With America joining “the war to end all wars” in Europe and oil demand rising, a popular Oklahoma showman launched his own petroleum exploration and refining company.

Although not as well known as his friend Col. William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody of Wyoming, Maj. Gordon William “Pawnee Bill” Lillie was “a showman, a teacher, and friend of the Indian,” according to his biographer.

Col. William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody and Maj. Gordon William “Pawnee Bill” Lillie combined their shows from 1908 to 1913 as “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Pawnee Bill’s Great Far East.”

Maj. Lillie was admired for being a “colonizer in Oklahoma and builder of his state,” noted Stillwater journalist Glenn Shirley in his 1958 book Pawnee Bill: A Biography of Major Gordon W. Lillie.

The two entertainers joined their shows in 1908 to form “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Pawnee Bill’s Great Far East,” promoted as “a glorious cavalcade of dazzling brilliancy,” noted Shirley, adding that the combined shows offered “an almost endless procession of delightful sight and sensations.”

But times were changing as public taste turned to a new form of entertainment, motion picture shows. By 1913, the two showmen’s partnership was over, and their western cavalcade was foreclosed. Lillie turned to other ventures — real estate, banking, ranching, and like his former partner, the petroleum industry (see Buffalo Bill Shoshone Oil Company).

Oklahoma oilfield discoveries near Yale (population of only 685 in 1913) had created a drilling boom that made it home to 20 oil companies and 14 refineries. In 1916, Petrol Refining Company added a 1,000-barrel-a-day-capacity plant in Yale, about 25 miles south of Lillie’s ranch.

The trade magazine Petroleum Age, which had covered the 1917  “Roaring Ranger” oilfield discovery in Texas, reported that for Pawnee Bill, “the lure of the oil game was too strong to overcome.” 

Obsolete financial stock certificates with interesting histories, like Pawnee Bill Oil Company are valued by collectors.

The Oklahoma showman founded the Pawnee Bill Oil Company on February 25, 1918, and bought Petrol Refining’s new “skimming” refinery in March.

An early type of refining, skimming (or topping) removed light oils, gasoline, and kerosene and left a residual oil that could also be sold as a basic fuel. To meet the growing demand for kerosene lamp fuel, early refineries built west of the Mississippi River often used the inefficient but simple process.

Maj. Gordon William “Pawnee Bill” Lillie (1860-1942).

Lillie’s company became known as Pawnee Bill Oil & Refining and contracted with the Twin State Oil Company for oil from nearby leases in Payne County.

Under headlines like “Pawnee Bill In Oil” and “Hero of Frontier Days Tries the Biggest Game in All the World,” the Petroleum Age proclaimed:

“Pawnee Bill, sole survivor of that heroic band of men who spread the romance of the frontier days over the world…who used to scout on the ragged edge of semi-savage civilization, is doing his bit to supply Uncle Sam and his allies with the stuff that enables armies to save civilization.”

Post-War Refinery Bust

By July 30, 1919, Pawnee Bill Oil (and Refining) Company had leased 25 railroad tank cars, each with a capacity of about 8,300 gallons. But the end of “the war to end all wars” drastically reduced demand for oil and refined petroleum products. Just two years later, Oklahoma refineries were operating at about 50 percent capacity, with 39 plants shut down.

Although Lillie’s refinery was among those closed, he did not give up. In February 1921, he incorporated the Buffalo Refining Company and took over the Yale refinery’s operations. He was president and treasurer of the new company. But by June 1922, the Yale refinery was making daily runs of 700 barrels of oil, about half its skimming capacity.

The Pawnee Bill Oil Company held its annual stockholders meetings in Yale, Oklahoma, an oil boom town about 20 miles from Pawnee Bill’s ranch.

“At the annual stockholders’ meeting held at the offices of the Pawnee Bill Oil Company in Yale, Oklahoma, in April, it was voted to declare an eight percent dividend,” reported the Wichita Daily Eagle. “The officers and directors have been highly complimented for their judicious and able handling of the affairs of the company through the strenuous times the oil industry has passed through since the Armistice was signed.” 

The Kansas newspaper added that although many independent refineries had been sold at receivers’ sale, “the financial condition of the Pawnee Bill company is in fine shape.” 

Wild West Oil Ventures

What happened next has been hard to determine since financial records of the Pawnee Bill Oil Company are rare. A 1918 stock certificate signed by Lillie, valued by collectors one hundred years later, could be found selling online for about $2,500.

Maj. Gordon William “Pawnee Bill” Lillie’s friend and partner Col. William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody also had caught oil fever, forming several Wyoming oil exploration ventures, but none of them lasted. In 1920, yet another legend of the Old West — lawman and gambler Wyatt Earp — began his a search for oil riches on a piece of California scrubland. One century later, his Kern County lease still paid royalties; learn more in Wyatt Earp’s California Oil Wells.

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Recommended Reading: Pawnee Bill: A Biography of Major Gordon W. Lillie (1958). 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: “Pawnee Bill Oil Company.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/stocks/pawnee-bill-oil-company. Last Updated: February 21, 2026. Original Published Date: February 24, 2017.

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Arkansas’ first commercial oil well was drilled in 1921 at El Dorado in Union County, 15 miles north of the Louisiana border. The 68-square-mile field led U.S. oil output by 1925 with production reaching 70 million barrels of oil.

When another well in 1922 revealed the Smackover field, Arkansas oil fever grew, attracting more exploration companies and speculators (see First Arkansas Oil Wells). According the state geologist, the giant oilfield at Smackover produced more 606 million barrels of oil by 2016.

 Arkansas Oil Ventures issued 1,999,000 shares of stock in 1952, but found no oil.

