”

According to Engle, the once famous Ranger never admitted how many men had seen the business end of his “working guns,” including customized revolvers and semiautomatics of all kinds. He reportedly had hundreds in a collection taken from those he caught and convicted.

Newspaper Accounts

In 1934, Evans Smith, an East Texan, wrote to the Dallas Morning News, “Give Texas more Rangers of the caliber of ‘Lone Wolf’ Gonzaullas, and the crime wave we are going through will not be of long duration.”

The Van Free State Press echoed, “‘Lone Wolf’ is one of the best known and most respected peace officers in the south. He’s quick on the trigger and all bad gunmen know that, so seldom frequent his quarters.”

Discovered in 1930, the East Texas oilfield has produced more than five billion barrels of oil. The oilfield, 43 miles long and 12.5 miles wide, is the largest in the contiguous United States.

Lone Wolf Gonzaullas’ reputation followed him after he retired from the Texas Rangers in 1951. The famed lawman served as a technical consultant for radio, motion pictures, and television shows such as the long-running “Tales of the Texas Rangers.”

Brownson Malsch in his 1998 book “Lone Wolf” Gonzaullas, Texas Ranger, reported the lawman had a personal collection of 580 guns plus knives, clubs, and other weapons when he retired. Many stories went untold as to the criminals he had acquired them from,” noted Malsch.

Gonzaullas himself put it simply: “Some have real stories behind them, but it’s nobody’s business where they came from.” He was a gentleman, “courteous to men and women alike, except when it came to criminals, where Gonzaullas’ utter fearlessness and his deadly accuracy with pistols and rifles are credited with allowing him to survive.”

According to Malsch, the Ranger also was a religious man. “He was a keen student of the Bible and later in life carried a copy of the New Testament in his pocket and copies in his car. He handed these out to errant men whom he thought might be remolded into useful citizens.” Gonzaullas underlined biblical passages on sinning and forgiveness.

Captain Manuel “Lone Wolf” Gonzaullas died in Dallas on February 13, 1977, at age 85, leaving his scrapbooks and personal papers to the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum.

The legacy of independent producer Watson Wise — quoted at the beginning of this article — reached beyond his success in East Texas. President Eisenhower appointed him a delegate to the United Nations’ 13th General Assembly in 1958. 

Born in Ohio, Wise (1899-1989) graduated from Yale University before moving to Texas in 1925. He founded two companies, Wise Operating and Wise Drilling, and partnered to form a third, the Watburn Oil Company. A lengthy and successful career as an independent producer led to his becoming a noted philanthropist. 

A trustee of Tyler Junior College from 1950 until 1970, Wise established the Watson and Emma Wise Cultural Arts Center and an auditorium there. He also funded a wing to the library at his alma mater, Yale, in addition to the Watson W. Wise Medical Research Library, dedicated in 1984 at the University of Texas Health Center in Tyler.

Learn more petroleum history by visiting the East Texas Oil Museum, which opened in 1980 at Kilgore College. 

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Recommended Reading: Lone Wolf Gonzaullas, Texas Ranger (1998); The Black Giant: A History of the East Texas Oil Field and Oil Industry Skulduggery & Trivia (2003); Early Texas Oil: A Photographic History, 1866-1936 (2000). 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 support AOGHS to help maintain this energy education website, a monthly email newsletter, This Week in Oil and Gas History News, and expand historical research. Contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2026 Bruce A. Wells.

Citation Information – Article Title: “Manuel “Lone Wolf” Gonzaullas, Texas Ranger.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/oil-almanac/lone-wolf-gonzaullas-texas-ranger. Last Updated: February 8, 2026. Original Published Date: March 1, 2007.

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Col. William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s legacy extends beyond his famous Wild West show. A Wyoming town named Cody preserves his Big Horn Basin heritage, but less known is his adventure into the oil business.

“Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World” once made W.F. Cody the most recognized man in the world. His fanciful Indian attacks on wagon trains, the marksmanship by Annie Oakley, and other attractions drew audiences in America and Europe.

“It would be hard to imagine the history of Wyoming around the turn of the 20th century without Buffalo Bill,” notes one historian. 1915 photo courtesy Buffalo Bill Center of the West.

Cody became a promoter of the Wyoming frontier town he helped found in 1896 that bears his name. The local newspaper he and a partner started in 1899 is still publishing today. The Cody Enterprise continues to acknowledge W.F. Buffalo Bill Cody on its masthead.

“Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World,” a circa 1899 poster with Col. W.F. Cody by Courier Lithographing Company, Buffalo, N.Y. Image courtesy Library of Congress.

As a partner in the Shoshone Land and Irrigation Company, he enticed the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad to build an extension from Toluca, Montana, to Cody to ensure future growth and prosperity in the Big Horn Basin of north-central Wyoming.

“Buffalo Bill” Cody (center right, black hat) and investors inspect oil sample of the Shoshone Anticline near Cody, Wyoming, circa 1910. Photo courtesy the American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

Always an entrepreneur, the showman had earlier formed the W.F. Cody Hotel Company when the railroad reached Sheridan, about 150 miles east of Cody, in 1892. He opened the Irma Hotel (named after his daughter) in Cody in 1902. Historian Robert Bonner reported the veteran showman would promote his enterprises endlessly with anyone who would listen.

“He saw great possibilities in every direction, and he had an unquestioned faith in his personal ability to achieve whatever he set out to do,” explained Bonner in a 2007 book about the famed showman. “He was always willing to back up his words with his money.”

The Irma Hotel in Cody, shown here circa 1920, opened in 1902 and remains open today. It was named for the daughter of William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody. Photo courtesy of Lynn Johnson Houze, WyoHistory.org.

The Burlington and Quincy line opened in Cody, population about 300, in November 1901. The train depot was on the north side of the Shoshone River, across from the town.

Meanwhile, an oil discovery ten months earlier in a small Texas town had launched America’s greatest drilling frenzy, one that would create the modern petroleum industry. Perhaps inspired by the oil gusher at Spindletop near Beaumont, which would lead to hundreds of new Texas oil companies, Buffalo Bill and associate George Beck began searching for oil near Cody.

Cody Oil Company

The fledgling oilmen began by using the same “placer claim” Wyoming statutes applied to gold and silver. State law required that at least $500 had to be spent annually on development of each 160-acre claim.

“Bill, the Oil King” stands by one of his cable-tool wells drilled near Cody, Wyoming. Photo courtesy Buffalo Bill Center of the West.

Buffalo Bill’s prior disappointments in mining did not hamper his energetic promotion of the venture and search for investors — including Wyoming congressman Rep. Frank Mondell, among others. He and his partners formed the Cody Oil Company in October 1902. Cody Oil Company drilled its first well near natural oil seeps just two miles from the town Buffalo Bill founded.

By August 1903, the expensive exploratory well had reached 500 feet and was progressing well enough to prompt spudding another. But water encroachment ruined both well boreholes — and dampened Buffalo Bill’s enthusiasm for the petroleum exploration. Six years later, Buffalo Bill and his associates once again ventured into the oil business by forming the Shoshone Oil Company.

Undeterred by the failure of Cody Oil, Rep. Frank Mondell and others invested in the new exploration venture. Buffalo Bill bought 2,500 shares of Shoshone Oil stock at $1 each; his partner Beck bought 46,666 shares. In 1909, the exploration company filed for 115 oil placer claims south of Cody.

Meanwhile, Buffalo Bill energetically promoted his Wyoming “Bonanza Oil District” to potential investors back East.

A stock certificate for 2,500 shares valued at $1 per share issued to W. F. Cody by Shoshone Oil Company, Cody, Wyoming, on February 4, 1910. Shoshone Oil Company today survives only as a collectible stock certificate. Image courtesy Buffalo Bill Center of the West.

