The Mobil Oil Pegasus perched atop the Magnolia Petroleum building in Dallas from 1934 until 1999, when rust and growing structural issues forced its removal. On the first day of 2000, a carefully crafted duplicate returned to the Dallas skyline.

Thanks to its widespread popularity, Mobil Oil’s high-flying trademark returned to its Texas home with one red Pegasus on each side of a sign painstakingly recreated by the American Porcelain Enamel Company. As the year 1999 drew to a close, the duplicated Pegasus soared again.

The “Flying Red Horse” trademark of Magnolia Petroleum landed on the company’s Dallas headquarters in 1934, in time for the annual meeting of the American Petroleum Institute (API).

A Dallas hotel would later restore the original Mobil Oil Pegasus after finding its rusted remains in a city-owned shed. The Omni Dallas Hotel funded the restoration, and in 2015 the surviving red neon-edged symbol — a one-sided version — was re-lit in front of the Omni on Lamar Street.

The Mobil Oil (now ExxonMobil) trademark has been a feature of Dallas since first welcoming attendees to a 1934 convention of petroleum company executives. The Magnolia building’s Pegasus has remained one of the most recognizable corporate symbols in American history —  and a marketing icon rivaling the Sinclair dinosaur.

Magnolia Petroleum

When the 400-foot-tall Magnolia Petroleum building opened in 1922, it was the city’s first skyscraper — and tallest building west of the Mississippi River. With 29 floors and seven elevators, the Magnolia building towered over its Beaux-Arts neighbor, the Adolphus Hotel, built in 1913.

The Magnolia building’s multi-million dollar construction featured a “modified classical design” by a famed architect from the United Kingdom. The Texas Historical Commission in 1978 placed a marker at Commerce and Akard streets in Dallas that reads:

Erected in 1921-22, this building housed the offices of Magnolia Petroleum Co., later Mobil Oil Co. It was designed by Sir Alfred C. Bossom (1881-1965), noted British architect, and built at a cost of $4 million. The tallest structure in Dallas for almost 20 years, it reflected the city’s increasing economic importance. In 1934 a revolving neon sign was placed atop the building. The “Flying Red Horse,” trademark for Magnolia products, quickly became a local landmark.

Vacuum Oil Company trademarked the Pegasus logo in 1911 and by the 1930s was marketing Pegasus Motor Spirits and Mobiloil. The Magnolia Petroleum building, completed in 1922, was “a great peg driven into the ground holding Dallas in its place.”

The Magnolia building also was among the first high-rises to have air conditioning when it opened in 1922, according to the management company that acquired it in 1997. A fully restored lobby features a gold leaf decorative plaster and original elevator doors engraved with the Pegasus logo.

Much of the original architecture’s classical design has been restored, according to the Magnolia Dallas Downtown — a boutique hotel blending the historic building’s past with modern amenities.

An 11-foot Mobil Oil Pegasus displayed at the 1939 New York World’s Fair found its way to a Mobil service station in Casa Linda, Texas, and later to a Dallas County museum.

After the Magnolia building’s 1922 opening, a local reporter described the oil company headquarters building as “a great peg driven into the ground holding Dallas in its place.”

A circa 1935 Dallas skyline postcard given to visitors to the observatory tower in the Magnolia Building. Image courtesy DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University, digital collection.

When Standard Oil Company of New York (Socony) acquired the Magnolia Petroleum Company in 1925, the building was part of the deal. Nine years later, the two-sided Pegasus sign would land on its roof.

Pegasus takes Flight

The Mobil Oil Pegasus began its journey in 1911, when a Vacuum Oil Company subsidiary in Cape Town, South Africa, first trademarked the Pegasus logo. Based in Rochester, New York, Vacuum Oil had built a successful petroleum lubricants business around an 1869 patent by its founder, Hiram Everest, long before gasoline was even a branded product.

Vacuum Oil Company’s products used a gargoyle prior to adopting the winged horse of mythology.

At first, a stylized red gargoyle advertised the company, which produced early petroleum-based lubricants for horse-drawn carriages and steam engines. The Pegasus trademark proved to be a more enduring image. In Greek mythology, Pegasus — a winged horse — carried thunderbolts for Zeus.

By 1931, growth of the automobile industry expanded the Vacuum Oil product lineup to include Pegasus Spirits and Mobilgas — later simplified to Mobil. When Standard Oil of New York and Vacuum Oil combined to form Socony-Vacuum Oil Company, the new company adopted the familiar winged trademark, as did an affiliate, Magnolia Petroleum.

The certificate from Cape Town, South Africa, notes that the “Vacuum Oil Company of South Africa Limited” is named “as proprietor of the Trade Mark represented above.” Image courtesy ExxonMobil Historical Collection/Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin.

It took a year to build the rotating 35-foot by 40-foot Pegasus sign, which beamed a red neon glow in 1934 to welcome the annual meeting to be held in Dallas by the American Petroleum Institute (API). For decades the emblem slowly rotated above the growing city as corporate consolidations and mergers changed Socony-Vacuum ownership.

In 1955, the name of the company changed to Socony Mobil Oil; in 1966, it became just Mobil Oil. A neon Mobil Oil Pegasus displayed at the 1939 New York World’s Fair found its way to a Mobil gas station in Casa Linda, Texas, and later to the Old Red Museum of Dallas County History & Culture.

The Old Red Museum was closed by 2024, when its historic building — the original Dallas County Courthouse — became home to the Texas Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

A New Pegasus

In 1974 the rotating red sign’s motor ground to a halt, and Mobil Oil moved out of the Magnolia building three years later. The company sold its aging skyscraper and the glowing but unmoving sign to the city of Dallas. Twenty years later, Pegasus’ neon lights finally went out.

In the late 1990s, when a Denver-based developer transformed the deteriorating Magnolia building into a luxurious 330-room hotel, a dedicated group of patrons and corporate partners joined in to bring the rusting Pegasus sign back to life.

With a fundraising effort that raised more than $600,000, the Project Pegasus team targeted New Year’s Eve of 1999 to reintroduce Dallas citizens to their petroleum heritage landmark. Restoration of the 8,000-pound sign proved challenging.

The derrick-like tower structure was reparable, and the old mechanical rotation system could be updated with new technology.

A view of Pegasus in photographer Carolyn Brown’s 2003 book, Dallas: Where Dreams Come True.

But time and weather had damaged the porcelain-coated steel signage and neon tubing. New 16-gauge steel panels had to be cut, using the originals as templates.

Only two facilities in the United States were large enough to accommodate baking the emblematic red porcelain onto the new panels; fortunately, both were in Dallas. More than 1,000 feet of new neon tubing was required to trace the familiar outlines as craftsmen and technicians remained faithful to the original.

Red Icon Returns

Oil history preservation efforts were rewarded at midnight on December 31, 1999, when new millennium celebrations welcomed the Mobil Oil Pegasus back to the Dallas skyline.

“You can’t tell the new one from the old one except for the fact that the faces are now red and not rusty,” explained one of the restorers. “We replaced every old piece with a new piece that was exactly the same as it was before.”

The Pegasus sign “is a beloved icon of the city of Dallas,” proclaimed Kay Kallos, public art manager in the Office of Cultural Affairs, which manages its maintenance. Mobil Oil merged with Exxon in 1999, creating ExxonMobil, headquartered in Irving, Texas.

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Recommended Reading: Dallas: Where Dreams Come True (2003); Smithsonian ExxonMobil Historical Collection, 1790-2004 (2014); The Seven Sisters: The great oil companies & the world (1975); Trek of the Oil Finders: A History of Exploration for Petroleum (1975);The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power (1991). 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: “Mobil’s High-Flying Trademark.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/petroleum-art/high-flying-trademark. Last Updated: March 9, 2026. Original Published Date: March 14, 2010.

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More than 2.5 million miles of oil and natural gas pipelines crisscross the United States. In 1993, an offbeat Texas sculptor repurposed about 70 feet to create a work of art.

Many Texas travelers at some point have witnessed the monumental sculptures of Bob “Daddy-O” Wade, known for “keeping it weird” since he made the scene in Austin in 1961. Decades of giant artworks by “Daddy-O” have reflected his unusual Texas sense of scale.

Bob Wade’s 1993 saxophone includes a 48-inch-wide pipeline, hubcaps, and an upside-down Volkswagen. Photo courtesy Bobwade.com.

In February 1993 on Houston’s west side, Wade (1943-2019) completed his iconic 70-foot blue saxophone (including its steel pipe support) in front of a once popular club. Wade and his crew transformed two 48-inch-wide sections of steel pipeline into a free-standing sculpture for the opening of Billy Blues Bar & Grill.

The Fabulous Thunderbirds played at the February 20, 1993, gala as the crowd admired Wade’s pipeline artwork, which was supported by a 25-foot-deep pylon. Onlookers from the petroleum industry may have noticed the pipe had the same four-foot width as the 800-mile Alaskan pipeline.

The bell of Wade’s towering saxophone incorporated most of an upside-down Volkswagen. The keys, reed, octave key, and other parts were morphed from chrome hubcaps, beer kegs, a surfboard, a canoe, and other incongruous pieces to make what soon became known around Houston as the “Smokesax.”

Artwork or Bar Sign?

According to Texas A&M University Press, following the gala at Billy Blues Bar & Grill, a debate began about whether “Daddy-O” Wade’s sculpture was a work of art — or just a big advertisement for the restaurant.

Although deemed by the Houston City Council to be a work of art and thus not subject to signage ordinances, it took First Amendment arguments to reach that decision. The “Smokesax” had been accused of violating Houston’s sign ordinance prohibiting advertising billboards taller than 40 feet.

“While embraced by the local art community, the Sax was targeted by the Houston Sign Administration as being in violation of the Houston Sign Code,” explained Richard Rothfelder in a 2018 column for a signage trade magazine.

“Daddy-O” Wade created what many say is the world’s largest (non-playable) saxophone. Bobwade.com photo.

Confronted with Houston’s art community support of the saxophone, “the court ruled unanimously in Billy Blues’ favor,” Rothfelder noted in Billboard Insider. “In fact, public and media support of the Smoke Sax was so overwhelming that the City was basically looking for a graceful way to save face and withdrew its opposition by the time of the hearing.”