In addition to oil production, a 50-mile-wide geologic formation across central Arkansas, the Fayetteville Shale, promised large quantities of natural gas — but drilling and production technologies of the day could not economically produce the gas.

When Arkansas oil production declined from about 58 million barrels of oil in 1926 to 12 million barrels in 1932, a dozen new fields were discovered, most between 1936 and 1947.

A 1941 oil well drilled in Columbia County, Arkansas, where four counties produced about 85 percent of the state’s oil. Photo courtesy of Arkansas Natural Resources Museum, Smackover.

By 2016, more than 1.8 billion barrels of oil had been produced in Arkansas with four counties — Union, Lafayette, Columbia, and Ouachita counties — producing 85 percent of the oil, according to the Office of the State Geologist.

Cumulative production of unconventional gas (methane gas in coal seams) from the Fayetteville Shale was estimated at 7.34 trillion cubic feet.

Arkansas Oil Ventures

“From the late 1930s into the late 1960s, the oil industry enjoyed a resurgence in south Arkansas, though paling in comparison to the boom years of the early 1920s,” noted historian Kenneth Bridges of the South Arkansas Community College. Among those attempting to take part in the state’s exploration and production growth was Arkansas Oil Ventures.

Although few financial records can be found today, the new oil company incorporated in Delaware in 1952 and issued almost two million shares of stock. It drilled the Doggett No. 1 well in Jackson County, Arkansas. The well was a dry hole.

Arkansas Oil Ventures was out of the oil business by 1961 — but recapitalized as Trojan Industries in 1969. The recapitalization included exchanging each share of Arkansas Oil Ventures common stock (one cent par value) for one share of Trojan Industries common stock (one-half cent par value).

Leaving the petroleum business far behind, Trojan Industries changed its name to Leisure Trends Inc. in May of 1970. The company’s charter was cancelled March 1, 1978.

The Arkansas Museum of Natural Resources near Smackover has preserved the social, economic, and environmental history of the state’s petroleum industry.

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The stories of exploration and production companies trying to join petroleum booms (and avoid busts) can be found in updated research at Is my Old Oil Stock worth Anything?

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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Join today as an annual AOGHS supporting member. 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: “Arkansas Oil Ventures.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/old-oil-stocks/arkansas-oil-ventures. Last Updated: January 5, 2026. Original Published Date: April 20, 2015.

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In July 1953, Fidel Castro’s revolutionaries first challenged the government of Fulgencio Batista with organized guerrilla resistance and revolution. Three years later, United Cuban Oil incorporated with Ted Jones as president and offices in Los Angeles. The investment banking firm of S.D. Fuller & Company underwrote the venture, investing $534,694 to control 66 percent of United Cuban Oil stock.

The new petroleum company’s objective was “to consolidate production, development and exploration of oil and gas on concession rights (38 leases) in Cuba.” Jones had existing but independent ventures working on the north coast of the island, including Companie de Fomento Petrolero.

United Cuban Oil filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to register 2,573,625 common stocks and an initial public offering of 2,000,000 shares at $1.25 a share. The company exchanged 573,625 shares of stock one-for-one to absorb Jones’ Companie de Fomento Petrolero and make it a subsidiary.

Jones’ holdings in Cuba also became subsidiaries: Empresas Petroleras Jones de Cuba and Compania Perforadora Jones de Cuba. A group headed by James J. McBride bought 1,200,000 shares to be held in escrow for three years.

On June 13, 1957, United Cuban Oil announced plans to drill in California. The selected site was on the 111 acre Muller ranch, about three miles west of La Honda. Drilling of the Muller No. 1 well began on June 29. Interviewed by the Santa Cruz Sentinel, company president Jones took the opportunity to promote United Cuban Oil’s prospects with its six producing wells in Cuba.

Six weeks later, Jones, “reportedly stated that oil was struck at 2,610 feet in 45 feet of oil sand. Officials would only say that it was producing a ‘couple of hundred barrels.’” Regardless of production, by the end of August 1957, United Cuban Oil had plugged and abandoned the Muller well after water intrusion and a failed re-drilling effort.

In Texas, United Cuban Oil completed its No. 1A Coker well in Coleman County, five miles northeast of Novice. But the wildcat well turned out to be just a brief producer. It too was abandoned. At the time, United Cuban Oil was selling for about 56 cents a share on the American Stock Exchange, but for any business operating in Cuba, everything changed on January 1, 1959. Fidel Castro seized power, dictator Fulgencio Batista fled the island, and the Cold War became more dangerous.

Back in the United States, United Cuban Oil was reorganized by three wealthy entrepreneurs from El Paso, Texas. In May 1959, they merged Balcones Corporation, Dell City Gas Company, and United Cuban Oil to form a new company while retaining the United Cuban Oil name and Ted Jones as president. The company planned to move its headquarters to El Paso.

Although United Cuban Oil’s underwriters, S.D. Fuller & Company, offered analysis of prospects to potential investors in the Commercial and Financial Chronicle, few were willing to gamble on Cuba’s uncertain future. By November 1959, the Law 635 of the Batista government effectively stripped United Cuban Oil of its Cuban operations.

The stories of exploration and production companies joining petroleum booms (and avoiding busts) can be found updated in Is my Old Oil Stock worth Anything? The American Oil & Gas Historical Society preserves U.S. petroleum history.

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Trek of the Oil Finders: A History of Exploration for Petroleum (1975); History of Oil Well Drilling (2007);The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power (1991); The Birth of the Oil Industry (1938); Groundbreakers: The Story of Oilfield Technology and the People Who Made it Happen (2015). 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: “United Cuban Oil Inc.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/old-oil-stocks/united-cuban-oil-inc. Last Updated: February 8, 2026. Original Published Date: December 6, 2018.

