by Bruce Wells | Jan 26, 2026 | This Week in Petroleum History
January 26, 1931 – Third Well reveals Size of East Texas Oilfield –
As East Texas farmers struggled to survive the Great Depression, an oil discovery confirmed the existence of a massive oilfield. W.A. “Monty” Moncrief of Fort Worth completed the Lathrop No. 1 well, which produced 7,680 barrels of oil a day from 3,587 feet deep. Geologists at first thought a third oilfield had been found. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Jan 23, 2026 | Petroleum Pioneers
Once called “night riders of the hemlocks,” petroleum sleuths separated oil well fact from fiction.
During the cold winter of 1888, 37-year-old oil scout Justus C. McMullen succumbed to pneumonia contracted while investigating oil production from a well in the wooded hills near Canonsburg, Pennsylvania.
McMullen, publisher of the Bradford “Petroleum Age” newspaper, already had contributed much to America’s early petroleum industry as a journalist and oilfield detective.
(more…)