Wade’s creative use of 48-inch-wide steel pipe was also noted by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, which described artist Wade as a “pioneer of Texas Funk and connoisseur of Southwestern kitsch.” Musician Willie Nelson once opined, “Now that I understand art, I realize what a genius Daddy-O Wade really is.”

Other popular artwork by Wade includes “Iggy,” a giant iguana perched on the animal hospital at the Ft. Worth Zoo. There are plans for the 40-foot-long sculpture to come down for refurbishment in 2025.

Center for Visionary Art

When Billy Blues Bar & Grill moved from Richmond Avenue to a new site in 2001, the future was uncertain for Houston’s pipeline pop art, declared by some as the largest (non-playable) saxophone in the world, according to The Bassic Sax Blog. After the club moved, the building stood empty for years, and the sax was neglected (as well as vandalized).

Originally commissioned by businessman Phil Kensinger for his Billy Blues Bar, Wade’s ‘Smokesax’ served as a Houston landmark for over 20 years on Richmond Avenue. In 2012, the Kensinger family donated “Smokesax” to the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art via the Orange Show Foundation. 

Discussions to move the Smokesax to a park in Houston’s East End took place in 2022, but some residents were reluctant. By 2025, Orange Show Center fundraising and planning continued for construction of a plaza along the Houston trail system at Brays Bayou near the University of Houston.

An artist’s conception of the proposed Kensinger Plaza home for Bob Wade’s “Smokesax” along Houston’s Bayou Greenways trail system. Photo courtesy Orange Show Center for Visionary Art.

“Kensinger Plaza will be the new permanent home for Bob Wade’s “Smokesax” and will also include a stage for performances curated by the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art, benches, and other amenities,” noted the Orange Show Center.

Meanwhile, Bob “Daddy-O” Wade’s blue, 70-foot pipeline sculpture already has earned its place as a milestone of petroleum in art.

Oil and Gas Pipelines

Pipelines large and small (along with pumping stations) have been part of the petroleum industry since the earliest U.S. wells. In Venango County, Pennsylvania, an iron pipeline constructed in February 1863 briefly linked oil wells to the Humboldt Refinery at Oil City, about 2.5 miles away.

Inventor J.L. Hutchings of New Jersey used his newly patented rotary pumps to move oil through the two-inch diameter piping. The rotary pumps were an important innovation, but Hutchings’ cast-iron pipe proved impractical after its soldered joints leaked. In 1865, another inventor completed the world’s first successful oil pipeline.

Samuel Van Syckel, an oil trader who wanted to break the petroleum region’s teamsters monopoly, constructed a two-inch-wide, wrought iron pipeline that used threaded joints. The pipeline transported 2,000 barrels of oil a day to a railroad depot more than five miles away.

Another pipeline technology milestone came during World War II. The industry-government partnership “Big Inch” pipelines with diameters of 24 inches and 20 inches connected prolific Texas oilfields with Chicago and East Coast refineries.

More than 2.6 million miles of pipelines every year deliver trillions of cubic feet of natural gas (red) and hundreds of billions of tons of liquid petroleum products (blue). Map courtesy U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Since starting operations in June 1977, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System has delivered more than 19 billion barrels of oil from the North Slope and Prudhoe Bay oilfields (as of 2025). The pipeline’s maximum throughput was more than 2 million barrels of oil a day in 1988.

Giant storage tanks at Cushing, Oklahoma, in the late 2010s reached a capacity of 85 million barrels of oil, enhancing the town’s self-proclaimed status as “Pipeline Crossroads of the World.” About 2.6 million miles of petroleum pipelines operated daily as part of U.S. energy infrastructure by 2018.

Since the 1990s, companies have used “in-line” tools to inspect for corrosion and other defects — while the pipelines remain in use. According to the American Petroleum Institute, an electronic “smart pig,” introduced in 1965, became the generic name for sophisticated in-line inspection tools targeting defects with greater accuracy. 

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Recommended Reading: Daddy-O’s Book of Big-Ass Art (2020); Oil: From Prospect to Pipeline (1971); Oil and Gas Pipeline Fundamentals (1993). 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 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: “’Smokesax’ Art has Pipeline Heart.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/petroleum-art/smokesax-art-has-pipeline-heart. Last Updated: February 11, 2026. Original Published Date: February 18, 2019.

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Dr. Seuss the oilman? Thirty years before the Grinch stole Christmas in 1957, many strange and wonderful critters of the popular children’s book author could be seen in Standard Oil Company advertising campaigns.

During the Great Depression, fanciful Dr. Seuss creatures promoted Essolube and other products for Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. Theodor Seuss Geisel would acknowledge his experience at Standard Oil “taught me conciseness and how to marry pictures with words.”

Between 1930 and 1940, Theodor Geisel created many Standard Oil characters, including this “wise bird” for Essolube. Image courtesy University of California San Diego Library.

In the cartoon that launched his career, Geisel drew a peculiar dragon inside a castle. The January 14, 1928, issue of New York City’s Judge magazine featured the scaled beast. Geisel would introduce many less threatening characters inhabiting his imaginative menagerie.

“Flit” was a popular bug spray of the day — especially against flies and mosquitoes. It was one of many Standard Oil Company of New Jersey consumer products derived from oil and natural gas (also see petroleum products).

A 1927 cartoon by Theodor Seuss Geisel featured Standard Oil’s petroleum product “Flit,” a widely used bug spray.

Late in 1927, Standard Oil’s growing advertising department, which had focused on sales of Standard and Esso gasoline, lubricating oil, fuel oil, and asphalt, reorganized to promote other products, according to author Alfred Chandler Jr.

“Specialties, such as Nujol, Flit, Mistol, and other petroleum by-products that could not be effectively sold through the department’s sales organization were combined in a separate subsidiary — Stanco,” noted Chandler in his book, Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the American Industrial Enterprise.

Dr. Seuss later said his experience working at Standard Oil helped him develop his fantastical characters and tales.

Chandler’s 1962 book also examined General Motors Company, Sears, Roebuck and Company, and gunpowder manufacturer E.I. du Pont de Nemours.

“Quick, Henry, the Flit!”

Geisel’s fortuitous bug-spray cartoon depicted a medieval knight in his bed, facing a dragon who had invaded his room, and lamenting, “Darn it all, another dragon. And just after I’d sprayed the whole castle with Flit.”

According to an anecdote in Judith and Neil Morgan’s 1995 book Dr. Seuss and Mrs. Geisel, the wife of the advertising executive who handled the Standard Oil account was impressed by the cartoon.

Creating characters for Standard Oil products helped Geisel become a successful children’s book author. Circa 1935 Flit ad courtesy University of California San Diego Library.

“At her urging, her husband hired the artist, thereby inaugurating a 17-year campaign of ads whose recurring plea, ‘Quick, Henry, the Flit!,’ became a common catchphrase,” noted a curator of the Dr. Seuss Collection at the University of California, San Diego.

“These ads, along with those for several other companies, supported the Geisels throughout the Great Depression and the nascent period of his writing career,” the curator added.

Besides promoting the Standard Oil companies Flit and Esso, Dr. Seuss’ creations helped sell such diverse goods as ball bearings, radio programs, beer brands, and sugar, notes the library, located in La Jolla, where Geisel was a longtime resident.

This 1932 Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) advertisement is among those preserved by the Dr. Seuss Collection of the Mandeville Special Collections Library at the University of California, San Diego.

At the University of California San Diego, the Dr. Seuss Collection in the Mandeville Special Collections Library contains original drawings, sketches, proofs, notebooks, manuscript drafts, books, audio and videotapes, photographs, and memorabilia.

More than 8,500 items document and preserve Dr. Seuss’ creative achievements, beginning in 1919 with his high school activities and ending with his death in 1991.

Karbo-nockus and Other Critters

The future Dr. Seuss added a host of zoological oddities to Standard Oil’s lexicon while promoting the product of Esso (the phonetic pronunciation of the initials S and O first used in 1926). His critters promoted Essomarine oil and greases as well as Essolube Five-Star Motor Oil.

Standard Oil Company advertising campaigns provided a steady income to Theodor Geisel and his wife throughout the Depression, and experiments with drawing styles.

Smiling, toothy creatures such as Zero-doccus, Karbo-nockus, Moto-raspus and Oilio-Gobelus appeared in advertisements that warned motorists of the hazards of driving without the protection of Standard Oil lubrication.

Advertised in the 1930s with Dr. Seuss characters, Essolube motor oil continues to be sold internationally by the ExxonMobil.

“Meet the Zero-doccus. He is the first of a group of terrible beasts that are being turned loose in the advertising of Essolube, Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) products,” reported the December 8, 1932, Printers’ Insider, an advertising trade journal.

Other Esso “moto-monsters” would be introduced in newspapers and outdoor posters in coming months, the trade journal proclaimed.

“These creatures symbolize and dramatize some of the troubles of motorists who use inferior oils. The Zero-doccus pounces on cold motors and makes quick starting difficult with ordinary oils,” the article noted. “He and his coming friends are the creations of Dr. Seuss of ‘Quick, Henry, the Flit!’ fame.”

A dependable income from illustrating Standard Oil advertising during the Great Depression helped “Dr. Seuss” publish his first children’s book in 1936.

The Printers’ Insider article predicted the strange Esso creatures would prove popular when they appeared in ads nationwide.

The Seuss Navy

Throughout his early hard years, these Standard Oil advertising campaigns provided steady income to Geisel and his wife. “It wasn’t the greatest pay, but it covered my overhead so I could experiment with my drawings,” he later said.

Geisel noted his advertising work allowed him to experiment with creating subtle visual messages while using wacky rhymes in storytelling.

In 1936, Geisel designed Standard Oil’s Essomarine booth for the National Motorboat Show — and created the phenomenally successful “Seuss Navy.” Young and old visitors were commissioned as admirals and photographed with whimsical characters made of cardboard.

Standard Oil Company marketers promoted Essomarine products and the “Seuss Navy” during the January 1940 National Motor Boat Show in New York City.

By 1940, the Seuss Navy included more than 2,000 enthusiastic admirals (with such notables as bandleader Guy Lombardo). Geisel remembered that, “It was cheaper to give a party for a few thousand people, furnishing all the booze, than it was to advertise in full-page ads.”