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The search for oil began in 1904 at Cat Canyon In the Solomon Hills of central Santa Barbara County, California. It remote, challenging terrain, and exploration companies drilling with cable tools failed to find anything for four years before the Palmer Oil Company discovered an oilfield about 10 miles southeast of Santa Maria.

Palmer Oil Company derricks and refinery in Santa Barbara County, California, circa 1920s.

Palmer Oil’s Santa Maria well initially produced 150 barrels of oil a day, but within a few months it jumped to 10,000 barrels a day (see Shooters — a “Fracking: History). The exploration company soon completed a second well. With it and other 1908 discoveries, Palmer Oil opened the Cat Canyon oilfield — the largest in Santa Barbara County at the time.

“The Palmer Oil Company is generally concluded to have opened one of the biggest and richest oil fields in California by the bringing in of its two gushers in the Cat Canyon District, now doing 10,000 barrels per day between them,” declared the trade publication “Oil Age Weekly” on September 9, 1910.

Although the Cat Canyon oilfield produced “heavy oil” with a high sulfur content, the success of Palmer Oil brought new investors, and the company was capitalized at $10 million by the beginning of 1911. The latest oil boom (see First California Oil Wells) attracted 26 exploration companies that completed 35 producing wells.

By 1927, Palmer Oil Company had reorganized into Palmer Union Oil Company as it continued to drill on Santa Barbara, California, leases.

By 1927, despite Cat Canyon’s proven oil reserves, drilling and production challenges of the heavy, high sulfur content prompted investors to look for better returns on their investments.

Palmer Oil to Coca-Cola

New drilling in Cat Canyon stalled — as did Palmer Oil, which began the first of its many corporate convolutions by becoming the Palmer Union Oil Company.

In January 1932, Palmer Union Oil became Palmer Stendel Oil Corporation, beginning decades of mergers and acquisitions: Palmer Stendel Oil Company – Petrocarbon Chemicals Incorporated – Great Western Producers – Pleasant Valley Wine Company – Taylor Wine Company – Coca-Cola Company.

After the Great Depression and World War II, water-flooding technology resurrected the Cat Canyon field’s production capability to a peak in 1953. Millions of barrels of oil were recovered and even in 1983, production was still about 350 barrels a day.

One century after its discovery by Palmer Oil Company, the Cat Canyon oilfield had 243 active oil wells. In a state long known for its natural oil seeps, enhanced recovery technologies revived oil production in Santa Barbara County and California’s other heavy oil-producing regions.

To extract reserves previously considered unrecoverable, companies like HVI Cat Canyon (Greka Energy), ERG Resources, and others used tertiary thermal recovery techniques. The use of using steam injection was costly, but lowered the viscosity of the oil, allowing it to better flow to the surface. Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) and other production technologies could lessen dangers to the environment, but not eliminate them.

A 1927 Palmer Union Oil Company stock certificate purchased at a garage sale in 2008 sparked a legal battle with Coca-Cola.

Although the U.S. Energy Information Administration in 2013 ranked Cat Canyon as 17th on its list of the nation’s top 100 producing oilfields, by 2023, a U.S. District Court found HVI Cat Canyon Inc. (formerly Greka Oil & Gas Company) liable for oil spills. The company was ordered  to pay $40 million in civil penalties for the spills, another $15 million for violations of federal regulations, and $2.5 million in cleanup costs.

 no company having partial ownership in Coca-Cola Company (see Not a Millionaire from Old Oil Stock).

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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: “Palmer Oil Company.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL:https://aoghs.org/old-oil-stocks/palmer-oil-company. Last Updated: January 22, 2026. Original Published Date: December 7, 2023.

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He was a controversial North Pole visitor whose fraudulent claims were part of failed oil company ventures, a mail fraud conviction, and jail time.

Arctic explorer Dr. Frederick Albert Cook in 1908 made the widely accepted claim to have reached the North Pole after an arduous journey. He became a celebrity after accounts of his feat appeared in newspapers. Cook’s near approach to the pole would be erased in less than a year when Admiral Robert E. Peary made a scientifically documented journey to achieve the milestone.

In 1909, a special commission at the University of Copenhagen investigated Cook’s conclusion that he had reached the pole before Peary. After examining Cook’s records, the commission on December 21, 1909, found no evidence Cook had reached the pole. The U.S. Congress formally recognized Peary’s claim in 1911.

“Dr. Frederick A. Cook, the Brooklyn physician whose reported discovery of the North Pole has thrilled the civilized world.”

Cook would spend years defending his claim, despite the lack of navigation evidence. He published My Attainment of the Pole and threatened to sue anyone who said he had faked the trip. Then he got into the petroleum exploration business. 

Celebrity Promoter

In 1917 Cook conducted geological explorations in Wyoming for his newly formed company, the Texas Eagle Oil Company of Fort Worth. Wyoming’s first real petroleum boom had arrived in 1908 when Salt Creek’s “Big Dutch” well came in as a gusher, bringing a flood of entrepreneurs and investors (see First Wyoming Oil Wells).

However, even with railroad tank cars, the lack of Wyoming infrastructure meant it could not compete in eastern markets because of transportation costs. Falling oil prices forced the Texas Eagle Oil Company into bankruptcy. Undismayed, Cook rebounded in September 1920 with a group of Fort Worth investors and incorporated the Revere Oil Company.

His Texas Eagle experience had convinced him to focus on fundraising from stockholders of small, failing companies. “If I could have raised $50,000, I could have saved that large company with its large properties for its stockholders,” Cook later claimed. 

“Combining with the Revere taught me that that was a reasonable method of how many other companies then being neglected or lying inactive, put under one head, could be renovated and the stockholders put in a position to make some money,” Cook added. U.S. Postal Service investigators saw it differently.