According to Bonner’s book, during a visit to New York City in the spring, the famous Cody oilman carried pocket flasks of oil to show his friends in the East and to interest investors. “With what degree of seriousness we cannot know,” writes the author; some of his eastern friends called him, “Bill, the Oil King.”

Unfortunately for Shoshone Oil Company, all the major oil strikes were found north and east of town; nothing of significance was found on the company’s placer claims. If the exploration company had drilled farther south and a little east of Cody, it may have found the northernmost extension of the prolific Oregon Basin.

Wyoming’s Oregon Basin field, discovered in 1912, would produce almost 500 million barrels of oil and 300 million cubic feet of natural gas in the coming decades, according to the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

Shoshone Oil Company has survived as collectible stock certificates.

In 1915, two years before his death, Buffalo Bill promoted a new oil venture, writing to an acquaintance, “Don’t you and some of your friends want to come in on the ground floor — and make a real clean up?”

Col. W.F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody was preparing for another exploration venture into the Wyoming oil patch when he passed away in 1917.

A plan to form the Buffalo Bill Oil & Gas Company apparently came to naught. As he prepared for further exploration ventures into the Wyoming oil patch, Col. W.F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody died in Denver on January 10, 1917.

“It would be hard to imagine the history of Wyoming around the turn of the twentieth century without Buffalo Bill,” concluded Bonner in his 2007 book. “He brought enormous, electric energy into the Big Horn Basin and the state as a whole.”

Founded in Cody the same year Buffalo Bill died, the Buffalo Bill Memorial Association opened the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in 1927, renamed in 2013 the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. By the early 1920s, Wyoming’s Salt Creek oilfield in Natrona County became one of the most productive in the nation. Learn more in First Wyoming Oil Wells.

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Recommended Reading:  William F. Cody’s Wyoming Empire: The Buffalo Bill Nobody Knows (2007); The Salt Creek Oil Field: Natrona County, Wyo., 1912 (2017); Kettles and Crackers – A History of Wyoming Oil Refineries (2016). Your Amazon purchases benefit the American Oil & Gas Historical Society. As an Amazon Associate, AOGHS earns a commission from qualifying purchases.

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The post Buffalo Bill Shoshone Oil Company appeared first on American Oil & Gas Historical Society.

Rodney Shively hopes to preserve the oilfield legacies of his grandfather and great-grandfather. After researching details of a May 5, 1953, patent they were awarded from the U.S. Patent Office (no. 2,637,528), he is looking for a permanent home for his family’s prototype oilfield production device.

Shively, who worked as a research scientist in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries for nearly 40 years, has been investigating his grandfathers’ careers in the petroleum industry. Other family artifacts include memorabilia from THUMS, a late-1960s consortium of petroleum companies that constructed five oilfield production islands off Long Beach, California.

“Nearly a decade ago I inherited a few mid-twentieth-century oil technology artifacts from my grandfathers,” Shively explains. The most unique is the prototype of the patented self-adjusting carrier bar for oilfield pump jacks designed by his grandparents.

Shively hopes a U.S. petroleum museum, technology museum, or historical organization will be interested in preserving the prototype “Carrier Rod for Polish Rods” described in the July 1949 patent application.

The oilfield production technology patent was awarded to Rodney Shively’s great-grandfather and grandfather on May 5, 1953.

More Shively family oilfield items encompass a 1960s promotional tray depicting the THUMS production facility at Long Beach, “landscaped and lighted oil island.” Other family items also relate to the trailblazing offshore islands. Five petroleum companies  — Texaco, Humble, Union, Mobil, and Shell — built four artificial islands that remain among the most innovative, artfully camouflaged facilities worldwide. (see THUMS — California’s Hidden Oil Islands).

Self-Adjusting Carrier Bar

An object of our invention is to provide a novel carrier bar in which the polish rod can align itself to compensate for misalignment of the carrier bar and also to compensate for the small arch of travel in which the carrier bar moves. — Mace A. Cox and James L. Shively

Shively hopes his 28-pound, self-adjusting carrier bar for pumping unit sucker rods will be of interest to museum curators. His grandfather and great-grandfather received their 1953 patent for an innovative design, possibly the first prototype universal joint carrier bar.

“As a little boy in the 1960s and 1970s, when I visited my grandfather’s home, this item was always on display,” Shively explains. “My father inherited it and the other items when my grandfather passed a quarter century ago. They then passed to me when my father passed a decade back. I have no further family to pass this collection of oilfield artifacts on to.”

Shively wants to preserve the prototype — along with other oilfield items — and is willing to donate the collection to a museum. “These items represent mid-twentieth-century oilfield inventiveness, ingenuity, and work,” he says. “It is my hope that these items will be reminders to future generations of the era’s petroleum technology.”

Patented in 1953, the prototype universal joint carrier bar was designed to reduce linear and rotational stress between the rod and jack head, reducing breakage. Photos courtesy Rodney Shively.

Years ago, his grandfather explained to him that carrier bars had been an early part of oilfield production technology, but earlier designs were prone to stress breakage. Broken carrier bars meant wells would spend downtime for repair — and oil not being pumped.

“This new carrier bar was designed to reduce the movement linear and rotational stress between the siphon rod and jack head, reducing breakage and downtime,” Shively reports. “In viewing the image of the prototype carrier bar backside, at the lower end along the center vertical ridge, there is a visible ‘C & S’ as part of the unit. These letters stand for the last names of inventors Mace A. Cox and James L. Shively, my grandfathers.”

Shively adds that the improved carrier bar had a small part in providing a more reliable supply of crude oil following World War II. “The post-war decades were a time when the U.S. interstate expanded and suburban sprawl was beginning,” he notes. “Shipping and air travel also began expansion in these decades with a more reliable supply of crude oil.”

THUMS Memorabilia

Shively in December 2025 reached out to the American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) for help finding a museum home for his family’s oilfield artifacts. He hopes directors or docents will contact him for more details about the carrier bar prototype — or any of his family’s petroleum history artifacts.

From the Shively family collection: a late-1960s “knickknack tray” with Disney-inspired disguised derricks of the THUMS Oil Islands off Long Beach, California.

“A late-1960s knickknack tray promoting the THUMS Oil Islands off the coast of Long Beach, California. On the bottom side there is a number P67, the assumption is this might be a reference to the year of production and/or manufacture, 1967.”

Worker overalls with the THUMS Long Beach logo for the four offshore production islands, which produce oil from California’s Wilmington field, the fourth-largest oilfield in the United States in 2017.

Employee badge of the Long Beach Oil Development Company, where Rodney Shively’s grandfather worked in 1946. He thinks the “66” may refer to the company being located near the end of Route 66.

Long Beach Oil Company Overalls — As part of his job with the city of Long Beach, managing oil derrick operations on THUMS, my grandfather routinely needed to visit the THUMS Oil Island facilities. On those visits, he would need to wear these overalls over his business suit.

Long Beach Oil Company Badge — The Long Beach Oil Development Company badge is old and was included in my grandfather’s items, indicating some relationship or personal prominence,” he observes. The badge has a screw pin on the back for attaching to a hard hat or clothing.

“Though my grandfather’s relationship to this company was unknown originally, I had heard stories he worked in the oilfields in the late 1940s and 1950s. Serendipitously, an old document was discovered showing my grandfather worked for the Long Beach Oil Development Company in 1946,” Shively reports. “The badge center number may be 66 as a logo homage to Route 66 and the petroleum needs for cars and trucks,”

A web search revealed the Long Beach Oil Development Company was filed as a business entity in Carson City, Nevada, on January 10, 1939.