As Dr. Seuss, Geisel wrote and illustrated his first children’s book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, published on December 21, 1937, by Vanguard Press after being rejected by 27 other publishers.

Twenty years later, The Cat in the Hat was inspired by a 1954 Life Magazine essay critical of children’s literacy and the stilted “See Spot Run” style of reading primers. Published in 1957, The Cat in the Hat used just 236 words — and only 14 of them with two syllables. It remains his most popular work.

The former Standard Oil advertising illustrator wrote more than 50 children’s books over a half-century career that brought the world Hop on Pop, Green Eggs and Ham, and many others. Children lost a friend on September 24, 1991, when Theodor Seuss Geisel died at the age of 87.

View online the Dr. Seuss Collection: Advertising Artwork of Dr. Seuss, preserved by Mandeville Special Collections Library, University of California.

Kerosene in Art

At the beginning of the 20th century, French illustrator Jules Chéret (1836-1933) was famous for his lithograph posters for theaters, music halls, beverages, and medicines. During a long career, many of his commercial posters promoted a French petroleum company’s lamp oil.

Chéret, who would be called “the father of the modern lithograph” and “king of the poster,” produced popular posters for “Saxoleinem,” the company’s refined “pétole de sureté” — safety lamp oil.

French advertisement for “The Halo of the South,” a safety oil for lamps, in an 1895-1900 lithograph.

“He was often imitated, and an entire generation of artists would follow and build on his work. One of them was Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec,” notes Chicago’s Richard H. Driehaus Museum. “To acknowledge his debt to the older artist, Lautrec sent Chéret a copy of every poster he produced.”

Learn about more examples of artists and the petroleum industry in Oil in Art.

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Recommended Reading: Theodor Geisel: A Portrait of the Man Who Became Dr. Seuss (2010); The History of the Standard Oil Company: All Volumes (2015); Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the American Industrial Enterprise (1962); Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel: A Biography (1995). 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 expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2026 Bruce A. Wells.

Citation Information – Article Title: “Seuss I am, an Oilman.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/petroleum-art/seuss-the-oilman. Last Updated: January 9, 2026. Original Published Date: December 1, 2008.

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The use of energy resources has defined modern civilization. Museums, and historians, writers, and educators have preserved the heritage of the petroleum industry since the first U.S. well of 1859. Oilfield artists of all media remain important recorders and interpreters of petroleum’s worldwide influence.

For oil patch students and researchers, the American Oil & Gas Historical Society created the work-in-progress Oil in Art articles, to accompany  the forums and resources page, which includes links for photography sources (especially universities and the Library of Congress), petroleum history videos, and a small AOGHS selection of books and authors. 

Oilfield artists: Oil on Canvas

An icon of the Pop art movement, “Standard Station, Amarillo, Texas,” was painted in 1963 by American artist Ed Ruscha, who created a series of screen prints of the painting today in the collections of several museums, including New York City’s Museum of Modern Art. 

“Standard Station, Amarillo, Texas,” 1963, by Ed Ruscha. Oil on canvas. Image courtesy Hood Museum of Art from Wheelock Street, Hanover, NH.

In 2013, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art exhibited the renowned “pop artist” whose influence can be seen in graphic design, film and urban history.

Standard Station in Amarillo, Texas, from Edward Ruscha’s “Twentysix Gasoline Stations,” 1963. Gelatin silver print.

“Ed Ruscha’s art depicts everyday objects – gas stations, street signs, billboards, commercial packaging – yet often triggers philosophical reflection about the relationship between words, things, and ideas,” noted the curator. “The word ‘standard’ is a case in point: it can be a banner or rallying point, an established level of quality, and an oil company’s brand name.”

The gasoline station is Ruscha’s most iconic image, according to New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

Ruscha began experimenting with the subject in “Twentysix Gasoline Stations” (1963), reproducing photographs taken while driving on Route 66 between Los Angeles and his hometown of Oklahoma City.

Ruscha created his 10-foot painting titled “Standard Station, Amarillo, Texas,” based on one of his photographs.

In November 1940, Edward Hopper’s painting “Gas” was first exhibited by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. Art critics praised the work, suggesting the painting with the Pegasus sign anticipated the modern Pop Art movement by more than a decade.

Edward Hopper (1882-1967) oil on canvas painting “Gas” of 1940 includes the flying Pegasus logo of Mobilgas. Image courtesy Museum of Modern Art, New York.

The painting is owned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Jerry Bywaters of Paris, Texas, exhibited his newly painted “Oil Field Girls” on June 1, 1940, at the Fine Arts Palace of San Francisco’s Golden Gate International Exposition. The painting of two young women in a West Texas oilfield and its companion piece, “Oil Rig Workers (Roughnecks),” would become among his best known works.

Dallas artist Jerry Bywaters painted “Oil Field Girls” in 1940 for the San Francisco Golden Gate International Exposition. He titled its companion piece “Oil Rig Workers (Roughnecks).”

The 1939 “Oil Fields of Graham” mural by Alexandre Hogue is on display in its original Texas oil patch community’s historic U.S. Postal Service building — and now a museum.

A 1937 painting by Alexandre Hogue depicts the Pecos, Texas, oilfield with storage tanks in the foreground and the green-roofed quarters for workers in the background.

Alexandre Hogue’s “Oil Fields of Graham” (Texas) is restored and displayed at the Old Post Office Museum & Art Center, which opened in 1993.

Learn more in Oil Art of Graham, Texas. 

 Burning Oil Well at Night, near Rouseville, Pennsylvania

A Pennsylvania oilfield tragedy led to new safety and firefighting technologies — and a work of art.

The 1861 “Burning Oil Well at Night, near Rouseville, Pennsylvania,” by James Hamilton on display in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. Photo by Bruce Wells.

On April 17, 1861, a highly pressurized well exploded into flames on the Buchanan Farm at Rouseville, killing the well’s owner and more than a dozen bystanders.

The early oilfield tragedy was overshadowed by the greater tragedy of the Civil War, which began four days earlier. Journalist Ida Tarbell had lived in Rouseville as a child.

Detail from James Hamilton’s painting of the fire that killed Henry Rouse. “Burning Oil Well at Night, near Rouseville, Pennsylvania.”

At the turn of the century, Thaddeus Mortimer Fowler created popular panoramic maps of many of America’s earliest petroleum boom towns. Fowler has the greatest number of hand-drawn panoramic maps (324) in the collection of the Library of Congress. 

19th-Century “Aero Views” 

T.M. Fowler’s hand-drawn panoramic map of Oil City, Pennsylvania, in 1896. Lithographs of his cartography (done without a balloon) have fascinated people since the Victorian Age.

The cartographer created bird’s-eye views of boom towns in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Oklahoma and Texas — his popular Oil Town “Aero Views.”

1901 Spindletop Gusher in Texas

“Spindletop Viewing Her Gusher” by Aaron Arion – 1913, pastel on linen – once welcomed guests at the Dixie Hotel, later owned by vaudeville performer “Miss Rita.” Photo courtesy Tyrell Historical Library.

The modern U.S. oil and natural gas industry began on January 10, 1901, on a small hill in southeastern Texas when the “Lucas Gusher” erupted near Beaumont. The Spindletop Hill field, which yielded 3.59 million barrels of oil by the end of 1901, would produce more oil in one day than all the rest of the world’s oilfields combined. Texaco and Gulf got their start in the Beaumont area oilfields. ExxonMobil began at the nearby town of Humble (learn more in Oil Reigns at King Ranch). 

“Oil and Guts” Oilfield Mural

Artist Barbara Fritsche began painting “Oil and Guts” at the end of 2008 — just when the fictionalized movie “There Will Be Blood” was hitting theaters, she later noted. Meeting with roughnecks provided her a more in-depth petroleum industry education.

Los Angeles artist Barbara Fritsche, influenced by the Buena Vista oilfields, acknowledges “the blue collar appeal and respect of the environment surrounded by a biblical sunset, famous in this area.”

Fritsche’s 48-foot by 12-foot oil on canvas board mural, which originated as a commission for an independent oil producer, took a year and a half to complete. Her original work of oilfield art has since been looking for a home in a museum, corporate headquarters, or other appropriate location.

Barbara Fritsche’s 2018 epic-scale oilfield painting “Blood and Guts” took a year and a half to complete.

“My drawings and the landscape in my painting resemble the Buena Vista oilfields, as stated by roughnecks that offered their nods of appreciation,” she said in 2016.

“My concept for ‘Oil and Guts’ — a slice of time in the oil business, using a narrative, acknowledging the blue collar appeal and respect of the environment surrounded by a biblical sunset, famous in this area,” said the artist.

“Oil and Guts,” a transferable mural 48 feet by 12 feet, “narrates the evolution of the world of oil, a slice of time seen through the eyes of an old roughneck remembering guys that have given their blood for oil.”

“An old Roughneck remembers the roughnecks that have passed on, depicted by workers drawn in chalk, then to the past, depicted by wooden platforms, archaic equipment — wooden platforms changed to metal — then to the present times, depicted by metal platforms and modern day workers,” she explained.

“In addition to the story, the mountains are sculpted with figures – surrealism – referencing fossil fuels,” Fritsche concluded. “Without people there would be no need for oil.”

The “Oil and Guts” mural has been featured on the cover of the Vietnamese edition (Omega Plus) of the 1991 Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Daniel Yergin, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power.

Fritsche, whose studio is in Los Angeles, has contacted petroleum companies and museums seeking a purchaser of her epic oil patch mural — and featured in the 2018 annual report of the Permian Basin Royalty Trust. See more of her work at Barbara Fritsche.

Black Gold of JoAnn Cowans

Oilfield artist JoAnn Cowans (1933 – 2022), a longtime member of the American Oil & Gas Historical Society, donated prints of her artwork to many community petroleum museums. She collaborated with Loyola Marymount University Department of Archives and Small Collections on an urban archaeology project of Venice and Playa del Ray. 

“Derricks by the Road” painting by JoAnn Cowans

By painting derricks in the 1960s, Cowans documented a history when few if any of her generation thought to do so. According to the magazine American Art Review, “Few artists, however, were devoted to the subject of the oil industry in the 1960s. Stylistically, artists were interested in the modernist concerns of abstraction and expression, rather than documentation or narrative.”