The famed but fraudulent explorer who had laid claim to reaching the North Pole in 1908 was convicted in 1923 after testimony from almost 300 witnesses.

Subsequent federal grand jury indictments of Cook declared that “In March 1921, the promoters, it is charged, entered upon a ‘so-called merger plan,’ each merger resulting in the acquisition of additional lists of stockholders who were advised in extravagantly phrased circulars and letters of the merger and promised safety from loss in their investment in the old company.”

The indictments noted that investors were required to “exchange their stock dollar for dollar for stock in the Revere Company with the stipulation that they purchase new stock equal to 25 percent of their holding in the ‘merged company.’”

Blizzard of Hyperbole

Undeterred by legal threats, Cook organized another venture in 1922 — the Petroleum Producers’ Association  — using the same Revere Company “fold in” merger scheme as it was known at the time.

“Cook’s response was to raise the level of hyperbole in his promotional literature,” reported Roger and Diana Olien in a Business and Economic History article. “His own prose tended to be unexciting, so he hired one of the best ‘pens’ in the business, Seymour E.J. “Alphabet” Cox, to write high-powered material at a weekly salary of $5,000 plus commissions on some stock sales.”

Revere Oil Company and the Petroleum Producers’ Association acquired lists of vulnerable stockholders from failed, smaller companies, “most of which investors had already suffered huge losses.”

Cook and skilled adman Cox launched a blizzard of hyperbole. Their marketing campaign eventually amounted to a daily total of up to 30,000 promotional letters, brochures, and industry “tip sheets.” Instead of petroleum geologists and drilling contractors, Cook hired more than 50 full-time stenographers, including two “addressograph” operators, two printers, and a full-time mail boy. 

“Cox’s genius as a copywriter soon was obvious. The collaboration of Cook and Cox brought in $250,000 in less than two months — as much as Cook alone had raised in nearly a year,” noted the Oliens in their 1988 article, “Competition for Capital in Two Oil Ventures.” 

The Arctic explorer’s fraudulent marketing convinced thousands of unwary investors to buy into the Petroleum Producers’ Association. The fraudulent association along with the Revere Oil Company would later be charged for “having taken over more than 250 smaller companies, in most of which investors had already suffered huge losses.”

Among the companies taken over was the Rose City Petroleum Company, which was $50,000 in debt at the time, according to G.W. Hays, former governor of Arkansas — and a shareholder in the company. Established in 1921 to build a 1,000-barrel-a-day refinery in Little Rock, Rose City Petroleum had struggled, making its investors susceptible to Cook’s scheme.

Hundreds of thousands of promotional letters, brochures, and industry “tip sheets” promoted the failed explorer’s oil venture, which earned him a Leavenworth, Kansas, prison sentence.

Newspapers reported that Cook bought “sucker lists” from defunct and dying oil companies to target vulnerable investors, “each one holding out a new hope of recouping money lost in a previous adventure or of becoming rich overnight from the black gold that flows from Texas oil wells.”

Federal investigators charged that in three years of operations, Revere Oil Company bilked investors of more than $6 million.

In 1923, after testimony from almost 300 witnesses, Cook, “Alphabet” Cox and others were convicted of ”dispersing stock-sales revenues as dividends, claiming income from nonproducing wells, and otherwise misrepresenting the company’s position.” 

Learn more about “Alphabet” Cox in Prudential Oil and Refining Company.

Frederick Albert Cook, the self-proclaimed conqueror of the North Pole, was fined $12,000 and sentenced to 14 years and 9 months in Leavenworth prison in Kansas. “You have at last got to the point where you can’t bunko anybody,” said District Court Judge John Killits.

Paroled in 1930, Cook received a pardon from President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940. The explorer who almost reached the North Pole died five months later at age 75. Smithsonian magazine examined Cook’s claim in an April 2009 article, “Who Discovered the North Pole?”

The stories of exploration and production companies joining petroleum booms (and avoiding busts) can be found updated in Is my Old Oil Stock worth Anything? Exaggerated and sometimes fraudulent claims by shady ventures seeking investors grew in the years following World War I — especially as giant oilfield discoveries made headlines (see Exploiting North Texas Oil Fever).

As the Great Depression approached, states began passing “blue sky laws” to regulate securities sales and protect the public. Congress finally acted in 1934 to stop skilled business hucksters like “Alphabet” Cox from taking advantage of unwary investors seeking often fictional profits.

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Recommended Reading – My Attainment of the Pole (1911); Easy Money: Oil Promoters and Investors in the Jazz Age (1990). Your Amazon purchases benefit the American Oil & Gas Historical Society.

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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: “Arctic Explorer turned Oil Promoter.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/oil-almanac/secret-offshore-history-of-the-glomar-explorer. Last Updated: December 9, 2025. Original Published Date: April 1, 2013.

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Drilling for natural gas in May 1903, an exploratory well drilled by Gas, Oil and Developing Company found natural gas beneath William Greenwell’s farm near Dexter, Kansas. The discovery came as the company drilled into a geologic formation that produced “a howling gasser” that would not burn.

The Gas, Oil and Developing Company well daily produced about nine million cubic feet of what turned out to be helium-rich natural gas from a depth of just 560 feet. Discovery of a natural gas field promised economic growth for the small farming town of Dexter.

University of Kansas professor Hamilton P. Cady discovered significant amounts of helium in a natural gas well drilled near Dexter, Kansas. He and D.F. McFarland made the discovery in 1905.

After the discovery — and envisioning a prosperous future — the Kansas community planned to advertise its natural gas field similar to towns in Indiana and Ohio. Abundant natural gas supplies in those states (from the Trenton Field) led to a natural gas boom, bringing pipelines and many manufacturing industries.