Today living in Washington, Rodney Shively hopes the AOGHS American Oil Families website article will help promote his effort to preserve his grandparents’ petroleum legacies. He would be happy to discuss these items and their possible addition to a museum’s collection — or preservation by a state or county historical society or similar organizations. To learn more, email him at Rshively01@outlook.com.

“Are you aware of any need at an oil industry technology history museum to expand collections with items such as these listed?” he concludes. “When I pass, I believe all these items should be left to be displayed for everyone, not lost to history.”

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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please become an annual AOGHS supporter and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2026 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.

Citation Information – Article Title: “Preserving Shively Family Oil Artifacts.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/oil-almanac/shivley-family-oil-artifacts. Last Updated: February 5, 2026. Original Published Date: February 5, 2026.

The post Family Oilfield Invention Patent appeared first on American Oil & Gas Historical Society.

Launched in 1972, the Glomar Explorer left behind two remarkable offshore exploration histories: a clandestine submarine recovery vessel and the world’s most advanced deep-water drill ship. The CIA’s former “ocean mining” ship ended a pioneering offshore petroleum career in 2015 at a Chinese scrapyard. 

Considered a pioneer of modern drill ships, the Glomar Explorer was decades ahead of its time, working at extreme depths for the U.S. offshore petroleum industry. Relaunched in 1998 as an offshore technological phenomenon, the original Glomar Explorer had been constructed as a top-secret project of the Central Intelligence Agency. 

Hughes Glomar Explorer, a custom-built “magnesium mining vessel” for the CIA that in 1974 recovered part of a Soviet submarine off Hawaii. Photo courtesy American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

CIA Project Azorian began soon after the U.S.S.R. ballistic missile submarine K-129 mysteriously sank somewhere in the deep Pacific Ocean northeast of Hawaii on March 8, 1968. The wreckage of the lost sub could never be found — or so it seemed.

Unknown to the Soviets, sophisticated U.S. Navy sonar technology would locate the K-129 on the seabed at a depth of 16,500 feet. But a salvage operation more than three miles deep was impossible with any known technology (see ROV – Swimming Socket Wrench).

The K-129 sinking presented the CIA with such an espionage opportunity that the agency convinced President Richard Nixon to approve a secret operation to attempt raising the vessel from the ocean floor.

Secretive billionaire Howard Hughes Jr. of Hughes Tool Company joined the mission, code-named Project Azorian (mistakenly called Project Jennifer in news media accounts).

The recovery effort would involve years of deception: deep ocean mining would be the cover story for construction of the Hughes Glomar Explorer.

Hughes “Ocean Mining”

Scientists and venture capitalists had long seen potential in ocean mining, but when Hughes appeared to take on the challenge, the world took notice. The well-publicized plan described harvesting magnesium nodules from record depths with a custom-built ship that would push engineering technology to new limits, typical of Hughes’ style. The story spread.

But from concept to launch, the Hughes Glomar Explorer had one purpose: Raise the sunken Soviet Golf-II class submarine from 1968 — and any ballistic missiles. Construction began in 1972 by Sun Shipbuilding and Drydock Company in a Delaware River facility south of Philadelphia. Hughes’ $350 million (about $261 billion in 2024) high-tech ship was ostensibly built to mine the sea floor.

On August 8, 1974, the “magnesium mining vessel” secretly raised part of the 2,000-ton K-129 through a hidden well opening in the hull and a “claw” of mechanically articulated fingers that used seawater as a hydraulic fluid. News about Project Azorian leaked within six months.

Seymour Hersh of the Los Angeles Times revealed the clandestine project on February 7, 1974. An investigative reporter, he had won the Pulitzer Prize in 1970 for exposing the My Lai massacre.

On February 7, 1974, the Los Angeles Times broke the story: “CIA Salvage Ship Brought Up Part Of Soviet Sub Lost In 1968, Failed To Raise Atom Missiles.” 

The L.A. Times article by Pulitzer  Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh ended the high-tech vessel’s spying career. The government transferred the Hughes Glomar Explorer to the Navy in 1976 for an extensive $2 million preparation for storage in dry dock. With its CIA days over, the vessel spent almost two decades mothballed at Suisun Bay, California.

Pioneer Drill Ship

London-based Global Marine had converted the CIA vessel for commercial use. The company hired Electronic Power Design of Houston, Texas, to work on the advanced electrical system. After almost 20 years in storage, the condition of equipment inside the ship surprised Electronic Power Design CEO John Janik.

“Everything was just as the CIA had left it,” Janik explained, “down to the bowls on the counter and the knives hanging in the kitchen. Even though all the systems were intact, this was by no means an ordinary ship.”

Janik noted in 2015 for The Maritime Executive that his company’s retrofit was “a tough job because the ship’s wiring was unlike anything we had ever seen before,” although preservation had been helped by nitrogen pumped into the ship’s interior for two decades.

Conversion work later included a Mobile, Alabama, shipyard adding a derrick, drilling equipment, and 11 positioning thrusters capable of a combined 35,200 horsepower. Completed in 1998 as the world’s largest drillship, Glomar Explorer began a long-term lease from the U.S. Navy to Global Marine Drilling for $1 million per year.

The advanced drilling ship spent the next 17 years working in deep-water sites around the globe, including Africa’s Nigerian delta, the Black Sea, offshore Angola, Indonesia, Malta, Singapore, and Malaysia.

Following a series of corporate mergers, Glomar Explorer became part of the largest offshore drilling contractor, the Swiss company Transocean Ltd. When it entered that company’s fleet, the ship was renamed GSF Explorer and in 2013 was re-flagged from Houston to the South Pacific’s Port Vila in Vanuatu.

The former top-secret CIA vessel Glomar Explorer began a record-setting career in 1998 as a technologically advanced deep-water drill ship. Photo courtesy American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

When GSF Explorer arrived at the Chinese shipbreaker’s yard in 2015, many offshore industry trade publications took notice of the ship’s demise after years of exceptional deep drilling service. The ship was “decades ahead of its time and the pioneer of all modern drill ships,” declared the Electronic Power Design CEO in The Maritime Executive article.

“It broke all the records for working at unimaginable depths and should be remembered as a technological phenomenon,” Janik concluded.

Soon after the former Glomar Explorer was sold for scrap, Tom Speight of the engineering firm O’Reilly, Talbot & Okun, reflected in a company post, “This is a shame, not only because of the ship’s nearly unbelievable history, but also because in 2006 the American Society of Mechanical Engineers designated this technologically remarkable ship a historic mechanical engineering landmark.”

The ASME award ceremony, which took place on July 20, 2006, in Houston, included members of the original engineering team and ship’s crew among the attendees. Past President Keith Thayer noted the important contributions the ship made to the development of mechanical engineering and innovations in offshore drilling technology.

The historic ship’s name will forever be linked to the ship’s CIA clandestine service during the Cold War. For many veteran journalists, the agency’s chronic response to inquiries, “We can neither confirm nor deny,” is still known as the “Glomar response.”

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Recommended Reading: The CIA’s Greatest Covert Operation: Inside the Daring Mission to Recover a Nuclear-Armed Soviet Sub (2012); Project Azorian: The CIA and the Raising of the K-129 (2012). Your Amazon purchase benefits the American Oil & Gas Historical Society. As an Amazon Associate, AOGHS earns a commission from qualifying purchases.

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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please become an AOGHS annual supporter and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2026 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.

Citation Information – Article Title: “Secret Offshore History of Drill Ship Glomar Explorer.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/oil-almanac/secret-offshore-history-of-the-glomar-explorer. Last Updated: January 25, 2026. Original Published Date: February 8, 2020.

The post Secret History of Drill Ship Glomar Explorer appeared first on American Oil & Gas Historical Society.