In recognition of the 2009 150th anniversary of America’s first oil discovery, this talented California painter (many of her works are in corporate, private and museum collections) published a “gallery edition coffee table book.”

Black Gold, the Artwork of JoAnn Cowans includes 42 paintings. With her canvas, paints and easel (and later, a hard hat), she captured for posterity an important part of what is today the nation’s third largest oil producing state. One-hundred years earlier, in the 1860s, the first oil derricks began appearing in California. Oil was so plentiful here that it bubbled up out of the ground. See Discovering the La Brea Tar Pits.

JoAnn Cowans of Fullerton, California, began painting the state’s oilfields since the 1960s. She preserved derricks long since removed.

Edward Doheny discovered the Los Angeles oilfield in 1892.  By 1910, California produced 77 million barrels of oil. In Venice, the Ohio Oil Company completed a well in 1929 on county property just east of the city’s Grand Canal. This is where Cowans painted many derrick scenes. Her collection includes stories about California oilfields of the 1960s and more recent of paintings: Black Gold, the Artwork of JoAnn Cowans.

“Once seen, the depth and significance of her work becomes clear,” noted her publisher. “Her place in plain air painting and her own unique view helps us see the majesty of the oil tower.”

“Oil Creek Artist”

John A. Mather (1829-1915) photographed the earliest days of oil exploration around Titusville, Pennsylvania. He would begin to amass more than 20,000 glass-plate negatives and become known as “Oil Creek Artist.”

A famous image by Mather is often mistakenly identified as Drake and Smith standing in front of the historic derrick. In fact, it is Drake and his friend Peter Wilson, a Titusville druggist, standing in front of the second derrick.

Iconic but often misidentified photo by John A. Mather shows Edwin L. Drake (at right) with a friend standing in front of the rebuilt engine house and derrick at the original site of the first U.S. commercial oil well of August 1859. An October fire destroyed the original structures. Photo courtesy Drake Well Museum.

Petroleum in Art and the Movies

Vincent Price starred as Edwin Drake in the 1954 film sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute (API). A year earlier he had starred in “House of Wax,” Warner Bros.’ first 3-D movie.

Oil Patch Art and Wall Street

A petroleum stock certificate’s vignette often is an important part of its value for scripophily – the buying and selling of certificates as collectibles after they have no redeemable value as a security.

Oil on Broadway

On December 1, 1960, Lucille Ball debuted in “Wildcat,” her first and last foray onto Broadway. Critics loved Lucy — but hated the show. She played the penniless “Wildcat Jackson” scrambling to find an oil gusher in a dusty Texas border town, circa 1912.

Oil gushers featured on album cover of 1960 Broadway musical “Wildcat.”

“Wildcat went prospecting for Broadway oil but drilled a dry hole,” proclaimed a New York Times critic. Although some audiences appreciated a rare oil patch musical, after 171 performances, the show closed.

See other oilfield artists and artistically related petroleum works in Oil in Art.

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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: “Petroleum & Oilfield Artists.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL:https://aoghs.org/petroleum-art/petroleum-art.  Last Updated: January 8, 2026. Original Published Date: December 30, 2016.

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Thaddeus M. Fowler created detailed, panoramic maps of America’s earliest petroleum boom towns during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His popular cartographic depictions of oil patch communities in Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and Texas offered “aero views” seemingly drawn from great heights.

More than 400 Thaddeus Fowler panoramas have been identified. There are 324 in the Library of Congress, including this one of Oil City, Pennsylvania, in 1896. Source: Library of Congress Geography and Map Division, Washington, D.C.

Fowler has the largest number of panoramic maps in the collection of the Library of Congress (LOC) in Washington, D.C. His hand-drawn lithographs have fascinated viewers since the Victorian Age. Being depicted in one of Fowler’s maps, also known as “bird’s-eye views,” was a matter of civic pride for many community leaders.

Chasing Oil Booms

Thaddeus Mortimer Fowler was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, on December 21, 1842. He served in the 21st New York Volunteers in 1861 and was wounded at the Second Battle of Bull Run a year later before being discharged at Boston in 1863. After the war, Fowler migrated to Wisconsin, where he established his own panoramic map-making company. 

An 1896 Fowler panorama of Titusville, Pennsylvania, where Edwin L. Drake launched the U.S. petroleum industry in August 1859.

Fowler began producing views of Wisconsin and Ohio towns in 1870, the same year Standard Oil Company was incorporated in Ohio.

A panoramic map of Stewart, Ohio, that appeared in surveys by D. J. Lake in the Atlas of Athens County of 1875 became the earliest Fowler map in the LOC collection of American Panoramic Artists. In 1885, Fowler moved with his family to Morrisville, Pennsylvania, where he maintained his headquarters for 25 years as he traveled the country.

Morrisville served as Fowler’s home base as he began to draw and publish views of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio cities — including oil and natural gas boom towns. 

Fowler drew and sold more Pennsylvania panoramas than any other artist. In the LOC collection alone, there are 220 separate Fowler views of the Keystone State.

Viewed from the north looking south, Thaddeus Fowler depicted Wichita Falls, Texas, population 1,978, probably in late 1890. For a suitable fee, the artist included homes and businesses as insets. Source: University of Texas at Arlington Library.

An additional 165 Fowler views of Pennsylvania towns are in the Pennsylvania State Archives and at Pennsylvania State University. He also visited the booming oilfield communities in Oklahoma and Texas.

“Thaddeus Mortimer Fowler (1842–1922) was perhaps the most prolific of the dozens of bird’s-eye view artists who crisscrossed the country during the latter three decades of the nineteenth century,” explained the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in 2005.

Fowler produced at least 17 views of different Texas cities in 1890 and 1891, “but that output is dwarfed by his production of almost 250 views of Pennsylvania between 1872 and 1922,” noted the museum.

Oil Town Lithographs

Historians have identified 411 separate Fowler panoramas. “His views of Pennsylvania towns suggest he concentrated on a specific geographical area in a given year, very likely to minimize transportation problems,” according to the LOC.

T.M. Fowler’s 1896 map of Sistersville, West Virginia. An oil discovery four years earlier had revealed a giant oilfield, which transformed the Ohio River town.

From 1895 to 1897, Fowler worked in the western part of Pennsylvania, especially around Pittsburgh. In 1898 and 1899, he sketched West Virginia towns, and from 1900 to 1903, he was back in Pennsylvania. He would travel to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to produce a 1918 map of the “Oil Capital of the World.”

An August 11, 1891, discovery well made Sistersville the world’s leading oil producer. The well was restored as a tourist attraction in 1911 by Quaker State Refining.

Fowler gained commissions for city plans by interesting citizens and civic groups in the idea of a panoramic map of their community. After one town had agreed to having a map made, he would seek to involve neighboring communities.

By noting that he had already secured an agreement for a view from one town in the area, Fowler would play on the pride, community spirit, and sense of competition of adjacent communities.

Oil derricks are among the many details Fowler included in his Sistersville panorama.

How did Fowler create his maps? Preparation of panoramic maps “involved a vast amount of painstakingly detailed labor,” explains an LOC article on panoramic mapping:

For each project a frame or projection was developed, showing in perspective the pattern of streets. The artist then walked in the street, sketching buildings, trees, and other features to present a complete and accurate landscape as though seen from an elevation of 2,000 to 3,000 feet. These data were entered on the frame in his workroom…A careful perspective, which required a surface of three hundred square feet, was then erected from a correct survey of the city.

This Fowler print of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was published in 1918 — when Tulsa was known as the “Oil Capital of the World” after discovery of the Glenn Pool oilfield in November 1905, four miles south.

Victorian Age Fad

The “bird’s-eye” or “aero” views fascinated the public of America’s Victorian Age. Advances in lithography made inexpensive and multiple copies possible, adds the LOC article.

The citizen could view with pride his immediate environment and point out his own property to guests, since the map artist, for a suitable fee, obligingly included illustrations of private homes as insets to the main city plan. As late as the 1920s, panoramic maps were still in vogue commercially.

Bird’s-eye-view cartographer and artist Thaddeus Mortimer Fowler, 1842-1922.

Thaddeus Mortimer Fowler died in March 1922 in his eightieth year after falling on an icy street while preparing a panorama of Middletown, New York.

Panoramic maps of American communities – including petroleum boom towns — preserve a pictorial record of urban life at the time. The artwork documents with historic significance: For some communities, Fowler “aero views” are the only early maps that have survived.

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Recommended Reading:  Bird’s Eye Views: Historic Lithographs of North American Cities (1998); Oil Boom Architecture: Titusville, Pithole, and Petroleum Center, Images of America (2008); Early Days of Oil: A Pictorial History of the Beginnings of the Industry in Pennsylvania (2000); Trek of the Oil Finders: A History of Exploration for Petroleum (1975). 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, expand historical research, and extend public outreach. For annual sponsorship information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. © 2025 Bruce A. Wells. All right reserved.

Citation Information – Article Title: “Oil Town Aero Views.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/petroleum-art/oil-town-aero-views. Last Updated: December 15, 2025. Original Published Date: June 1, 2004.

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As baseball became America’s favorite pastime in the early 20th century, booming oil towns fielded winning teams with names that reflected their communities’ enthusiasm and often their livelihood.

In Texas, the booming petroleum town of Corsicana fielded the Oil Citys — and made baseball history in 1902 with a 51 to 3 drubbing of the Texarkana Casketmakers. Oil Citys catcher Jay Justin Clarke hit eight home runs in eight at bats during the game, still an unbroken baseball record.

Former pitcher for the Olinda Oil Wells — Walter “The Big Train” Johnson — joined “Babe” Ruth in a 1924 exhibition game. Johnson was among the first players inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

In 1922, the Wichita Falls minor league team lost its opportunity for a 25th consecutive victory when the league determined the team had “doctored the baseball.” The Wichita Falls ballpark caught fire in June during a game and burned to the ground. It was a memorable season.

The Double-A team Tulsa Drillers began in 1977 when the Lafayette Drillers moved to Tulsa.

In Oklahoma oilfields, the Okmulgee Drillers for the first time in baseball history had two players who combined to hit 100 home runs in a single season of 160 games. First baseman Wilbur “Country” Davis and center fielder Cecil “Stormy” Davis accomplished their home run record in 1924, although their team faded away by 1927.