An 1886 natural gas field discovery well 100 miles southwest of Findlay, Ohio, had flowed at 12 million cubic feet per day. With technologies like the blowout preventer yet to be invented, the “Great Karg Well” could not be brought under control.

After igniting, the Ohio well’s pressurized plume burned for four months. It became a popular tourist attraction. In 1906, oilfield firefighting technologies were tested in Kansas by a blazing, out-of-control well in Caney (see Kansas Gas Well Fire).

Dexter’s residents also had read newspaper accounts of their state’s potential petroleum riches since the first Kansas oil well of 1892 at Neodesha. An excited crowd would gather expectantly at the Gas, Oil and Developing Company well.

The Gas That Wouldn’t Burn

“Darkness came, the mayor made a speech, and he called for a bale of burning hay to be tossed onto the well. To the crowd’s dismay, the gas extinguished the hay. More attempts were made without success, and eventually the crowd left, their dreams shattered,” noted John A. Taylor in his 2022 book, Helium: Its Creation, Discovery, History, Production, Properties and Uses.

The Cowley County well’s “roaring gas blew out every flame brought near it,” adds a Kansas State Historical Marker (no. 59). The flowing well produced another kind of gas along with natural gas. 

As the historical marker explains, the well was unusual because it produced, “The Gas That Wouldn’t Burn.” 

Production from the helium-natural gas well faded away but Cowley County residents have continued to celebrate their 1903 “wind gas” well.

For the next two years, the Dexter well was scornfully called the “Wind Gas” well by disappointed residents. The Gas, Oil and Developing Company disappeared by the time scientific analysis revealed the natural gas contained almost two percent helium.

Discovering Helium

Scientists determined that Dexter’s gas wouldn’t burn because it contained mostly nitrogen with some methane, but for the first time in history, they found helium as a constituent of natural gas.

A Dexter, Kansas, marker notes a nearby gas well led to a scientific discovery that “lighted the way to a multi-million dollar industry.”

“This primary discovery of helium in natural gas is credited to Professors H. P. Cady and D. F. McFarland of the University of Kansas,” explains the historical marker 12 miles west of Cedar Vale at the K-15 junction. The Dexter discovery would help launch the first U.S. Navy airships.

According to the American Chemical Society, any practical use for helium was years away. “In the decade that followed, helium remained a curiosity and the entire U. S. supply rested in three glass tubes on a shelf.”

The historical marker outside Dexter continues: Helium was first used in balloons during World War I. For a few years, beginning in 1927, a privately owned commercial plant at Dexter supplied gas for Navy dirigibles. Later valuable uses developed in industry.

In the 1950’s, demand soared when helium became essential to the operation of nuclear reactors and ballistic missiles. Though Dexter’s well no longer produces, the torch that wouldn’t burn lighted the way to a multi-million dollar industry.

The Shenandoah, built in 1923 and shown emerging from its Lakehurst, N. J. hangar, was the U.S. Navy’s first helium-filled airship. The Navy’s second (1924) was the Los Angeles, but helium was so scarce that only one of these airships could be operated at a time.

Although the United States would become the world’s largest producer of helium, the Gas, Oil and Developing Company disappeared into thin air. Old stock certificates from the company have been popular to collectors — but not for producing wealth for the company’s investors.

Modern industrial extraction plants draw helium from natural gas with annual global production of about 175 million cubic meters.

Although the Dexter well produced “The Gas That Wouldn’t Burn,” it led to scientific advances that lighted the way for a multi-million dollar industry, according to the American Chemical Society, which designated the discovery of Kansas helium in natural gas a national historic chemical landmark in 2000.

It all began where helium was discovered in a natural gas field — Dexter, the small town still proud of its rare atmosphere. Learn more Kansas petroleum history in Kansas Well reveals Mid-Continent.

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Recommended Reading: Helium: Its Creation, Discovery, History, Production, Properties and Uses (2022); Helium: The Disappearing Element (2015); 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: “Kansas ‘Wind Gas’ Well.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/stocks/gas-oil-and-developing-company-the. Last Updated: November 26, 2025. Original Published Date: February 14, 2013.

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The history of Con Edison includes stories of work crews from New York City’s many competing gas companies digging up lines of rivals — and literally battling for customers, giving rise to the term “gas house gangs.”

Competing New York City manufactured gas companies provided lighting beginning in 1823. This 1873 “bird’s eye view” illustrates New York and Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Bridge, under construction from 1870 to 1883, is at right. Image courtesy Library of Congress.

Still among the nation’s largest gas utility companies, Consolidated Edison, Inc. — known as “Con Edison” or “Con Ed” — began on November 11, 1884, when six New York City gaslight companies merged (New York, Manhattan, Metropolitan, Municipal, Knickerbocker, and Harlem).

Public street lamps used manufactured gas to illuminate Baltimore, Maryland, in 1817, making the Gas Light Company of Baltimore the first U.S. commercial gas lighting company. A manufacturing plant distilled tar and wood to create the gas.

In Pennsylvania, employees of the newly formed Philadelphia Gas Works in 1836 ignited 46 “coal gas” lights along the city’s Second Street (learn more in Illuminating Gaslight).

New York City’s giant utility can trace its roots to more than six decades earlier, beginning with the New York Gas Light Company, which provided manufactured gas (also called town gas) by distilling coal.

New York City Gas Light

“Before the Brooklyn Bridge spanned the East River, before the Statue of Liberty first graced New York Harbor, and before skyscrapers rose above New York City’s streets, the utility companies that would eventually become Con Edison were already building the energy infrastructure needed to fuel and sustain the city’s growth,” notes a company historian.

First published in 1850 as the population of New York topped 500,000, reporter George Foster’s New York by Gas-Light featured bowling alleys, dance halls, saloons, and theaters.