In a sign of the growing power of John D. Rockefeller at the end of the 19th century, Standard Oil Company brought a decisive end to Pennsylvania’s highly speculative  — and often confusing — trading markets at oil exchanges.

On January 23, 1895, the Standard Oil Company’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 necessarily “the price bid on the oil exchange for certificate oil.” The action would bring an end to the “paper oil” markets of brokers and buyers.

The Oil City, Pennsylvania, Oil Exchange in 1877 was the third largest financial exchange of any kind in America, behind New York and San Francisco.

Before the 1870s, oil buyers took on-site delivery in wooden barrels they provided. A rapidly growing pipeline infrastructure spawned “oil certificates” or “pipeline certificates.” These negotiable new instruments were based on the number of barrels in a pipeline issued for delivery in kind.

Since the certificates could be bought and sold, trading flourished in oil exchanges at Titusville, Petroleum Center, and Oil City. The oil region’s independent producers had met in 1866 and agreed upon how many gallons would constitute a standard barrel (learn more in History of the 42-Gallon Oil Barrel).

Prior to the Titusville Oil Exchange (above), established in 1871, producers gathered in any convenient place, such as a Titusville hotel or along Centre Street in nearby Oil City — known as the “Curbside Exchange.”

“The necessity of a suitable place in which to trade oil certificates was one that followed the improved method of transportation, and was in fact apparent from the early stages of oil commerce,” explained an Oil City Derrick souvenir book published in 1896.

During these early days of an industry seeking oil to refine into kerosene, paper certificates could represent as many as 40 million barrels of oil. But with Standard Oil buying 90 percent of production and setting its own price independent of oil certificates, the company’s edict effectively ended oil exchanges.

Marginalized by the Standard Oil pricing strategy, the independent exchanges closed one by one. The petroleum industry’s oldest exchange, established in 1871 in Titusville, dissolved in 1897.

“During the later years the excitement of speculation has been greatly eliminated from the oil business, and this has so reduced the business as to make it a shadow of its former greatness,” the Oil City Derrick concluded in 1896 about the Oil City exchange.

“Its members are scattered far and wide, but the glory of the days when fortunes were made and lost in hours and minutes, will ever be a memory with them and thousands of others,” the publication added. Learn more about the role of pipelines, oil exchanges and certificate speculators in Scouts — Oil Patch Detectives.

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Recommended Reading: Early Days of Oil: A Pictorial History of the Beginnings of the Industry in Pennsylvania (2000); Myth, Legend, Reality: Edwin Laurentine Drake and the Early Oil Industry (2009); The Oil Scouts: Reminiscences of the Night Riders of the Hemlocks Hardcover (1986). 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.

Citation Information – Article Title: “End of Oil Exchanges.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/oil-almanac/end-of-oil-exchange. Last Updated: January 16, 2026. Original Published Date: November 9, 2015.

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In the fall of 1917 near Ranger, Texas, the cotton-farming town of Merriman was inhabited by “ranchers, farmers, and businessmen struggling to survive an economic slump brought on by severe drought and boll weevil-ravaged cotton fields.”

Everything changed in Eastland County when a wildcat well drilled by Texas & Pacific Coal Company struck oil at Ranger, four miles from Merriman. The J.H. McCleskey No. 1 well produced 1,600 barrels of oil a day.

The 1917 headline-making McCleskey No. 1 cable-tool well — called “Roaring Ranger” — brought an oil boom to Eastland County, Texas, about 100 miles west of Dallas.

The rush to acquire leases that followed the oilfield discovery became legendary among drilling booms, even for Texas, home to the legendary 1901 gusher at Spindletop.

WWI Wave of Oil

As drilling continued, the yield of the Ranger oilfield led to peak production reaching more than 14 million barrels in 1919. Production from the “Roaring Ranger” well and its giant North Texas oilfield helped win World War I, with a  British War Cabinet member declaring, “The Allied cause floated to victory upon a wave of oil.”

Texas & Pacific Coal Company had taken a great risk by leasing acreage around Ranger, but the risk paid off when lease values soared. The exploration company added “oil” to its name, becoming the Texas Pacific Coal and Oil Company.

“So as we could not worship God on the former acre of ground, we decided to lease it and honor God with the product,” explained Merriman Baptist Church Deacon J.T. Falls. Photo courtesy Robert Vann, “Lone Star Bonanza, the Ranger Oil Boom of 1917-1923.”

The price of the oil company stock jumped from $30 a share to $1,250 a share as a host of landmen “scanned the landscape to discover any fractions in these holdings. A little school and church, before too small to be seen, now looked like a skyscraper.”

Warren Wagner, driller of the McCleskey discovery well, leased the local school lot and in August 1918 completed a well producing 2,500 barrels of oil a day. Leasing at Merriman Baptist Church proved to be a challenge.

In February, Deacon J.T. Falls complained that drilling new wells “ran us out, as all of the land around our acre was leased, producing wells being brought in so near the house we were compelled to abandon the church because of the gas fumes and noisy machinery.”

Falls added that, “As we could not worship God on the former acre of ground, we decided to lease it and honor God with the product.”

Deacon J.T. Falls (second from left) was not amused when the Associated Press reported in 1919 that his church had refused a million dollars for the lease of the cemetery.

A Texas Historical Commission marker erected in 1999 described when the well on the church’s lease began producing oil, earning the congregation a royalty of between $300 and $400 a day. Merriman Baptist Church “kept a small amount for operating expenses and gave the rest to various Baptist organizations and charities.”

However, drilling in the church graveyard was a different matter. As oil production continued to soar in North Texas, the congregants of Merriman Baptist Church initially resisted one drilling site. As a January 18, 1919, article in the New York Times noted in its headline, “CHURCH MADE RICH BY OIL; Refuses $1,000,000 for Right to Develop Wells in Graveyard.”

Respecting the Dead

At Merriman’s church cemetery, a less seen historical marker erected in 1993 explains the drilling boom’s fierce competition to find property without a well already on it: “Oil speculators reportedly offered members of the Merriman Baptist Church a large sum of money to lease the cemetery grounds for drilling.”

Near Ranger in Eastland County, Texas Historical Commission markers were erected in 1993 (left) and 1999 explaining how members of the Merriman Baptist Church shared their wealth from petroleum royalties. Photos courtesy the Historical Marker Database.

When local newspapers reported the church had refused an offer of $1 million, the Associated Press picked it up, and newspapers from New York to San Francisco ran the story. Literary Digest even featured “the Texas Mammon of Righteousness” with a photograph of “The Congregation That Refuses A Million.”

Deacon J.T. Falls was not amused. “A great many clippings have been sent to us from many secular papers to the effect that we as a church have refused a million dollars for the lease of the cemetery. We do not know how such a statement started,” the deacon opined.

“The cemetery does not belong to the church. It was here long before the church was. We could not lease it if we would, and we would not if we could,” the cleric added.

“If any person’s or company’s heart has become so congealed as to want to drill for oil in this cemetery, they could not — for the dead could not sign a lease, and no living person has any right to do so,” Falls proclaimed.

The church deacon concluded with an ominous admonition to potential drillers, “Those that have friends buried here have the right and the will to protect the graves, and any person attempting to trespass will assume a great risk.”

A 1918 article noted a “Merriman school house” oil well drilled to 3,200 feet in record time for North Central Texas.

Roaring Ranger’s oil production dropped precipitously because of dwindling reservoir pressures brought on by unconstrained drilling. Many exploration and production companies failed (including fraudulent ones like Hog Creek Carruth Oil Company).

In the decades since the McCleskey No. 1 well, advancements in horizontal drilling technology have presented more legal challenges to mineral rights of the interred, according to Zack Callarman of Texas Wesleyan School of Law.