With a growing population thanks to giant oilfield discoveries at nearby Red Fork (1901) and Glenn Pool (1905), the Tulsa Oilers dominated the Western League for a decade, winning the pennant in 1920, 1922, and 1927-1929. The name has continued in the hockey league’s Tulsa Oilers.

In 1977, the Double-A affiliate team for Major League Baseball, the Tulsa Drillers, arrived in the city from Lafayette, Louisiana.

First Night Game

For baseball’s first official night game on April 28, 1930, a company town baseball team — the Producers of Independence, Kansas — lost to the Muskogee Chiefs 13 to 3. The game was played under portable lights supplied by the Negro National League’s Kansas City Monarchs.

The Olinda No. 1 well of 1898 created an oil boom town. Hundreds of wells once pumped oil around the Olinda Oil Museum and Trail near Brea, California.

The Independence Producers were one of the 96 teams in the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, later known as Minor League Baseball.

Iola Gasbags and Borger Gassers

Thanks to mid-continent oil and natural gas discoveries, in just nine years beginning in 1895, Iola, Kansas, grew into a city of more than 11,000. Gas wells lighted the way. The Iola Gasbags reportedly adopted their team name not for the resource, but after becoming known as braggers in the Missouri State League.

“They traveled to these other cities, and they’d be bragging that they were the champions, so people started giving them the nickname Gasbags,” reported baseball historian Tim Hagerty in a 2012 National Public Radio interview.

A natural gas boom in Kansas led to a baseball team being named the Iola Gasbags, pictured here in 1904. Photo courtesy National Baseball Hall of Fame Library.

In 1903, the players renamed themselves the Iola Gaslighters — but had a change of heart and reverted to the original name the following season.

“They said, ‘You know what? Yeah, we are, We’re the Gasbags.'” added Hagerty, author of Root for the Home Team: Minor League Baseball’s Most Off-the-Wall Names and the Stories Behind Them. “I think the state of Kansas may take the prize for the most terrific names — the Wichita Wingnuts, the Wichita Izzies, the Hutchinson Salt Packers…and the Iola Gasbags.”

In the Texas Panhandle, the petroleum-related town baseball team Borger Gassers disappeared after the 1955 season, despite Gordon Nell hitting a record-setting 49 homers in 1947. Team owners blamed television and air-conditioning for reducing minor league baseball attendance and profitability.

Detail from 1909 baseball card featuring Pacific Coast League pitcher Jimmy Wiggs. Image courtesy Library of Congress.

In Beaumont, Texas, site of the great Spindletop oil discovery of 1901, minor league baseball lasted for decades under several names. The first team, the Beaumont Oil Gushers of the South Texas League, was fielded in 1903. By the 1904 season the team was known as the Millionaires and then the Oilers before becoming the Beaumont Exporters in 1920.

East of Dallas, in Van, Texas, fielding practice at the oil town’s high school includes a pumping reminder of the prolific oilfield discovered in 1929. Photo by Bruce Wells.

Although many thought the name should be changed to the Refiners, reflecting the city’s industry, for the 1950 season the team was briefly known as the Roughnecks (a former company town baseball team name still popular).

Beaumont’s last AA Texas League team was the Golden Gators, which folded in 1986. Another team in the Texas League, the company town baseball team Shreveport Gassers, on May 8, 1918, played 20 innings against the Fort Worth Panthers before the game was finally declared a tie at one to one.

Pitching for the Olinda Oil Wells

Perhaps baseball’s greatest product from the oilfield was a young man who was a roustabout in the small oil town of Olinda, California. Walter Johnson (1887-1946) would earn national renown as the greatest pitcher of his time. His fastball was legendary.

In 1894, the Union Oil Company of Santa Paula purchased 1,200 acres in northern Orange County for oil development. Four years later the first oil well, Olinda No. 1, came in and created the oil boom town. Soon, the Olinda baseball players began making a name for themselves among the semi-pro teams of the Los Angeles area.

A 1961 baseball card notes headline of the former California oilfield roustabout’s amazing 1913 pitching record, which lasted until Don Drysdale pitched 58 scoreless innings in 1968.

By 1903, the Orange County team was sharing newly built Athletic Park in Anaheim, “two hours south of Olinda by horse and buggy,” noted one historian. Youngster Walter Johnson rooted for the local team, the Oil Wells.

Johnson, originally from Humboldt, Kansas, moved to the thriving oil town east of Brea with his family when he was 14. He attended Fullerton Union High School and played baseball there while working in the nearby oilfields. His high school pitching began making headlines, including a 15-inning game against rival Santa Ana High School in 1905 where he struck out 27.

Today, tourists visit the Olinda Oil Museum and Trail. This historic Orange County site includes Olinda Oil Well No. 1 of 1898, the oil company field office and a jack-line pump building.

By 17, Johnson was playing for his oil town baseball team, the Olinda Oil Wells, as its ace pitcher. He shared in each game’s income of $25, according to Henry Thomas in Walter Johnson: Baseball’s Big Train.

“Not a bad split for nine players considering that a roustabout in the oilfields started at $1.50 a day,” Thomas noted in his book. Johnson finished with a winning season and soon moved on to the minor leagues.

Johnson’s major league career began in 1907 in Washington, D.C., where he played his entire 21-year baseball career for the Washington Senators. The former oil patch roustabout in 2022 remained major league baseball’s all-time career leader in shutouts with 110, second in wins (417) and fourth in complete games (531).

In 1936, “The Big Train” Johnson was inducted into baseball’s newly created Hall of Fame with four others: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, and Christy Mathewson. In 1924, Johnson returned to his California oil-patch roots. On October 31, he and his former baseball teammates played an exhibition game in Brea against Babe Ruth and the Ruth All-Stars.

The Brea Museum & Historical Society today includes exhibits, rare photographs, and research facilities. There’s also an ongoing project recreating Brea in miniature.

Texon Oilers of the Permian Basin 

On May 28, 1923, a loud roar was heard when the Santa Rita No. 1 well erupted in West Texas. People as far away as Fort Worth traveled to see the well.

Near Big Lake, Texas, on arid land leased from the University of Texas, Texon Oil and Land Company made the discovery (the school would earn millions of dollars in royalties). The giant oilfield, about 4.5 square miles, revealed the extent of oil reserves in West Texas. Exploration spread in the Permian Basin, still one of the largest U.S. oil-producing regions.

The first oil company town in the Permian Basin, Texon, was founded in 1924 by Big Lake Oil Co. The Texon Oilers won championships in 1933, 1934, 1935, and 1939. Texon today is a tourist attraction as a ghost town.

Early Permian Basin discoveries created many boom towns, including Midland, which some would soon refer to as “Little Dallas.”

By 1924, Michael L. Benedum, a successful independent oilman from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and other successful independent producers — wildcatters — formed the Big Lake Oil Company. The new company established Texon, the first oil company town in the Permian Basin. Texon residents fielded a company town baseball team.

Today a ghost town, Texon was considered a model oil community. It had a school, church, hospital, theater, golf course, swimming pool – and a semi-pro company baseball team.

According to the Texas State Historical Association, the Texon Oilers baseball team was the centerpiece of the employee recreation plan of Levi Smith, vice president and general manager of the Big Lake Oil Company. Smith organized the club after he founded the Reagan County town west of Big Lake.

The Permian Basin oilfield was featured in a 2002 movie featuring a high school teacher and baseball coach. Image from Walt Disney Pictures poster.

By the summer of 1925 a baseball field was ready for use. In 1926 a 500-seat grandstand completed the facility. “In 1929 the Big Lake Oil Company began a tradition of hosting a Labor Day barbecue for employees and friends, highlighted by a baseball game,” noted historian Jane Spraggins Wilson.

“Management consistently attempted to schedule well-known clubs, such as the Fort Worth Cats and the Halliburton Oilers of Oklahoma,” added Wilson, who explained that during the Great Depression, “before good highways, television, and other diversions, the team was a source of community cohesiveness, entertainment, and pride.”

After World War II, with its famous oilfield diminishing and the town losing population, aging Oilers left the game for good, Wilson reports. By the mid-1950s the Texon Oilers company town baseball team was but a memory.

Hollywood visits Oilfields

The 2002 movie “The Rookie” — filmed almost entirely in the Permian Basin of West Texas — featured a Reagan County High School teacher. Based on the “true life” of baseball pitcher Jimmy Morris, it tells the story of baseball coach, Morris (played by Dennis Quaid), who despite being in his mid-30s, briefly makes it to the major leagues.

The movie, promoted with the phrase “It’s never too late to believe in your dreams,” begins with a flashback scene near Big Lake, the Santa Rita No. 1 drilling site.

At the beginning of the 2002 movie “The Rookie,” Catholic nuns christened the Santa Rita No. 1 cable-tool rig. In reality, one of the well’s owners climbed the derrick and threw rose petals given to him by Catholic women investors.

As the well is being drilled, Catholic nuns are shown carrying a basket of rose petals to christen it for the patron saint of the impossible – Santa Rita. “Much is made of the almost mythic importance of oil in Big Lake, with talk of the Santa Rita oil well,” explained ESPN in The Rookie in Reel Life. 

Learn more about the Permian Basin by visiting the Petroleum Museum in Midland.

Company Town Baseball: Oilmen of Whiting, Indiana

In 1889, the Standard Oil Company began construction on its massive, 235-acre refinery in Whiting, Indiana. Today owned by BP, the Whiting refinery is the largest in the United States.

Whiting has been home to the Northwest Indiana Oilmen since 2012.

In 2012, Whiting fielded a baseball team. On June 3, the Northwest Indiana Oilmen crushed the Southland Vikings 14-3 at Oil City Stadium in Standard Diamonds Park for the first win in franchise history. The Oilmen team became one of eight in the Midwest Collegiate League, a pre-minor baseball league.

Standard Oil’s giant refinery in Whiting, Indiana, processed “sour crude” in the early 1900s. Now owned by BP, it is the largest U.S. refinery. The city of Whiting incorporated in 1903.