In 1823, New York Gas received a charter from the New York State Legislature to serve all of Manhattan south of an east-west line created by Grand, Sullivan, and Canal Streets.

“Like most early gas companies, New York Gas would focus its efforts on street lighting, in this case, supplementing or replacing the whale oil lamps that were installed by the city beginning in the 1760s,” according to Con Edison. Manufacturing gas from coal, the Manhattan Gas Light Company in 1833 began to provide service to Manhattan above Grand and Canal streets.

Rapidly expanding use of gaslight brought a municipal nightlife as the population of New York topped 500,000 by 1950 — the year newspaper reporter George Foster published New York by Gas-Light and Other Urban Sketches: With Here and There a Streak of Sunshine.

“Foster expressed optimism about the future of the great metropolis, yet he worried about the growing divide between rich and poor,” noted a 2012 exhibit at the Library Company of Philadelphia, America’s oldest cultural institution, founded in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin. 

Gas House Gangs

Another New York City “coal gas” company came on the scene in 1855 when the Harlem Gas Light Company received a city franchise to serve customers north of 79th Street. In 1858, the Metropolitan Gas Light Company got a city-wide charter and went into direct competition with the existing gas companies.

More companies organized, including New York Mutual Gas Light in 1866 and the Municipal Gas Light Company in 1876. “With six major gas companies serving New York City, the streets were constantly being torn up by one company or another installing or repairing their own mains — or removing those of a rival,” explains the Con Edison website.

From time to time, work crews from competing companies would inadvertently meet on the same street and literally battle for customers, adding a new urban phrase, “gas house gangs.”

The laying of first electric cables in 1882 (for Thomas Edison) came decades after manufactured gas lines. Conflicts between crews from competing gas companies gave rise to the term “gas house gangs.”

“In May 1880, the city’s major gas companies reached an agreement on the price of gas and ended the construction of competitive mains,” the website adds. “It was a business arrangement that would be unlawful today but was legal and sensible at the time.”

Electrification of New York

Just as company executives were looking forward to the financial stability and profitability the agreement would bring, a new problem was just beginning.

In December 1879, Thomas Edison had demonstrated his newest invention — the incandescent light bulb. As electric lamps quickly became the light of choice (replacing gas and kerosene lamps), the New York gas companies countered by finding new uses for their product, especially using gas for heating and cooking.

But the future survival of the gas business seemed to depend on joining forces. Consolidated Gas Company would result from the November 11, 1884, merger of New York, Manhattan, Metropolitan, Municipal, Knickerbocker, and Harlem gas companies.

Through the years, the company acquired more manufactured gas — and natural gas — ventures along with electric companies (including Edison’s) to serve New York City and Westchester County. It became Consolidated Edison Company of New York in the mid-1930s.

“By 1932, New York Edison’s parent company, Consolidated Gas, was the largest company in the world providing electrical service,” concludes the company website. “In 1936, with electric sales far ahead of gas sales, Consolidated Gas changed its name to the Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc.”

In 2020, Con Ed distributed steam, electricity, and natural gas to more than one million customers in Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, and most of Westchester County. More than 4,200 miles of gas mains and nearly 400,000 service pipes transported natural gas from fields in Texas, Louisiana, and the Gulf of Mexico.

Learn about the history of New York’s petroleum industry — which began in 1865 — at the Pioneer Oil Museum of New York in Bolivar.

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Recommended Reading:  In Pursuit of Fame: Rembrandt Peale, 1778-1860 (1993); The Extraction State, A History of Natural Gas in America (2021); Empire Oil: The Story of Oil in New York State (1949); New York by Gas Light and other Urban Sketches: With Here and There a Streak of Sunshine (1850). 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: “History of Con Edison.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/stocks/con-edison-american-utility-company. Last Updated: November 7, 2025. Original Published Date: April 29, 2013.

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During World War I, the Winona Oil Corporation set up operations in Casper, Wyoming, with holdings of 1,200 acres of “selected land in the heart of Powder River.” The small, newly established exploration company reported having one drilling rig and another ready to be “rigged up” at another site.

A Winona Oil Company station sold gasoline and and Ivaline Motor Oil, circa 1919. After months of difficult drilling, the company’s first exploratory well reached a depth of 700 feet without finding oil.

As the Powder River Basin attracted exploration companies, a 1918 discovery at a depth of about 2,600 feet by the Ohio Oil Company (later Marathon) would grow into the largest in the Rocky Mountains. Ohio Oil could afford drilling more productive wells a thousand feet deeper.

Along with earlier discoveries at Salt Creek (1908) and Big Muddy (1916), the Lance Creek field “brought an immediate boom and derricks sprang up everywhere,” according to the Niobrara Historical Society. The Basin’s abundant shale deposits also played a role.

With capitalization of $200,000, Winona Oil was considered a “poor boy” drilling venture dependent upon investors to fund continued drilling despite the risks. The company offered stock at 5 cents a share. Advertisements in the Ogden Standard enticed investors with “Winona Is Here to make Money, Money, Money.”

In February 1918, C. Kirchner, secretary of the Winona Oil, conducted a promotional demonstration of the reduction of shale oil to gas for about 50 onlookers. “This gas was lighted and burned during the entire experiment to such an extent that a couple of engineers in the party made the remark that the gas itself would furnish 90 percent of the fuel necessary for the original reduction,” it was later proclaimed.

This Winona Oil interest in shale oil did not develop, although other contemporary ventures did pursue it (see Ute Oil Company).

Powder River Oilfield

Winona Oil by 1919 had only been able to drill 700 feet in its first drilling effort somewhere “on the north side of the railroad.”

“Hocus Pocus-or-Common Sense?” Ivaline Motor Oil sales did not help the Winona Oil Company to survive its drilling ventures in the highly competitive oilfields of the Powder River Basin.

