EARLY OIL-Nothing to write home about

First a word about the photo.  The original for this was sent to me by an old friend.  The original was in pretty bad shape but over the course of a couple of weeks I was able to do a pretty decent restoration on it.  Borger, TX - Circa 1926

The first time Texas coastal oil was documented was in 1543.  The Spanish Explorer, Luis de Moscoso Alvarado was shipwrecked between High Island and Sabine Pass and noticed a viscous substance floating on the water.  The only excitement stemming from his discovery was the fact he and his shipmates could use the substance to caulk their newly constructed boats.

As settlers began to move into Texas, they noticed oil seeps here and there.  And by 1874, oil or asphalt had been documented in 18 Texas counties.  Those early settlers had no idea they were sitting smack dab in the middle of a veritable “gold mine.”  Oil had no economic value and no one cared.  One has to think it was probably viewed as a giant pain in the neck to people trying to scratch out a living in the dirt.

In 1866, Lyne Taliaferro Barret made the first deliberate effort to drill for oil in Nacogdoches County.  He hit for a well that produced an unimpressive 10 barrels a day.  That brought about sporadic drilling by others but the practically non-existent  demand for oil squashed rapid development. 

When oil was discovered in Corsicana all interest in Nacogdoches was effectively killed.  In 1897, the Corsicana field sported an impressive 287 wells and birthed the first Texas refinery four years later.

But then, Pattillo Higgins’, belief in the existence of oil under the Big Hill salt dome near Beaumont hit pay dirt.  In spite of the failure of three test wells, Higgins and his investors persuaded mining engineer Anthony Lucas to drill.  Lucas began drilling in October of 1900 and continued throughout the winter.

The well came in on January 10, 1901 at 10:30 am with a gusher twice as high as the wooden derrick.  It took 9 days to cap the well that was to produce an incredible 75,000 barrels a day.  Spindletop validated Higgins’ belief in a big way.

That veritable “gold mine” that no one cared about became a reality with gold that was thick and black. Suddenly, everyone cared and cared deeply.  Just as it had happened in the 1849 California gold rush, people swarmed to the upper Texas coast.

 Texas oil as an industry had been born from a dome of salt and neither Texas or the world would ever be the same.

Source—Historic Photos of Texas Oil—Mike Cox