In 2014, Callarman wrote an award-winning analysis of laws concerning drilling to extract oil and natural gas underneath cemeteries. “Seven Thousand Feet Under: Does Drilling Disturb the Dead? Or Does Drilling Underneath the Dead Disturb the Living?” was published in the Real Estate Law Journal.

Despite yet another North Texas oilfield discovery at Desdemona, by 1920 the Eastland County drilling boom was over. The faithful still gather at Merriman Baptist Church every Sunday.

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Recommended Reading: Early Texas Oil: A Photographic History, 1866-1936 (2000);Texas Oil and Gas, Postcard History (2013);Wildcatters: Texas Independent Oilmen (1984). 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 © 2026 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.

Citation Information – Article Title: “Oil Riches of Merriman Baptist Church.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/oil-almanac/oil-riches-of-merriman-baptist-church. Last Updated: January 11, 2026. Original Published Date: January 18, 2019.

The post Oil Riches of Merriman Baptist Church appeared first on American Oil & Gas Historical Society.

The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) established this oil history forum page to help share research. For oilfield-related family heirlooms, the society also maintains an Oil & Gas Families page to locate suitable museum collections for preserving these unique histories. Information about old petroleum company stock certificates can be found at the popular forum linked to Is my Old Oil Stock worth Anything?

Our forum below offers a simple way to share personal or academic research, subject ideas, comments, and other details about petroleum history. You can email the society at bawells@aoghs.org if you would like your research question posted. Please use the comment section at the bottom of this page to answer or make suggestions! 

Request: January 5, 2026

Sherwood Forest Drilling Photograph

Retired police officer and author Michael Layton of Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, United Kingdom, is working on a sequel to his 2025 local history, Top Secret West Midlands. He seeks suggestions for finding a photo.

“I am obviously at the beginning of my research but have already noticed that Sherwood Forest in Nottingham was home to a secret drilling operation during WW2 involving 42 American drillers. It will not be a huge piece in the book, but I think it highlights a little known and very important piece of WW2 history in Nottinghamshire. Would any AOGHS members or website visitors have access to a photograph of that period which would not be the subject of copyright restrictions?”

I look forward to any suggestions. Kind regards — Michael

Please post your reply in the comments section below or email layton2006@btinternet.com

Request: November 21, 2025

1914 Socal Tanker served in WWII

Searching for the SOCAL publication featuring the 1914 launch of the company tanker J.A. Moffett, which served in WWII.

“Hello. I’m trying to find out if American Oil & Gas Historical Society website visitors have any information about the December 1914 Standard Oil Company of California ‘Standard Oil Bulletin.'”

Created with the breakup of Standard Oil in 1911, Standard Oil of California (SOCAL) became Chevron in 1984.

The cover story for that “Standard Oil Bulletin” featured the tanker J.A. Moffett. “My dad was on that tanker in World War II in the Pacific, and I’m trying to find a copy or the J.A. Moffett article. Thank you.”

— Pat

Editor’s Note: Another tanker, the J. A. Moffett Jr., built in 1921, was torpedoed in 1942 in the Florida Keys. Please post your reply in comments section below or email bawells@aoghs.org

Research Request: November 16, 2025

Hand-cranked Bowser Pump

Scottish researcher seeks details about a salvaged pump manufactured by S.F. Bowser & Company.

“I have an old hand-crank petrol pump that I salvaged from a demolition site. The body can be closed and locked by swinging a curved door round. It’s possible to just make out the word Bowser on a part. It has a light bulb holder up top where a glass globe could be fitted and two other bulb holders to shine downwards. It can be set to serve a pint, a quart, a half gallon or a gallon.

“I’d love to know more about it but can’t find an image anywhere showing the same appliance.”

Douglas Robertson

Please post oil history forum replies in the comments section below or email douglasinscotland@gmail.com

Research Update: November 12, 2025

Antique Calculator: The Slide Rule

Searching for the history of a Tulsa refining supply company pocket calculator. 

David Rance of Sassenheim, Netherlands, has collected a lot of slide rules. Some of the calculators in his collection came from the petroleum industry, including a circa 1950 one made in West Germany for an Oklahoma-based refinery supply company. He seeks any information about it.

An “AC-ME Pocket Calculator,” of the Refinery Supply Company, Tulsa, Oklahoma, preserved by David Rance of the Netherlands.

“I look forward to hearing anything your knowledgeable AOGHS community can tell me about my rather mysterious AC-ME Pocket Calculator,” he optimistically noted in 2016 — see the updated Refinery Supply Company Slide Rule.

Please post oil history forum replies in the comments section below or email bawells@aoghs.org.

Research Update: October 28, 2025

Ohio Oil Rush

Exploring Ohio petroleum history from 1885 to about 1930. 

Does anyone have recommendations for doing research on the great oil rush of Ohio that occurred from 1885 to ~1930, and peaked in 1897? Are there any good reference books that anyone can recommend? I am trying to research this oil boom and its effect on the construction of an interurban rail connection from Toledo to Lima.

Dave Weber

Also see Oil History Books. Please post your reply in comments section below or email bawells@aoghs.org.

Research Update: August 18, 2025

California Adventures in Oil

City Planning Associate for Los Angeles shares research resources.I’m a subscriber to your “Oil & Gas History News.” It’s great content to review and learn about the oil industry’s history. I work in Los Angeles on land use/zoning regulations for oil wells in the city, and I’m currently reading a couple of older publications from the public library. Among the images is offshore drilling at the Summerland field that you recently highlighted in your newsletter.

Coastal California oilfields are featured among the 1,500 pages of History of Oil Well Drilling by John E. Brantly.

Before retiring as an independent producer in 1963, Eugene Thompkins founded several oilfield service companies, including one that operated at Signal Hill for two decades.

I just thought to share a few PDFs of Summerland photos from History of Oil Well Drilling (1971) by John E. Brantly, pages 1366-1369, and more images from California Adventures in Oil, A Pictorial Essay of Oil Drilling in California (1981) by Gene Tomkins, which might be of interest to your readers. Keep up the great content; much appreciated. — Edber Macedo, City Planning Associate, Office of Zoning Administration, Los Angeles City Planning

Please post your reply in comments section below or email bawells@aoghs.org

Research Request: July 9, 2025

Desdemona Oil & Refining Company

Editor for International Bond and Share Society seeks source material for circa 1920 Texas company established during the North Texas drilling booms at Electra (1911), Ranger (1917), and Burkburnett (1918).

I’ve been subscribing for a few months and want to thank you for revealing so many obscure technologies and historical artifacts. I collect vintage stocks and bonds (all businesses, not just oil) and have always found it difficult to research these often obscure gas and oil companies. So far, I’ve not been successful in linking a certificate to any of the outfits you’ve mentioned, but it’s just a matter of time.

I recently wrote an article on the Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Co. that was published in the magazine I edit for the International Bond and Share Society, Scripophily. A stock I’ve been trying to research — without much luck — is the Desdemona Oil & Refining Company. If your members have any source material on this outfit, I’d be grateful.

Keep up the good work. — Max Hensley

Please post your reply in the comments section below or email maxdhensley@yahoo.com

Research Request: April 4, 2025

Standard Oil Public Relations Movie

Looking into 1947 film “A Farm In The Valley.”

Hello. My name is Carrie. My family is looking for a film that Standard Oil Company made in Virginia in 1947. It was titled “A Farm In The Valley.” I have several news articles but am looking for the film and/or any information that may be out there as part of the film was filmed on our farm (owned by the Rosen family at the time). I am hoping that maybe your group may have information or contact information for someone who may have information!