In March 1919, a trade magazine noted that “the Powder River Syndicate has undertaken to finish the well commenced by the Winona Oil Corporation at Powder River, Natrona Co., according to reports current in Casper.”

Another article in the Oil & Gas News added, “In the Powder River field, the Winona Oil Corporation has announced the purchase of a drilling machine which will be used to complete the company’s first well, which has been underway for months. The Winona claims to have solved all its difficulties and expects to go with its work without further delay.”

By the end of May, Winona Oil Company reportedly survived its financial difficulties and had reentered the field. Plans were by then underway to drill a second well.

Good news came the following month when the first well was described as “gassing heavily, and Casper people interested in the enterprise are very optimistic over the prospects,” the trade publication proclaimed, adding. “Should the well prove a good one, a large tract north of Powder River station would be added to the territory considered proven.”

However, by August the good news had gone bad; the gasser well had to be abandoned, “as the hole was started with a casing too small to see it thoroughly.”

Powder River Syndicate

A second well was spudded by the Powder River Syndicate with Winona Oil a fifty-fifty partner. “The Winona Powder River Syndicate well No. 2, which was begun when the first hole pinched-out, is making 100 feet a day, according to reports from the field, and is down about 500 feet. This well is located north of Powder River, on Winona holdings,” noted the Oil & Gas News on September 4.

The publication reported bad news on January 29, 1920. “The Winona well at Powder River is also shut down, but it is claimed that drilling will resume in the spring,” the News noted. “This is the second well, the first having been lost on account of a bit wedged in the hole.”

Drilling did not resume in the spring or anytime thereafter. Despite the efforts of Winona Oil and the hopes of its investors, the independent exploration company did not survive. Cities Service Company bought Winona Oil and moved the Winona division to St. Paul, Minnesota.

More articles about small exploration and production companies attempting to join petroleum booms (and avoid busts) can be found in Is my Old Oil Stock worth Anything? 

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Recommended Reading: Black Gold, Patterns in the Development of Wyoming’s Oil Industry (1997); 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 annual AOGHS 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: “Winona Corporation.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/old-oil-stocks/winona-oil-corporation. Last Updated: October 18, 2025. Original Published Date: March 23, 2016.

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In October 1917, Wyoming Peerless Oil Company stock promotions first appeared in the pages of the Cheyenne State Leader, Laramie Republican, and Wyoming Tribune newspapers.

Peerless Oil and other newly formed exploration companies promoted themselves with often exaggerated newspaper ads in the Milwaukee Journal, June 2, 1918.

Within a year the new exploration company’s advertisements appeared in newspapers as far away as Milwaukee, Wisconsin: “Action Not Promises Our Motto,” noted one from 1918 placed in the Milwaukee Journal.

Many U.S. newspapers at the time included similar promotions as oilfield discoveries proliferated from California to Kansas. Just a few years earlier, Col. William F. Cody had searched for Wyoming black gold (see Buffalo Bill Shoshone Oil Company).

Another example of a Peerless Oil Company promotion of its Wyoming Big Muddy exploration effort.

Meanwhile, demand for gasoline had been growing since the first U.S. auto show in 1900. The Model T Fords and World War I, which the United States would soon join, resulted in a rapid proliferation of petroleum exploration companies.

Some of the startups used questionable claims to keep investors unaware of how risky and expensive the business of  finding and producing oil truly was. Nine out of 10 exploratory well attempts proved to be dry holes — and petroleum exploration was expensive in such remote areas.

The Big Muddy

The Wyoming Peerless Oil Company set its sights on drilling a well six miles from the nearest producer in the Big Muddy oilfield east of Casper.

Peerless Oil stock was initially offered at three cents per share. “Don’t wait for our first well to come in. You might not be able to get this stock then for less than 25-cents or 50-cents per share.”

Many companies tried but failed to find petroleum wealth in the Big Muddy field.

The Big Muddy oilfield, located about four miles west of Glenrock in Converse County, was discovered in 1916, a discovery that touched off widespread drilling and brought about one of Wyoming’s famous oil booms. Today, a marker on the south side of Hwy. 230 at the junction with County Road 33 describes the historic field:

Big Muddy oil field is a typical Wyoming oil producing structure. The field, discovered in 1916, has produced over 30 million barrels of high quality oil.

Strata here were arched upward at the time the Rocky Mountains originated over 60 million years ago, to form anticline, or dome. Because oil is lighter than water, it rose to the crest of the dome where it was trapped in pore spaces between sand grains. The Wall Creek sand lies at a depth of near 3,000 feet and the Dakota sand at about 4,000 feet. The first oil well in Wyoming was drilled in 1884. There are now about 100 oil fields in the state.

The Big Muddy field in Converse County launched a drilling boom, notes a University of Wyoming’s 2019 article, Wyoming Energy History. “Claim jumpers entered the area, some only drilling at night and pretending to be construction workers on the site during the day,” the article reports, adding that 13 steam boilers were stolen — and cable-tools “lost” down holes (see Fishing in Petroleum Wells).

Peerless Oil

Seeking more investors, advertisements reported Wyoming Peerless Oil’s drilling progress on its Big Muddy exploratory well: Down 1,475 feet by June of 1918; down 1,675 feet by July and down to 3,315 feet by August of 1919.

Although rumors of a dry hole began to circulate, the company continued to solicit more investors to fund deeper drilling. But after reaching 4,050 feet without finding oil, company officer Charles Straub announced the well would be abandoned. If more funds could be secured, Wyoming Peerless Oil would drill a second well, Straub added.

“Efforts have been made to extend the limits of the (Big Muddy) field in every direction, but these efforts have all been failures, and the area of the field is plainly marked,” reported the Oil and Gas News (this would change in 1950 with a discovery to the east of the field).