“The name Oil City Stadium celebrates Whiting’s history as a refinery town tucked away in the Northwest corner of Indiana for over 120 years,” noted team owner Don Popravak about the oil company town baseball. “The BP Refinery, located just beyond the outfield fence, is a constant reminder of the blue-collar attitude Whiting was built on,” he added.

CITGO and Oil History

With the arrival of baseball’s opening day in 2024, David Krell published a book about the Boston Red Sox and the role of the former Cities Service Company — CITGO — red triangle sign at Fenway Park. While researching The Fenway Effect: A Cultural History of the Boston Red Sox, Krell discovered the extensive history behind the company and its sign at Fenway, the team’s home ballpark since 1912.

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Recommended Reading:  Textile League Baseball: South Carolina’s Mill Teams, 1880-1955 (2004); The Fenway Effect: A Cultural History of the Boston Red Sox (2024). Your Amazon purchase benefits the American Oil & Gas Historical Society. As an Amazon Associate, AOGHS earns a commission from qualifying purchases.

_______________________

The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please become an AOGHS annual supporter and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. © 2025 Bruce A. Wells.

Citation Information – Article Title: “Oilfields of Dreams – Gassers, Oilers, and Drillers Baseball.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/petroleum-art/oil-town-baseball. Last Updated: October 21, 2025. Original Published Date: September 1, 2007.

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Joe Roughneck’s rugged, square-jawed face first appeared in the 1950s as print advertisements for a tubular goods manufacturer. His helmeted visage in bronze became a petroleum industry award annually handed out to wildcatters “whose accomplishments and character represent the highest ideals of the oil and natural gas industry.”

Presented from 1955 to 2019 during conventions of a national oil and gas industry trade association, Joe’s Chief Roughneck statue symbolized the “leadership and integrity of individuals who have made a lasting impression on the energy industry.”

Torg Thompson, who drew the original Joe Roughneck bandaged-faced character in the 1950s, sculpted him for an annual industry award — and for display in Texas parks.

The award’s bronze bust began with Texas artist Torg Thompson (1905-1998) and the Lone Star Steel Company, later U.S. Steel Tubular Products, a subsidiary of United States Steel. Thompson’s busts, sculpted from his character created for newspaper and magazine advertisements, also would be dedicated in Texas parks.

“Lone Star Steel doffs its tin hat to Joe Roughneck as a salute to those pioneers of yesterday, today and tomorrow, whose perseverance and courage have made, and will continue to make our nation the world’s leader in petroleum,” declared a 1959 Lone Star Steel magazine ad.

Recipients of the pipe manufacturer’s “Chief Roughneck Award” — first presented to independent producer R.E. (Bob) Smith in 1955 — included Harold Hamm, George Mitchell, Dean McGee, H.L Hunt, and W.A. “Monty” Moncrief (see Chief Roughneck Award Winners to view all recipients since 1955).

The advertising character’s battered face became popular in America’s oilfields, prompting Lone Star Steel executives to proclaim, “Joe doesn’t belong to us anymore. He’s as universal as a rotary rig.”

The character began its career on the scratch pad of Thompson, an artist known for the 124-by-20-foot mural, “Miracle at Pentecost,” at the Biblical Arts Center in Dallas (destroyed by fire in 2005). For Lone Star Steel Company ads, Thompson portrayed Joe with the countenance of a man who had spent long hours working in the oilfield.

In 1959, Lone Star Steel Company, an oilfield tubular goods manufacturer, produced this magazine advertisement featuring Joe Roughneck, the “Heart of the Oil and Gas Industry.”

“Joe’s jaw was squarely set to denote determination, his nose flattened as a souvenir of the rollicking life of a boom town. His eyes indicate the kindness and generosity of his breed. His mouth wore the trace of a smile, but there was a quizzical expression of one who had to see to believe,” notes a small museum in the heart of the East Texas oilfield.

“When the completed picture came into being on canvas, there was no doubt Joe was the heart of the oil patch,” the Depot Museum in Henderson adds.

Joe has been saluted by two governors of Texas, named “Man of the Month” by a popular magazine, and has been the subject of countless newspaper articles, along with many radio and television commentaries. Joe also became the mascot of the White Oak Roughnecks, a high school football team of another East Texas oilfield community.

“Joe’s likeness has adorned the world’s largest golf trophy and once decorated an international oil exposition,” the Depot Museum concludes.

At the Gaston Museum in Joinerville, Texas, a Joe Roughneck memorial was dedicated “to the pioneers of the Great East Texas oilfield.” The October 1930 discovery well is just 1.75 miles away — and still producing for the Hunt Oil Company.

Joe still serves as a symbol for petroleum clubs that “recognize the pioneers of yesterday and today whose perseverance and courage made our nation the world’s leader in petroleum.”

Presented at the annual meeting of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, Joe’s head now sits atop oilfield monuments in Texas: Joinerville (1957), Conroe (1957), Boonsville (1970), and Kilgore (1986) — where he greets visitors to the East Texas Oil Museum.

Joe Roughneck in Joinerville

This, the first Joe Roughneck monument, was erected in Pioneer Park at the Gaston Museum and Community Outreach in Joinerville, seven miles west of Henderson. The monument includes a time capsule sealed at the dedication on March 17, 1957, and to be opened in 2056. The capsule reportedly will tell future generations about the East Texas oilfield discovered by Columbus Marion “Dad” Joiner in early October 1930.

Joiner’s Daisy Bradford No. 3, discovery well for this prolific field, is nearby — less than two miles from the Gaston Museum. Production from the East Texas field exceeded five billion barrels of oil by 1993. Many modern waterflooding technologies were shaped by the giant field, and hundreds of marginal wells continue to produce there.

Joe Roughneck in Conroe

In Conroe, about 40 miles north of Houston, Joe Roughneck rests on a monument in Candy Cane Park at the Heritage Museum of Montgomery County. He commemorates the discovery of a 19,000-acre field by George Strake in 1931 – “and others who envisioned an empire, dared to seek it, and discovered the Conroe oilfield.”

The Joe Roughneck monument in Conroe, Texas, is next to a miniature derrick protected by Plexiglas — and information about Montgomery County, where “whispers of oil discovery started in the early 1900s.”

The monument recognizes the completion of Strake’s Conroe oilfield-discovery well in June of 1932. The “Conroe Courier” headlines proclaimed, “Strake Well Comes In. Good for 10,000 Barrels Per Day.” 

The Conroe oilfield led to major technology developments after Strake found the oil sands to be natural gas-charged, shallow – and dangerously unstable. By 1993, the 17,000-acre Conroe oilfield will have produced more than 717 million barrels of oil (see Technology and the Conroe Crater).

Joe Roughneck in Boonsville

Governor Preston Smith dedicated Boonsville’s Joe Roughneck on October 26, 1970 — the 20th anniversary of the Boonsville natural gas field discovery.

Joe Roughneck at the East Texas Oil Museum, which opened in 1980 in Kilgore.

The field’s 1945 discovery well, Lone Star Gas Company’s B.P. Vaught No. 1, produced 2.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas in its first 20 years. By 2001, the field — located in the Fort Worth Basin in north-central Texas — had produced 3.1 trillion cubic feet of gas and 17 million barrels of condensate from 3,500 wells in the field.

Boonsville’s Joe Roughneck statue can be found on Farm to Market Road 920 about 13 miles southwest of Bridgeport in southwestern Wise County.

Joe Roughneck in Kilgore

Kilgore hosts a Joe Roughneck erected on March 2, 1986, in a downtown plaza, celebrating the “boomers” who settled in Kilgore during the 1930s. When Kilgore’s monument committee first approached Lone Star Steel, it learned the Joe Roughneck cast had been destroyed in a fire. Lone Star Steel allowed use of the original mold to produce the monument.

Detail from a 1957 Joe Roughneck advertisement of Lone Star Steel.

During the East Texas boom, Kilgore had the densest number of wells in the world. Today’s World’s Richest Acre Park displays a pumping unit and the city has restored dozens of derricks from Kilgore’s boomtown birth – a story told at the East Texas Oil Museum.

As the Depot Museum’s exhibit concluded, Joe Roughneck has remained: “Rough and tough, sage and salty, capable and reliable, shrewd but honest. Joe has throughout his lifetime symbolized the determination of the American petroleum industry, reaffirming the indomitable spirit of Chief Roughnecks the world over, past, present and future.”

Joe Roughneck’s iconic advertisement creation should also credit former Lone Star Steel Vice President L.D. “Red” Webster, according to Michael Webb, spouse of Webster’s daughter Rebel Webster (1959-2021). Webb emailed the American Oil & Gas Historical Society and explained he was categorizing unique artifacts and other historic items related to the career of his late wife’s father.

In addition to the statues given to the Chief Roughneck Award winners since 1955, Webb reports Joe Roughneck is preserved by artifacts that include “pins, awards, tchotchkes, papers, plaques, photos of Red, and an original plaster bust of Joe Roughneck.”

In Washington, D.C., a 12-inch Joe Roughneck bronze bust is preserved in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum Institution.

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Recommended Reading:  A Wildcatter’s Trek: Love, Money and Oil (2016 by 1995 Chief Roughneck Gene Ames Jr.);  Trek of the Oil Finders: A History of Exploration for Petroleum (1975). 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. All rights reserved.

Citation Information: Article Title: “Meet Joe Roughneck.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells, Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/petroleum-art/joe-roughneck. Last Updated: October 17, 2025. Original Published Date: March 11, 2005.

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A centennial oil stamp commemorating the birth of the U.S. oil and natural gas industry was issued on August 27, 1959, by Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield, who proclaimed: “The American people have great reason to be indebted to this industry. It has supplied most of the power that has made the American standard of living possible.” 

As the sesquicentennial of the first U.S. well drilled to produce oil approached in 2009, a special “Oil 150”  committee sought U.S. Postal Service approval for a commemorative stamp. The committee and historians in more than 30 petroleum-producing states petitioned for a stamp similar to one issued for the industry’s 1959 centennial of the first commercial U.S. oil well.

Millions of stamps commemorating the U.S. petroleum industry’s 1959 centennial served “as a reminder of what can be achieved by the combination of free enterprise and the vision and courage and effort of dedicated men.”

In 1959, more than 120 million four-cent “Petroleum Industry” stamps were issued as gasoline service stations nationwide hosted special events and petroleum-related communities proudly hosted centennial parades. The Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of American History in 1967 devoted an entire wing to oilfield exhibits — the Hall of Petroleum.