— Carrie

Please post your reply in comments section below or email bawells@aoghs.org

Research Request: November 14, 2024

Looking for The Gargoyle of Mobiloil

Pennsylvania researcher seeks a 1920s company magazine featuring her grandfather, “The Mobiloil King.”

I am in search of a copy of The Gargoyle magazine published by the Vacuum Oil Company from 1923. My great-grandfather, William I. Schreck was proprietor of the Keystone Service Station in Sayre, Pennsylvania, in the 1920’s and was locally dubbed “The Mobiloil King.”

I found an article on Newspapers.com — September 15, 1923 issue of the Sayre Evening Times, which states he was featured in The Gargoyle magazine, with two photos of his service station and an article written by him. I’m guessing it’s maybe the August 1923 or September 1923 issue. Any help locating this would be appreciated!

— Raquel

Please post your reply in comments section below or email bawells@aoghs.org

Research Request: November 8, 2024

Early Oilfield Production Technology

Artist seeks jerker/shackles for 2026 exhibition.

I am interested in the jerker/shackle lines used in early oil production for an exhibition I am planning for 2026. Does this oilfield equipment (entire assemblies or parts) ever come up for sale or auction? Perhaps there are private collectors or oil museums that might be interested in renting or lending some temporarily?

Best,

Aislinn

Please post your reply in comments section below or email bawells@aoghs.org (also see Eccentric Wheels and Jerk Lines).

Research Request: October 7, 2024

Researching Tidewater Oil Company

Researcher from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, seeks more about 1930s publication. 

Hello:  My grandfather authored an article in “The Tidewater World” in September 1932 (Vol. 2, No. 2). I have one complete issue. He worked in the Research and Development area of Tidewater Oil in Bayonne, New Jersey, 1928-1933.

Founded in 1887 in New York City, Tidewater Oil Company became a major refiner that sold its Tydol brand petroleum products on the U.S. East Coast. Photo courtesy Mark O’Neill.

I am looking for archives who may have additional issues in the series or who has a research focus on Tidewater Oil. Thank you.

— Mark O’Neill

Please call Mark at (717) 803-9918 or post reply in the comments section below.

Research Request: April 20, 2024

Wayne Canada Gasoline Pump

Preserving a rare 1930s Wayne Canada pump. 

I recently saved an uncommon Wayne 50A “showcase” gas pump from a metal recycling facility here in Canada. I didn’t have much time for details as it was literally standing in the scrap yard beside the metal chipping machine. I paid the asking price and loaded it into my truck.

Upon arriving home I noticed that the I.D tag was a Wayne Canada, which was a surprise because the odds of it being a Canadian Showcase pump are significantly smaller than American as Canada had far fewer of the 50 and 50A pumps for obvious reasons. The I.D tag got me curious however, as it is stamped 1001-CJXA.

Canadian researcher seeks information about a rare 1930s Wayne Company pump 1001-CJXA.

Is there any way to determine which company ordered this exact gas pump? Is it true that the “1001” number would indicate that this is serial number 1 in Canada for this gas pump? I was told once that Wayne pumps in the 1930s began with the number 100 meaning 100.1 would be serial number 1. I’m not sure if that’s true.

Thanks very much for any help. I’m aware of the pumps rarity and historical significance, hence why I’m trying to find more information on it. Have a great day.

— Jonathan Rempel

Note: The Wayne Oil Tank and Pump Company of Ft. Wayne, Indiana, in 1892 manufactured a hand-cranked kerosene dispenser later converted for gasoline (see Wayne’s Self-Measuring Pump). Primarily Petroleum (oldgas.com) includes research posts with service station histories and gas pump collections; other resources include community oil and gas museums and the Canadian oil patch historians at the Petroleum History Society (PHS).

Please email jrrempel123@gmail.com or post reply in the comments section below.

Research Request: April 20, 2024

Name of Offshore Drilling Rig

Seeking the name of ODECO platform from 1970s.

I’m doing research on my late father, James R. Reese Sr., who worked in the Gulf of Mexico in the early 1970s and into the 1980s, and I’m trying to find the name of a rig he worked on for ODECO. We believe it may have been called the Ocean Endeavour, and we have a photo from my father’s 10th anniversary at the company with “Odeco 7” written on the back. My research points to the Endeavour, but I’m not confident of that. Has anyone heard of the platform and any other name it might have had?

Thank you for any help.

— James Reese Jr.

Note: ODECO (Ocean Drilling & Exploration Company) was founded in 1953. It was acquired by Diamond Offshore Drilling in 1992. 

Please email tepapa@hotmail.com or post reply in the comments section below.

Research Request: March 29, 2024

Eastern Oklahoma History

Writer looking to connect petroleum exploration and railroad growth.

I’m writing a memoir that touches on Oklahoma, where I’m from originally, and I would like to learn more about what role did oil and gas exploration played in the expansion of the railroads into the Cherokee Nation in eastern Oklahoma in the late 1800s.

— Dave

Please post reply in comments section below or email bawells@aoghs.org.

Research Request: February 22, 2024

Threatt Filling Station on Route 66

Architectural history of potential National Historic Landmark.

Established in the early 1920s, the Threatt Filling Station in Luther, Oklahoma, is considered the first – and potentially only – African American owned and operated gas station on Route 66. I am under contract with the National Park Service to perform a study to determine whether the the station is eligible to become a National Historic Landmark.

Constructed circa 1915 in Luther, Oklahoma, by Allen Threatt Sr., the Threatt Filling Station sold Conoco products for at least a portion of its many decades of service life, according to the Threatt Filling Station Foundation. Photo courtesy threattfillingstation.org.

What I am looking for is an Oklahoma contact, who has knowledge of the history of gas-oil distribution in the Sooner State in the 1920s-40s period. It appears that at one point, the Threatts were associated with Conoco. I would like to better understand how those supply-branding operations worked and whether there is historical paperwork that would cover this station.

Any assistance will be appreciated. Thank you,

— John

Please email john@archhistoryservices.com or post reply in the comments section below. 

Research Request: January 2, 2024

Oil Refinery and R.R. Trackside Building Photos

Model railroader seeks detailed images of facilities in Santa Fe Springs and Los Angeles.

Thank you for sharing most interesting and valuable information. I use your society to help me with prototype research for my model railroading.

I am looking for information on the Powerine Oil Refinery at Santa Fe Springs circa 1950s and the trackside Hydril Oil Field Equipment buildings on approach to Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal, and photos and dimensions of buildings/building interiors for model railroading purposes.

A model railroad scene of the southern California petroleum industry in the 1950s includes oil derricks, “each with an operating horsehead style oil pump underneath.”

Justin Mitchell has recreated trackside oilfield derricks at Santa Fe Springs and researched oilfield engine audio files, “so I can add sound to the layout to match the operating pumps.”

The Powerine Oil Refinery at Santa Fe Springs closed in 1995. Skilled model railroaders prize detail and historical accuracy.

Best regards from Sydney, Australia

— Justin Mitchell

Please post reply in comments section below or email bawells@aoghs.org.

 

Research Request: December 26, 2023

 

Cities Service in Wichita

Seeking service station photos.

I am looking for photographs of a Cities Service Station located at 610 N. Seneca Street in Wichita, Kansas, in the 1950s, maybe early 60s. I have my father’s business card from that station. I remember the service station even though I was only 4 years old. Any assistance is greatly appreciated.

— Pamela

Please post reply in comments section below or email bawells@aoghs.org.

 

Research Request: September 25, 2023 

 

Circa 1930 Driller from Netherlands

From a researcher investigating a great-great uncle’s role in the Texas oil patch.