By February 1920, stockholders from Denver had petitioned a court to put the Wyoming Peerless Oil Company into receivership, alleging mismanagement by Straub and other company officers. Straub responded with a $50,000 libel suit, reported by the Casper Daily Tribune on March 5, 1920. Wyoming Peerless Oil never drilled a second well, and the company disappeared from newspaper accounts.

The first record of oil in Wyoming came in 1832. An expedition led by Captain B.L.E. Bonneville took the first wagons through South Pass. Fifty years later, prospector Mike Murphy bought an oil lease on the site of Capt. Bonneville’s “great tar spring” southeast of Lander.

Learn more in First Wyoming Oil Wells.

The stories of exploration and production companies joining petroleum booms (and avoiding busts) can be found updated in Is my Old Oil Stock worth Anything?

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

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Wildly optimistic promotions during WW I and some drilling, but no gushers.

“Oil Excitement at Rocky Ford Field Near Sundance,” proclaimed a front page of the Moorcroft (Wyoming) Democrat on September 14, 1917, describing a “big drill” of the Wyoming-Dakota Company.

“Rocky Ford, the seat of the oil activities in Crook County is about the busiest place around,” the newspaper continued. “Cars come and go, people congregate, and the steady churning of the two big rigs continues perpetually.”

Not finished with its enthusiastic reporting, the Moorcroft Democrat noted: “Excitement has reached the zenith of tension, and with each gush of the precious fluid, oil stock climbs another notch. The big drill of the Wyoming-Dakota Co. has been pulled from their deep hole until spring. The drill reached 600 feet and was in oil.”

North Texas oilfield discoveries had made national headlines, adding to the excitement in Wyoming, where the giant Salt Creek-Midwest field was revealed in 1908. Even showman Col. William F. Cody would catch oil fever (see Buffalo Bill Shoshone Oil Company).

Wyoming-Dakota Oil

The Rapid City, South Dakota, petroleum exploration company Wyoming-Dakota Oil — reportedly having one producing well and three more drilling — was capitalized at $500,000 with a par value of 25 cents per share. All of its leases were in Crook County, including 3,200 acres in Lime Butte field, 10,000 acres in Rocky Ford field, and 4,000 acres in Poison Creek field.

Since Wyoming would not pass its first “Blue Sky” law to prevent fraudulent promotions until 1919, Wyoming-Dakota Oil’s newspaper ads often rivaled patent medicine exaggerations. Potential investors were enticed with “Geologists claim this showing indicates alone 500,000 barrels to the acre” and “Your Chance Has Come if you want to make money in Oil.”

In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the Sells Investment Company offered Wyoming-Dakota Oil Company stock reportedly after “a careful selection of conservative issues from among the thousand prospects, offering same to you before higher prices prevail or its present substantial position has been discounted by professional traders. A good clean cut speculation of this character may mean a fortune. Watch this company for sensational developments.”

The United States had entered World War I in April 1917; by November newspapers reported Francis Peabody, chairman of the Coal Committee of the Council of National Defense, was telling the U.S. Senate Public Lands Committee that the country was not producing enough oil to win the war.

“He said if nothing were done to develop new wells the reserve supply would be exhausted in twelve months and production would be 50,000,000 barrels less than requirements,” one newspaper noted. Wyoming-Dakota Oil Company executives took advantage of the opportunity while more Texas discoveries like “Roaring Ranger” made headlines.

“The (war) situation outlined leads us to suggest that you investigate Wyoming-Dakota Oil. ‘We are doing our bit’ by drilling night and day. Ours is an investment worth while. The allotment of Treasury stock at 25 cents is almost sold out and the Directors will advance the price of stock to 50 cents a share (100 per cent on your present investment) on December 15th, 1917.”

The Wyoming-Dakota Oil promotion continued: “By that time our newspaper announcement in the Eastern cities, pointing out the enormous acreage, present production and negotiations for additional valuable holdings will be made known to millions of seasoned investors in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston and Pittsburgh. We feel confident this will result in a demand for this stock that will send the present market price skyward. We trust you will see the wisdom of prompt action before all available stock at 25 cents per share has been purchased by other investors.”

In early 1918, Wyoming-Dakota Oil Company had drilled wells in the Upton-Thornton oilfield and was “holding out high hope of bringing in a gusher in a few days.” In July, the Laramie Daily Boomerang reported the company had “two rigs going steadily in Crook County’s Rocky Ford field” — but no oil gushers.

Growing investor pessimism was reflected in Wyoming-Dakota Oil Company’s stock prices, which fell in over-the-counter markets from 75 cents bid in June 1919 to 50 cents bid at the end of September. By March 1920, brokers offered 5,000 shares or any part thereof at 5 cents a share.

A final blow to the company was reported in the Laramie Republican of July 25, 1921: “Wyoming-Dakota…has completed pulling the casing from the well which it has been drilling north of town, after having struck a formation said to be granite, at a depth of 715 feet.”

The Laramie newspaper remained optimistic. “While this has a tendency to retard the activities of other interests, it is by no means stopping them entirely and it is to be hoped that another well will be started this summer.”

That did not happen. Reports on Wyoming-Dakota Oil Company disappeared for the next 24 years, until a court summons was published in the January 25, 1945, Sundance (Wyoming) Times.

The summons said Wyoming-Dakota Oil — address or place of residence to plaintiff unknown — was being sued in the Sixth District Court of Wyoming. The exploration company then faded into history; its stock certificates valued only by scripophily collectors.

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

Citation Information: Article Title – “Wyoming-Dakota Company” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL https://aoghs.org/old-oil-stocks/wyoming-dakota-oil-company. ‎Last Updated: March 31, 2025. Original Published Date: January 14, 2016.

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