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Spindletop is an oil field located in the southern portion of Beaumont, Texas, in the United States. The Spindletop dome was derived from the Louann Salt evaporite layer of the Jurassic geologic period. On January 10, 1901, a well at Spindletop struck oil. The Spindletop gusher blew for 9 days at a rate estimated at 100,000 barrels (16,000 m3) of oil per day. Gulf Oil and Texaco, now part of Chevron Corporation, were formed to develop production at Spindletop. The Spindletop discovery led the United States into the oil age. Prior to Spindletop, oil was primarily used for lighting and as a lubricant. Because of the quantity of oil discovered, burning petroleum as a fuel for mass consumption suddenly became economically feasible.
Sour Lake is a city in Hardin County, Texas, United States. The population was 1,773 at the 2020 census. It was originally named "Sour Lake Springs", after the sulphurous spring water that flowed into the nearby lake. The city is part of the Beaumont–Port Arthur Metropolitan Statistical Area. Sour Lake is the oldest surviving town in Hardin County. It is called by some the "Gateway to the Big Thicket".
Beaumont is a coastal city in the U.S. state of Texas. It is the seat of government of Jefferson County, within the Beaumont–Port Arthur metropolitan statistical area, located in Southeast Texas on the Neches River about 85 miles (137 km) east of Houston. With a population of 115,282 at the 2020 census, Beaumont is the largest incorporated municipality by population near the Louisiana border. Its metropolitan area was the 10th largest in Texas in 2019, and 132nd in the United States.
Anthony Francis Lucas was a Croatian-born American oil explorer. With Pattillo Higgins he organized the drilling of an oil well near Beaumont, Texas, that became known as Spindletop. This led to the widespread exploitation of oil and the start of the petroleum age.
The Mid-continent oil field is a broad area containing hundreds of oil fields in Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. The area, which consists of various geological strata and diverse trap types, was discovered and exploited during the first half of the 20th century. Most of the crude oil found in the onshore Mid-continent oil field is considered to be of the mixed base or intermediate type.
The Yount-Lee Oil Company, founded in 1914, was the successor to the Yount-Rothwell Oil Company which had been formed earlier by Miles Franklin Yount and Talbot Frederick Rothwell. It was part of the Texas Oil Boom period.
Spindletop Hall, located at 3414 Iron Works Pike in Lexington, KY, is the former home of Pansy Yount, wife of Miles Franklin Yount of the Yount-Lee Oil Company. It is currently the home of the University of Kentucky's staff, faculty, and alumni club, which was founded in 1962.
Saratoga is an unincorporated community in Hardin County, Texas, United States. It is located approximately 26 miles (42 km) northwest of Beaumont and adjacent to the Big Thicket National Preserve. The ZIP code is 77585.
Pattillo Higgins was an American businessman and a self-taught geologist. He earned the nickname the "Prophet of Spindletop" for his endeavors in the Texas oil business, which accrued a fortune for many. He partnered to form the Gladys City Oil Gas and Manufacturing Company, and later established the Higgins Standard Oil Company.
Glenn Herbert McCarthy was an American oil tycoon. The media often referred to him as "Diamond Glenn" and "The King of the Wildcatters". McCarthy was an oil prospector and entrepreneur who owned many businesses in various sectors of the economy. McCarthy founded the Shamrock Hotel in Houston, which garnered him national fame and inspired the fictional character Jett Rink in Edna Ferber's 1952 novel Giant which, in 1956, became a film, which starred James Dean in the role.
Thomas Peter Lee was born on March 19, 1871, in Petroleum, West Virginia to Alexander and Martha Jane Mount Lee, Thomas Peter Lee left school at the age of sixteen and went to work in the oil fields, first in his native state and then in Ohio. In 1903 he moved to Saratoga, Texas, where he gained employment with the newly formed Texas Company, which eventually became Texaco, and when he left that organization ten years later, he had attained the rank of general superintendent of production. While there, however, he became friends with J.S. Cullinan, and the two, along with Emerson Francis Woodward, Will C. Hogg, and James L. Autry, joined in 1914 to form the Farmers Petroleum Company, of which Lee became president.
William Ellsworth Lee was an American businessman.
Emerson Francis Woodward was an oilman who co-founded the Yount-Lee Oil Company which made a major discovery at the Spindletop field near Beaumont, Texas. In 1935, Woodward and partners sold the company to Standard Oil & Gas for $46 million.
Walter William Fondren Sr. was an American oil industry businessperson and philanthropist in Texas. He co-founded Humble Oil Company, an antecedent to ExxonMobil.
Everette Lee DeGolyer, was a prominent oil company executive, petroleum exploration geophysicist and philanthropist in Dallas. He was known as "the founder of applied geophysics in the petroleum industry", as "the father of American geophysics," and was a legendary collector of rare and often early edition books primarily in the fields of Southwestern history, railroads, law, geology, science, and both English and American literature.
Michel Thomas Halbouty was an American geologist, petroleum engineer, and wildcatter. Credited with discovering more than 50 oil and gas fields, he twice declared bankruptcy, but came back each time to regain wealth. He authored hundreds of technical articles on petroleum geology, and two book-length histories of famous oil fields. Halbouty is often described, including in his New York Times obituary, as “legendary.”
The Texas oil boom, sometimes called the gusher age, was a period of dramatic change and economic growth in the U.S. state of Texas during the early 20th century that began with the discovery of a large petroleum reserve near Beaumont, Texas. The find was unprecedented in its size (worldwide) and ushered in an age of rapid regional development and industrialization that has few parallels in U.S. history. Texas quickly became one of the leading oil-producing states in the U.S., along with Oklahoma and California; soon the nation overtook the Russian Empire as the top producer of petroleum. By 1940 Texas had come to dominate U.S. production. Some historians even define the beginning of the world's Oil Age as the beginning of this era in Texas.
The Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum is located in Beaumont, Texas, to commemorate the discovery of oil at the Spindletop Hill salt dome in Beaumont on Jan. 10, 1901. The discovery sparked an oil boom in Texas that continues today. Along with a gift shop with commemorative gifts, the museum features historical, period reenactments by area performers. A replica of the wooden oil derricks that once dotted the landscape of Spindletop Hill in the early 1900s has been erected near the museum. For special occasions and anniversaries, the museum staff “blows the gusher” with a plume of water and provides a historical narrative and sound effects to simulate the discovery of oil at Spindletop.
The Texas Energy Museum is a museum in Beaumont, Texas in the United States. The museum was formed in 1987 to tell the story of oil through state of the art exhibits including talking robotic characters. The museum opened on January 10, 1990, the anniversary of the Spindletop gusher.
John Henry Phelan, was an American oil producer and philanthropist. In partnership with Miles Franklin Yount, he worked for the Yount-Lee Oil Company.
References
- McKinley, Fred B., and Greg Riley. Black Gold to Bluegrass: From the Oil Fields of Texas to Spindletop Farm of Kentucky. Austin: Eakin Press, 2005.
Further reading
- "Miles Frank Yount", The Handbook of Texas Online
- "Frank Yount, Godfather of Beaumont", TexasEscapes.com
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