A family history researcher in the Netherlands seeks help adding to her limited information about a great-great uncle who worked for J. Barry Fuel Oil Company in Texas oilfields from the 1920s to the early 1930s. The petroleum-related career of Ralph “Dutch” Weges included traveling on an early oil tanker later sunk during World War I.

Learn more and share research in Driller from Netherlands.

 

Research Request: July 13, 2023 

 

How and Where Standard Oil produced Naphtha

From a writer working on a history of the lighting of New York City.

In the late 19th century, Standard Oil gained control of all of the gas lighting companies in New York. My understanding is that they did so in part because the gas companies at the time produced something called water gas, which relied on the use of naphtha, and Standard Oil produced almost all of the naphtha in the United States.

How and where Standard Oil produced its naphtha around 1890-1900 and how it would have transported it to the NYC gas companies? Would it have been produced in the Midwest and shipped east by pipeline? Railcar? Did they ship crude oil east and refine it into naphtha somewhere on the East Coast?

Also, any suggestions for where I could find info on how much naphtha Standard Oil produced around that time and, perhaps, how much of it was shipped to New York? I have looked in all the standard histories and tried every Google and newspaper searches. Can anyone offer suggestions? Thanks very much.

— Mark

Please post reply in comments section below or email bawells@aoghs.org.

Reply

August 26, 2023, from Reference Services, American Heritage Center 

The American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming does hold a set of records for the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, 1874-1979. The online guide is posted here. This is one of our older guides not yet converted to the online format, and it includes many handwritten notes about the removal of items from this manuscript collection to other collections.

— American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming

 

Research Request: June 23, 2023

 

Houston Petrol Filler

From an Australian “petrol bowser” researcher

I recently came across this brass fitting which is clearly marked THE HOUSTON PETROL FILLER Pat 1307. The patent number is extremely early. I am assuming it is part of an early petrol pump or as we call them here in Australia, a petrol bowser. Is there any chance anyone can identify what this was originally part of. Many thanks for your help. Regards.

— Justin

 

Please post reply in comments section below or email bawells@aoghs.org.

 

Reply

 

October 18, 2023 (also from Australia)

 

Hello Justin,

 

I have one of these that has turned up in my late father’s stuff. Identical to yours except for the screwed end which has a strangely shaped protrusion. I’ll send you a pic if you are interested. Did you ever find out anything about it? I’m looking for somewhere to donate it — where it will be appreciated.

 

Regards, David 

 

Please post reply in comments section below or email bawells@aoghs.org.

 

Research Request: April 12, 2023

 

Information about Wooden Barrel

From researcher who has a barrel with a red star and

I have got this old oil barrel. I’m trying to find out more information about it. I’m guessing around the 1920’s but I really have no clue. I was hoping someone there could shed some light on it. I’m not interested in selling it just some information. Much appreciated!

— Robert

 

Please post reply in comments section below or email bawells@aoghs.org.

 

Reply

November 25, 2023

To Robert,

Your wood barrel is clearly “The Texas Company” (i.e., Texaco) container for “Petroleum Products.” Except for the red star with big green T, the rest of the lithography on your barrel is harder to interpret. My source for reference is Elton N. Gish’s self-published 2003 book Texaco’s Port Arthur Works. Unfortunately, the book does not have an index, but it has a lot of company photographs in it surrounded by narratives. Most of the photos of product containers are for metal cans and drums, but one group photo of a product display dated 1932 shows wood barrels still in use although metal drums predominate by that time. The only wood barrels discussed by Gish are for “slack barrels” used for asphalt, and it looks like you have some asphalt residue on your barrel top. Gish indicates that the “Red star-green T” trademark lithography began to be used by 1909 and continued to be used to present in various renditions, but a 1920s date range for you barrel seems reasonable. I hope this helps.

— Andy

 

Research Request: September 3, 2022

Identifying a Circa 1915 Gas Pump

From the lead mechanic at San Diego Air & Space Museum

I’m hoping someone visiting the American Oil & Gas Historical Society’s website can help me identify the gas pump we are restoring here at the San Diego Air and Space Museum. I believe it’s a Gilbert and Barker from 1915 or so.

The data plate is missing and I’ve been having trouble finding a similar one in my online search. Thanks!

— Gary Schulte, Lead Mechanic, SDASM

Please email Gary engshop@sdasm.org or post your reply in the comments section below. 

Learn more history about early kerosene and gasoline pumps in First Gas Pump and Service Station; a collector’s rare 1892 pump in Wayne’s Self-Measuring Pump; and the 24-hour Gas-O-Mat in Coin-Operated Gas Pumps.

 

Research Request: August 11, 2022

Gas Streetlights in the Deep South

From a professor, author and “history detective”

I am doing historical research on gas streetlights in the Deep South. Any suggestions will be much appreciated. My big problem at the moment is Henry Pardin. He bought the patent rights to a washing machine in Washington, DC, in 1856 and was in Augusta, Georgia, in 1856. Pardin set up gas streetlights in Baton Rouge, Holly Springs, Natchez, and Shreveport in 1857-1860. I have failed to find him in any of the standard research sources.

Any help on gas street lights in the south before the Civil War is appreciated. Thank you for your time.

— Prof. Robert S. “Bob” Davis, Blountsville, Alabama, Genws@hiwaay.net

Please email Bob or post your reply in the comments section below. 

 

Research Request: August 5, 2022

Drop in Stop Action Film

From a stop action film researcher:

“Your website is doing good things for education. It is a gold mine for STEM high school teachers — and also for people like me, who like stop motion oil industry films, Bill Rodebaugh noted in an August 2022 email to the American Oil & Gas Historical Society. 

Researcher seeks the origin of stop action film (oil?) drops.

Rodebaugh, who has researched many stop motion archives (including AOGHS links at Petroleum History Videos), seeks help finding the source of an unusual character — a possible oil drop with a face and arms. The purpose of the figures remains unknown.

“I am discouraged about finding that stop motion film, because I have seen or skimmed through many of those industry films, which are primarily live action,” Rodebaugh explained. He knows the puppet character is not from the Shell Oil educational films, “Birth of an Oil Field” (1949) or “Prospecting for Petroleum” (1956). He hopes a website visitor can assist in identifying the origin of the hand-manipulated drops. “I am convinced that if this stop motion film can be found, it would be very interesting.”

— Bill Rodebaugh, brodebaugh@suddenlink.net

Please email Bill or post your reply in the comments section below. 

 

 

Research Request: July 2022

 

Gas Station Marketplace History

From an automotive technology writer:

I’m looking for any information on the financial environment during the early days of the automotive and gasoline station industry. The idea is to compare and contrast the market-driven forces back then to the potential for government subsidies/investments etc. to pay for electric vehicle charging stations today.

At this point, I have not found any evidence but I wanted to be thorough and ask the petroleum history community. From what I have seen, gas stations were funded privately by petroleum companies and their investors and shareholders.

I’m not talking about gas station design or the impact on the nation/communities, but the market forces behind the growth of the industry. Please let me know of any recommended sources. I have already read The Gas Station in America by Jackie & Sculle.

— Gary Wollenhaupt, gary@garywrites.com

Please email Gary or post your reply in the comments section below. 

 

Research Request: April 2022

 

Seeking Information about Doodlebugs

From a Colorado author, consulting geologist and engineer:

I am trying to gather information on doodlebugs, by which I mean pseudo-geophysical oil-finding devices. These could be anything from modified dowsing rods or pendulums to the mysterious black boxes. Although literally hundreds of these were used to search for oil in the 20th century, they seem to have almost all disappeared, presumably thrown out with the trash. If anyone has access to one of these devices, I would like to know.

— Dan Plazak

Please post reply in comments section below or email bawells@aoghs.org. Dan Plazak is a longtime AOGHS supporting member and a contributor to the historical society’s article Luling Oil Museum and Crudoleum.