However, despite the effort of the Oil 150 Steering Committee of Oil City, Pennsylvania, the U.S. Postal Service Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee rejected creating a stamp to recognize the 1859-2009 anniversary of the nation’s petroleum industry. Committee Co-Chair Rep. John E. Peterson (R-Pa.) later explained why advisory committee members rejected the request.

“Unfavorable public impressions of the modern oil industry,” Peterson noted. The rejection of a petroleum-related commemorative stamp contrasted with public attitudes nationwide in 1959 that recognized the significance of the industry and the Oil Creek discoveries 100 years earlier.

1959 Oil Celebrations

U.S. Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield, the keynote speaker at the August 27, 1959, “Oil Centennial Day” in Titusville, Pennsylvania, dedicated a four-cent commemorative postage stamp.

At the Drake Well Memorial Park in Titusville, popular NBC Today Show host Dave Garroway broadcast live as thousands of guests crowded the grounds. At the time, gasoline cost 30 cents per gallon — and the accomplishments of the petroleum industry were cause for national celebration. 

The Today Show morning program included an oil well “shooting” demonstration at the park. Featured speakers that day included Pennsylvania Governor David Lawrence and Texas Railroad Commission Chairman Gen. Ernest Thompson.

According to the Titusville Herald, more centennial speeches followed the ceremony, and more than 400 guests attended a luncheon at the Titusville High School cafeteria. That evening, a 50-minute fireworks display capped several days of celebrating the petroleum industry — and the man who had struck oil exactly 100 years earlier.

Pennsylvania artist Robert Foster submitted several designs for the 1959 commemorative stamp.

Although known as “Colonel” Edwin L. Drake in his day, the title originated with executives at the Seneca Oil Company. They thought it would add prestige to their speculative drilling venture seeking the oilfield finally found in 1859.

U.S. Postage Stamp

As part of the ceremonies 100 years later, the Pennsylvania National Guard formally commissioned Drake a colonel. His granddaughters, Mrs. Marie Drake Carver and Mrs. Grace Drake Kilch, accepted the commission certificate. In 1958, the seven members of the newly formed Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee had finally responded to the tenacious efforts and recurring calls from a local citizens group formed as the Oil Centennial, Inc.

With input from the American Petroleum Institute (API), the Colonel Drake Philatelic Society, and Pennsylvania oil companies, the U.S. Post Office Department announced a commemorative stamp. The oil stamp was to be one of only five commemorative stamps issued that year.

Artist Robert Foster was chosen to design the stamp’s vignette. Foster, best known for his stainless steel sculpture of Mercury on the Ford Building at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, submitted several designs. The Titusville Herald noted that one of his original designs included a representation of the Drake Well. 

“Being an artist (and a Pennsylvanian), I was so familiar with the Drake Well that I could draw it from memory, without even looking at pictures,” Foster noted.

A Norman Rockwell illustration accompanied the issuance of four-cent stamps commemorating the petroleum industry’s centennial. Collectors prize first-day cachets like this one with its August 27, 1959, Titusville postmark.

Artist Robert Foster was chosen to design the stamp’s vignette. Foster, best known for his stainless steel sculpture of Mercury on the Ford Building at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, submitted several designs. The Titusville Herald noted that one of his original designs included a representation of the Drake Well. 

“Being an artist (and a Pennsylvanian), I was so familiar with the Drake Well that I could draw it from memory, without even looking at pictures,” Foster noted. The final design used a modern drilling rig image, the Herald article noted, “because of its higher recognition value.” Many people would not recognize the Drake’s cable-tool derrick and engine house, but they “recognize a modern-looking oil derrick when they see one.”

Postmaster Summerfield selected the final design and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing produced four plates for the stamps. The plate numbers – 26416, 26417, 26419, and 26431 – appear on blocks of the commemorative issue, known to philatelists as the plates that produced all the petroleum centennial stamps and identified as “Scott (Catalog number) 1134.”

“We look to this stamp as more than a commemorative symbol. With more than 120 million stamps to be issued, it will go throughout the world as a reminder of what can be achieved by the combination of free enterprise and the vision and courage and effort of dedicated men,” declared Summerfield.

The first day of issue resulted in 801,859 of the stamps mailed from and canceled in Titusville, including many with a special cachet illustration “Born in Freedom, Working for Progress” created by artist Norman Rockwell.

Summerfield concluded his remarks to the crowd in Titusville by declaring the stamp “will serve as a worldwide tribute to all who have brought the oil industry to its present greatness – and to its leaders who are moving with confidence to meet the challenge of the future.”

2009 Stamp Rejection

Public perceptions may have changed greatly since 1959, but not the significance of the 1859 discovery of Edwin L. Drake, father of the American petroleum industry.

The U.S. Postal Service commemorated Kermit the Frog and nine of his Muppet friends in 2005.

Although the Postal Service Stamp Advisory Committee turned down requests for one 150th anniversary oil stamp design, it earlier granted stamps to Kermit and nine of his popular Muppet friends. The failed attempt to commemorate the petroleum industry was not unique.

In 1934, efforts to recognize the industry’s 75th anniversary, its diamond jubilee, did not succeed. In 1949, Senate Bill 1098 provided for the issuance of a commemorative stamp for the 90th anniversary.

Senate Bill 1098 did not pass, but the setback did not stop Titusville and many other oil patch communities from celebrating their local heritage in 1949 and later years. Centennial stamps have been preserved by the American Philatelic Research Library, Bellefonte, Pennsylvania — documenting 1959 public recognition of the petroleum industry’s vital role in modern society, a decade before the Santa Barbara oil spill.

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Recommended Reading:  Black Gold: The Philatelic History of Petroleum (1995); Myth, Legend, Reality: Edwin Laurentine Drake and the Early Oil Industry (2009); The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power (1991); The Extraction State, A History of Natural Gas in America (2021). 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. © 2025 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.

Citation Information – Article Title: “Centennial Oil Stamp Issue.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/petroleum-art/centennial-oil-stamp-issue. Last Updated: August 21, 2025. Original Published Date: December 1, 2007.

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The widely popular Depression Era newspaper comic strip character Alley Oop began in the imagination of a young cartographer who drew Permian Basin oilfield maps in Texas.

The club-wielding Alley Oop caveman appeared for the first time in the summer of 1933 when Victor Hamlin, a former Ft. Worth Star-Telegram reporter, published fanciful tales about the Stone Age Kingdom of Moo. Hamlin began syndicating his daily cartoon in Iowa’s Des Moines Register. 

The cartoonist’s idea for a fanciful Paleolithic Age comic strip that would be featured in more than 800 newspapers began in a small oil “company town” in the Permian Basin of West Texas.

A 1995 U.S. postage stamp commemorated the Alley Oop character of Victor Hamlin, a cartoonist and cartographer who once drew oilfield maps during the Yates drilling boom at Iraan, Texas.

The oil town of Iraan (pronounced Eye-Rah-Ann) later would proclaim itself the inspiration for Alley Oop. According to locals, Hamlin’s cave-dwelling, comic-strip character originated in the arid region’s earliest — and prolific — oilfields.

Permian Basin Discoveries

Permian Basin oil production began on July 20, 1920, when a wildcat well in Mitchell County erupted on land owned by Texas Pacific Land Trust agent William H. Abrams. Just weeks earlier, another of his exploratory wells had revealed an oilfield in Brazoria County south of Houston.

The latest Abrams well, “shot” with nitroglycerin by the Texas Company (later Texaco), led to more West Texas oilfield discoveries in the Permian Basin, eventually encompassing 75,000 square miles and reaching into southeastern New Mexico.

In May 1923, when the Santa Rita No. 1 well roared in on land owned by the University of Texas, major oil companies joined smaller, independent companies in a rush to explore the extent of the massive, petroleum-rich geologic formation. 

Once called a West Texas “petroleum graveyard,” the first Permian Basin oilfield arrived in 1920 in Mitchell County. Map of 2023 oil and natural gas fields courtesy Texas Railroad Commission.

The Permian Basin at the end of 2022 accounted for nearly 40 percent of all U.S. oil production and nearly 15 percent of natural gas production, according to the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC).

Yates oilfield

Iraan became a Texas boom town following the discovery of the Permian Basin’s Yates oilfield on  October 28, 1926. The southeastern Pecos County town’s unusual name combined the first names of townsite owners Ira and Ann Yates.

The Ira G. Yates 1-A well of Mid-Kansas Oil and Gas Company and Transcontinental Oil Company produced 450 barrels of oil a day from a depth of 992 feet in the San Andres geologic formation. It revealed the giant Yates oilfield, which brought prosperity to Midland and Odessa with production of more than 40 million barrels of oil in three years.

Permian Basin discoveries also attracted Victor Hamlin, a young cartoonist from Perry, Iowa. Hamlin, who reportedly witnessed the first oil gusher at Iraan, had been hired by an oil company as a cartographer making site maps. His work led to the creation of Alley Oop, according to comic-strip historian Mike Hanlon.

Cartographer Cartoonist

As West Texas and Iraan grew in the late 1920s, Hamlin worked long hours in Permian Basin oilfields. “He could watch dinosaur bones being removed by the steam shovels and scrapers as they cleared the sites for drilling, wells, and pumps,” Hanlon explained in “The Man Who Walked With Dinosaurs.”

“It was in Texas that he took his first airplane ride and subsequently did aerial photography of oilfields,” added another Hamlin researcher for an article in The Comic Journal. The future creator of Alley Oop developed a life-long interest in geology and paleontology. 

The 2012 journal article noted that Hamlin and his wife Dorothy discussed ideas for a cartoon “fueled by geological lore.” Hamlin said they settled on what they felt would have outstanding eye appeal, a strip featuring dinosaurs, adding, “That subject would be just the ticket for a couple of ambitious young folks from Texas, where Sinclair Oil Company had made the big prehistoric reptiles a startling advertising showpiece.”

Hamlin also began doing artwork for petroleum industry publications as he became even more fascinated by the Permian Basin’s desolate landscape — and the dinosaurs that once roamed there.