 

Research Request: February 2022

Know anything about W.L. Nelson of University of Tulsa?

From an associate professor of history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts:

I am doing research on the role of the University of Tulsa in the education of petroleum refining engineers and in particular am seeking information about a professor who taught there named W.L. Nelson, author of the textbook Petroleum Refinery Engineering, first published in 1936. He taught at Tulsa until at least the early 1960s. He was also one of the founders of the Oil and Gas Journal and author of the magazine’s “Q&A on Technology” column. If anyone has any leads for original archival sources by or about Nelson and UT, I would appreciate hearing from you.

Thank you and best wishes, M.G. 

 

Please post reply in comments section below or email bawells@aoghs.org.

 

Reply

February 16, 2022

Emailed response to “Seeking Information about W.L. Nelson of University of Tulsa.”

My late father was a 1943 graduate of the University of Tulsa with a degree in petroleum engineering with an emphasis in refining. By the time my late uncle graduated in 1948, his degree had become chemical engineering with an emphasis in refining. Both had high regard for Wilbur L. Nelson. Both had long careers in the refining at Murphy Oil Corporation and Sun Oil Company. My father would pass along to me his obsolete Petroleum Refinery Engineering, as Nelson periodically updated his book. I will check my father’s papers for any Nelson relics. Let me know how your inquiry goes.

— Professional Engineer, El Dorado, Arkansas

 

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Oil History Forum

Research requests from 2021:

 

Star Oil Company Sign

Looking for information about an old porcelain sign from the Star Oil Company of Chicago.

Learn more in Seeking Star Oil Company.

Bowser Gas Pump Research

I have a BOWSER, pump #T25988; cut #103. This is a vintage hand crank unit. I can’t seem to find any info on it! Any help would be appreciated, Thank You. (Post comments below) — Larry

Hand-cranked Bowser Cut 103 Pump.

Originally designed to safely dispense kerosene as well as “burning fluid, and the light combustible products of petroleum,” early S.F. Bowser pumps added a hose attachment for dispensing gasoline directly into automobile fuel tanks by 1905. See First Gas Pump and Service Station for more about these pumps and details about Bowser’s innovations.

Bowser company once proclaimed its “Cut 103” as “the fastest indoor gasoline gallon pump ever made” with an optional “hose and portable muzzle for filling automobiles.”

Collectors’ sites like Oldgas.com offer research tips for those who share an interest in gas station technological innovations.

Circa 1900 California Oilfield Photo

My grandfather worked the oilfields in California in the early 1900’s.

He worked quite a bit in Coalinga and also Huntington Beach. He had this in his old pictures. I would like to identify it if possible. The only clue that I see is the word Westlake at the bottom of the picture. What little research I could do led me to believe it might be the Los Angeles area?

I would appreciate any help you can provide. (Post comments below.) — B.

Cities Service Bowling Teams and Oil History

I was wondering if there are any records or pictures of bowling leagues and teams for Cities Service in the late 1950s and early 1960s in Houston, Texas, or Lafayette, Louisiana. I would appreciate any information. My dad was on the team. (Post comments below.)  — Lisa

Oilfield Storage Tanks

My family has a farm in western PA and once had a small oil pump on the land. I’m trying to learn how the oil was transported from the pump. I know a man came in a truck more than once each week to turn on the pump and collect oil, but I don’t know if there was a holding tank, how he filled his truck, etc. (My mother was a child there in the ’40s and simply can’t recall how it all worked.) Can anyone point me at a resource that would explain such things? I’m working on a children’s book and need to get it right. Thank you. — (Post comments below.)  Lauren

Author seeking Historical Oil Prices

Can anyone at AOGHS tell me what the ballpark figures are in the amount of petroleum products so far extracted, versus how much oil-gas is left in the world? Also: the price per barrel of oil every decade from the 1920s to the present. And the resulting price per gallon during the decades from 1920 to the present year? I have almost completed my book about an independent oilman. Please post reply in comments section below or email bawells@aoghs.org.

— John

Painting related to Standard Oil History

I am researching an old oil painting on canvas that appears to be a gift to Esso Standard Corp. Subject: Iris flowers. There is some damage due to age but it is quite interesting. The painting appears to be signed in upper right corner: Hirase?

On the back, along each side, is Japanese writing that I think translates to “Congratulations Esso Standard” and “the Tucker Corporation” or “the Naniwa Tanker Corporation.” Date unknown, possibly 1920s.

I am not an expert in art nor Japanese culture, so some of my translation could be incorrect. I was hoping you or your colleagues might shed some light on this painting.

— Nancy

Please post oil history forum replies in the comments section below or email bawells@aoghs.org.

Early Gasoline Pumps

For the smaller, early stations from around 1930, was the gas stored in a tank in the ground below the dispenser/pump? — Chris  Please ad comment below.

Oilfield Jet Engines

I was wondering about a neat aspect of oil and natural gas production; namely, the use of old, retired aircraft jet engines to produce power at remote oil company locations, and to pump gas/liquid over long distances in pipelines. Does anyone happen to recall what year a jet engine was first employed by the industry for this purpose? Nowadays, there is an interesting company called S&S Turbine Services Ltd. (based at Fort St. John, British Columbia) that handles all aspects of maintenance, overhaul and rebuilding for these industrial jets.

— Lindsey 

Please post reply in comments section below or email bawells@aoghs.org.

Natalie O. Warren Propane Tanker Memorabilia

My father spent his working life with Lone Star Gas, he is gone many years now I am getting on. Going through a few of his things. A little book made up that he received when he and my mother attended the commissioning of the Natalie O. Warren Propane Tanker. I am wondering if it is of any value to anyone. Or any museum.

— Bill  

Please post reply in comments section below or email bawells@aoghs.org.

Elephant Advertising of Skelly Oil

My grandfather owned a Skelly service station in Sidney, Iowa in the 1930s and 1940s. I have a photo of him with an elephant in front of the station. I recall reading somewhere that Skelly had this elephant touring from station to station as an advertising stunt. Does anyone have any more history on the live elephant tour for Skelly Oil? I’d love to find out more. —  Jeff  Please ad comment below.

Tree Stumps as Oilfield Tools

I am a graduate student at the Architectural Association in London working on a project that looks at the potential use of tree stumps as structural foundations. While researching I found the following extract from an article on The Petroleum Industry of the Gulf Coast Salt Dome Area in the early 20th century: “In the dense tangle of the cypress swamp, the crew have to carry their equipment and cut a trail as they go. Often they use a tree stump as solid support on which they set up their instruments.” I have been struggling to find any photos or drawings of how this system would have worked (i.e. how the instruments were supported by the stump) I was wondering if you might know where I could find any more information?

— Andrew  

Post oil history forum replies in the comments section below or email bawells@aoghs.org.

Texas Road Oil Patch Trip

“Hi, next year we are planning a road trip in the United States that starts in Dallas, Texas, heading to Amarillo and then on to New Mexico and beyond. We will be following the U.S. 287 most of the way to Amarillo and would like to know of any oil fields we could visit or simply photograph on the way. From Amarillo we plan to take the U.S. 87. We realise this is quite a trivial request but you help would be much appreciated.”

— Kristin 

Please post oil history forum replies in the comments section below or email bawells@aoghs.org.

Antique Calculator: The Slide Rule

Here’s a question about those analog calculating devices that became obsolete when electronic pocket calculators arrived in the early 1970s…Learn more in Refinery Supply Company Slide Rule.

Please post oil history forum replies in the comments section below or email bawells@aoghs.org.

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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. Contact the society at bawells@aoghs.org if you would like a research question added. © 2025 Bruce A. Wells.

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