Alley Oop Oop

The official start date of Victor Hamlin’s caveman as a daily comic strip came on August 7, 1933, when “Alley Oop” began syndication with the Newspaper Enterprise Association. The caveman’s adventures in the prehistoric nation of Moo would appear in many Sunday newspaper pages. 

Decades after the roughnecking days of Iraan ended, the Hollywood Argyles released a song describing Alley Oop as “the toughest man there is alive.” The 1960 song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 that year; another version of Alley Oop also proved popular.

The Alley Oop R.V. Park, owned by the City of Iraan, can be found off I-10, on Alley Oop Lane.

With improved 21s-century drilling and oil recovery techniques, production from the Yates field has continued  — with millions of barrels of recoverable oil remaining. Meanwhile, West Texas travelers have discovered the Alley Oop R.V. Park at the northwest edge of Iraan. 

Although Hamlin retired in 1971 and died in 1993, his daily Stone-Age strip still appears in hundreds of newspapers, now created by Jack and Carole Bender. The U.S. Postal Service in 1995 selected the former oilfield cartographer’s Alley Oop as one of the 20 commemorative “Comic Strip Classics” postage stamps.

Petroleum production from Iraan’s Yates oilfield doubled in 1976, following saltwater injections to maintain pressure and Marathon becoming operator of the field’s unitization. The Pecos County black giant produced its billionth barrel of oil on January 11, 1985.

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Recommended Reading: Yates: A family, A Company, and Some Cornfield Geology (2000); Alley Oop’s Ancestors: The Newspaper Cartoons of V.T. Hamlin (2015). 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. © 2025 Bruce A. Wells.

Citation Information – Article Title: “Alley Oop’s Oil Roots.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/petroleum-art/alley-oop-origin-in-permian-basin. Last Updated: July 23, 2025. Original Published Date: August 2, 2015.

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The Tin Man in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz can trace his roots to the earliest U.S. oilfields where L. Frank Baum operated a lubricant business before becoming the famous children’s book author.

“Sometimes, when researching history, you find places where it’s still alive,” explained Evan Schwartz in Finding Oz: How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American Story.

Before publishing his children’s book in 1900, L. Frank Baum sold a popular axle grease from a company he and his brother founded in 1883.

Schwartz’s search for the oil can of the Tin Woodman led him to discover that in the 1880s, L. Frank Baum and his brother operated a petroleum products business after their father’s success with starting oilfield-related businesses brought the Baum family to Syracuse, New York.

The future author of the children’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz sold cans of buggy wheel and axle oils when he and older brother Benjamin operated a successful Syracuse venture offering lubricants — and Baum’s Castorine, the Great Axle Oil.

L. Frank Baum — whose father found success in Pennsylvania oilfields — served as chief salesman for Baum’s Castorine Company of Syracuse, New York.

Reporting on the July 9, 1883, opening, the Syracuse Daily Courier newspaper noted that Baum’s Castorine was a rust-resistant axle grease concoction for machinery, buggies, and wagons. The axle grease — with its added castor oil — was advertised to be “so smooth it makes the horses laugh.”

Baum’s Castorine Company prospered with Frank serving as superintendent and chief sales representative for the next four years. The upstate New York business was less than 300 miles from Titusville, Pennsylvania, where the first U.S. oil well had been drilled in 1859.

Tin Woodman

As the 20th century approached, L. Frank Baum spent much of his time visiting small towns to market the brothers’ oil products, according to a 2011 exhibit at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum in Michigan. The exhibit also noted, “On one of these trips, while installing a window display for a customer, the idea of the Tin Woodman came to him.”

L. Frank Baum’s sales trips influenced Oz. “On one of these trips, while installing a window display for a customer, the idea of the Tin Woodman came to him.”

The former exhibit at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum also explained that although the Baum petroleum lubricating products enjoyed some success, the original business, “came to an end when the bookkeeper gambled away the profits.”

Baum himself wrote of the Baum’s Castorine Company, “I see no future in it to warrant my wasting any more years of my life in trying to boom it.”

The frustrated businessman sold the business, which by 1879 had new owners — and is still doing business in 2024 as Baum’s Castorine Company. In May 1900, the former oil products businessman published the first of his 14 Oz children’s books, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which was followed by The Marvelous Land of Oz four years later.

Petroleum Producer’s Son

L. (Lyman) Frank Baum was born in Chittenango, New York, on May 15, 1856, the seventh of nine children of Cynthia Stanton and Benjamin Ward Baum — one of only five of the children to survive into adulthood.

Thanks to Benjamin Ward Baum’s financial success in the newly established Pennsylvania petroleum industry, the young Baum grew up in an environment where his imagination and love of reading flourished.

Baum’s Castorine products “are designed to extend machine life and reduce your maintenance costs.”

In 1860, just one year after America’s first commercial oil discovery, Benjamin Ward Baum closed the family barrel-making business to risk his fortune in the western Pennsylvania oilfields. “Frankie” was then only four and a half years old. Productive oil wells drilled near Titusville and Cherry Tree Run would bring his enterprising father great wealth.

“Benjamin recognized a splendid opportunity and joined the crowds who moved in to exploit the oilfields and develop the area. A hundred new wells were drilled every month, ingenious mechanical contrivances were invented, towns and cities were built,” wrote Katharine M. Rogers in her 2002 book L. Frank Baum, Creator of Oz: A Biography.

“Benjamin began acquiring oilfields, including a particularly profitable one at Cherry Tree Run, a few miles south of Titusville,” Rogers reported. “He later bought property between Bradford, Pennsylvania, and Olean, New York, where he helped to develop the hamlet of Gilmour and built a hotel and an opera house.”

As U.S. consumer demand for kerosene lamps skyrocketed, Pennsylvania’s oil region produced the new industry’s earliest tycoons, long before Standard Oil Company (also see the cautionary tale of the Legend of “Coal Oil Johnny”).

By 1862, the elder Baum owned Carbon Oil Company and was a well-established independent oil producer. His success helped finance diversification into dry goods and other mercantile businesses. Son Frank found employment in several of these family ventures as a young man.

When his father purchased the Cynthia Oil Works in Bolivar, New York, Frank operated a retail outlet for a while.

L. Frank Baum’s father once owned an oil company in Bolivar, New York, where a museum today exhibits the region’s extensive petroleum history. Photo by Bruce Wells.

“The Cynthia Oil Works, the first refinery in Bolivar Township, was erected on the Porter Cowles flats at the north end of Bolivar village in 1882,” according to historian Ronald G. Taylor.

“The plant, owned by B.W. Baum & Son, dealers in oil leases and managers of the first opera house at Richburg, was designed as a lubricating oil works and for the manufacture of ship oil of 300 fire test for illuminating on board ships,” Taylor explained.

Although there were nine daily and 18 weekly newspapers published in the oil regions, there no longer was unlimited free enterprise in oilfields. “John D. Rockefeller had moved in and was increasingly controlling distribution,” added Rogers in her book.

“In 1878, Benjamin organized a group of independent producers to break Rockefeller’s grip by building a pipeline from Bradford to Rochester, where the oil could be transferred to tank cars and shipped to refineries in New York and Buffalo.”

Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company used its influence with the New York Central Railroad and the state legislature to block the planned pipeline. Despite the setback, Baum continued to find success with prolific oil wells in New York. 

After almost 30 years in the oil business, Benjamin Ward Baum (1821-1887) died in Syracuse, New York. His petroleum wealth had helped him acquire small theaters in New York and Pennsylvania and permitted his son to pursue writing, publishing journals, and writing for the stage — perhaps setting the stage for Frank’s future fame.

Finding Tin Man’s Oil Can

When historian Evan Schwartz researched his Finding Oz book in 2009, he was surprised to learn of the role petroleum played in Baum’s life — and that the Tin Woodman’s oil can trace its roots to Baum’s Castorine Company.

L. Frank Baum sold his Baum’s Castorine Company in 1888. His many Castorine sales trips may have led to the idea of a Tin Woodman character for his book, illustrated by W.W. Denslow.

“L. Frank Baum sold cans of buggy wheel oil for a living as the co-owner of Baum’s Castorine Company of Syracuse, New York,” Schwartz explained, noting the company’s troubles that led to Baum’s selling it in 1888. Schwartz also discovered the company still manufactured industrial oils and lubricants under the brand name, Baum’s Castorine Company.

“So I visited the current location in Rome, New York, and sat down for a peek into the archives with owner Charles Mowry, whose grandfather was one of the investors who bought the company from Frank Baum himself,” Schwartz wrote.

“The smells of fine lubricant wafted in the air as I perused the collection of historic oil cans and heard the legend of Baum’s magic balms,” he noted. “What if Frank had never sold oil cans? Would we have never met the heartless Tin Man? And in 1939, why wasn’t Baum’s Castorine given the chance to pony up for some choice product placement?”

Learn about the historic Allegheny petroleum industry by visiting the Pioneer Oil Museum of New York in Bolivar. 

A Boy’s Oilfield Adventures

In addition to documenting the earliest signs of oil, geologist and historian Ray Sorenson has been a frequent contributor to the Petroleum History Institute (PHI) publication Oil-Industry History, which in 2012 included his paper about an oilfield in Warren County, Pennsylvania.

During his research, Sorenson discovered the long out-of-print Prince Dusty: A Story of the Oil Regions, an 1891 book by Kirk Munroe. It tells the story of a boy’s adventures in the booming Pennsylvania oilfields and now is preserved in the Library of Congress (LOC) juvenile literature collection.

“To my knowledge, this was the first children’s novel based on the oil industry with a plot line that followed in part the Cherry Grove activity,” Sorenson noted, adding the book, “is probably the only publication where a 12-year-old is on the rig floor handling nitroglycerine shots.”

In chapter four, while at a well drilled by his uncle, the young Dusty Prince prevents an explosion as the 20-foot tin tube is filled with nitro, “the color of soft soap, and about as thick as syrup.” 

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Recommended Reading: Finding Oz: How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American Story (2009); L. Frank Baum, Creator of Oz: A Biography (2002); Empire Oil: The Story of Oil in New York State (1949). 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. © 2025 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.

Citation Information – Article Title: “Oil in the Land of Oz.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/petroleum-art/l-frank-baum-castorine-oil. Last Updated: July 3, 2025. Original Published Date: June 1, 2005.

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