On
January 10, 1901 after almost nine years of poking useless holes
into a salt dome formation near Beaumont, Texas in the southeast corner of the state near the Louisiana line and Gulf Coast some nearly
busted and discouraged wildcatters watched
in amazement as oil geysered 150
feet in the air from a well head at
a rate of 100,000 barrels per day. It took nine days before the well was brought under control. When the well began pumping instead of spewing
an oil boom was set off around the
Gulf Coast, an industry was disrupted and transformed, and the door
was opened to the age of the automobile for better or for worse.
The petroleum industry got its start in
1859 when Colonel Edwin L. Drake
struck rock oil at Titusville, Pennsylvania. It
grew rapidly after the Civil War based
on demand for a replacement of whale oil as
a lamp fuel—coal oil or kerosene—lubricants for the railroads and other rapidly expanding industries, and eventually as
a heating fuel. Oil quickly became one of the most valuable commodities in the U.S.
By
the late 1870s John D. Rockefeller and
his partners dominated the oil
industry via a spider web of companies centered on his Standard
Oil of Ohio. In 1882 those companies
were consolidated into the nation’s
first all-powerful Trust under the holding company, Standard Oil of New
Jersey. It controlled virtually all
production, distribution, and sales of
oil products and quickly used its power to ruthlessly destroy
upstart competitors, drive prices high,
and evade state laws intended to regulate it.
Public outrage, spurred by the
work of muckraking journalists, led
to the passage of the Sherman Anti-Trust
Act which regulated or outlawed many of Standard Oil’s business practices under Federal Law. Under siege, legions of lawyers
fought enforcement for years. It was not
until 1911 that the courts finally
ordered the break-up of Standard Oil
into regional companies.
Meanwhile
production in Pennsylvania peaked
around 1890. Exploration led to new fields but satisfied with the high prices of
restricted supply Standard officials
were slow to expand exploration to the West
and South. Even if they had wanted to, its business practices had stirred up Populist resentment in the Midwest and West. Sentiment
was riding so high against the
company that Texas barred Standard Oil from operating in the state in
1900. The door was ajar.
Everyone
knew there was oil around the Gulf where it bubbled to the surface in
several areas on land, in swampy bayous,
and even in Gulf waters. Native
Americans had long used it as a salve
and medicine. Huckster
showmen were mixing it with alcohol and sometime cocaine to peddle by the bottle as patent medicine. The
trick was finding ways to extract
the oil in quantity economically
enough to compete with Standard Oil.
Enter
the wildcatters who took their name from the Wildcat banks of the Jacksonian
Era which fraudulently issued
banknotes with little or no capital to back them up. Similarly independent oil speculators formed companies, sold stock, and borrowed
money to finance their
operations. The vast majority of the
wildcatters went bankrupt, often multiple times taking down their investors and creditors with them.
In
August 1892, George W.
O’Brien, George W.
Carroll, Pattillo Higgins and
others formed the Gladys City Oil,
Gas, and Manufacturing Company to drill on Spindletop Hill. They sunk nothing but dry holes and were soon being hounded
by irate investors. Money dried up. Higgins, a one armed rascal—he had lost the arm in a shootout with a deputy
sheriff which left the lawman dead after
trying to torch a Black Baptist church—left the group and
sought new backers and partners. A he
found Croatian born Capt. Anthony F.
Lucas, an expert in salt domes
who agreed with his assessment that there was oil under the hill. In 1899 the new partners began to drill again, but the light equipment Lucas used collapsed when they reached a depth of 575. So did their credit.
Instead,
Lucas cut a new deal for backing with Pittsburgh
investors James M. Guffey, who held and controlled funds, and John H. Galey that left him
with a minority stake and cut out
Higgins entirely. Lucas resumed drilling
in October 1900 with an experienced crew.
Higgins's erstwhile partner, Serbian born engineer Anthony F. Lucas a/k/a Antun Lucic brought in the gusher at Spindletop named for him but was soon forced out by his Eastern banker partners.
It
was a difficult drill through unsteady sand but on January 10 the crew
of roughnecks was sent scurrying for their lives as a six ton, four-inch drilling pipe shot
out of the hole. Officially named Lucas #1 but usually called the Lucas gusher, the success of the well
set off a stampede of exploration on Spindletop which rapidly spread to other
Gulf sites in Texas and Louisiana. The Oil Boom was on.
The
single well produced around 100,000 barrels a day. The population of Beaumont mushroomed
from 8,000 to 60,000 within a year. By 1902 285 wells were operating on
Spindletop Hill and over 600 oil companies had been chartered. Lucas, a minority partner, did not share in the bonanza of wealth produced by the well. He was forced
out of the company leaving it in the hands of the Eastern investors by the
end of the year.
Higgins
for his part sued Lucas and his former partners claiming that he still held the
valid lease on the mineral rights of the well. The complicated
case dragged out in the courts but in 1903 Higgins was essentially paid off with $3 million to go
away. He went on to found other oil
companies, usually quarreling with his partners and leaving before the wells
could produce much revenue.
The
Oil Boom came at an auspicious moment. It assured
what seemed like unlimited supplies of
cheap oil just as the infant automobile industry was about to
take off. Heretofore scores of small companies had
been founded the most successful of which hand
built a dozen or so cars a year for sale
to the rich in search of new toys and ways to display their wealth. But
the matter of how automobiles would be powered was far from settled. Several companies were producing battery powered electric cars and steam still looked like a viable option. The prospect of cheap gasoline tipped the scales to internal combustion engines.
In
1903 the Curved Dash Olds became the
first successfully mass marketed car. Soon several companies with familiar names were turning out luxury cars—Cadillac,
Packard, and Buick among
them. Henry Ford entered the market with his inexpensive assembly line produced Model T in 1908 which put motoring within the reach of the middle class and within a few years
even blue collar workers. By 1920 millions of vehicles were on the
road, city streets were being paved,
and a haphazard web of interconnecting highways was being
developed. America was on wheels and powered by gasoline.
All
the wealth produced by this boom was not destined to stay in the hands of small time operators like Higgins and
Lucas and the others that followed them to Spindletop and to a succession of
oil boom towns from Tampico in Mexico to the Texas interior
and Oklahoma up to Wyoming and out in California. Sometimes led by
an astute oil man but more
frequently by bankers and Wall Street
investors the small firms were gobbled
up and linked to refineries and distribution systems. Out of Spindletop and surrounding oil
fields Gulf Oil and Texaco were formed and were soon
competing with Standard Oil and after the Federal break-up its still powerful
regional descendants. In post-World War I America branded gas stations became a national fixture.
MGM's Boom Town starring Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Clauette Colbert, Heddy Lamarr, and Frank Morgan was just one of the films inspired by Spindle Top.
The
story of Spindletop also influenced pop
culture. The 1940 MGM classic Boom Town starring
Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy,
Claudette Colbert, Heddy Lamarr, and Frank Morgan was largely inspired by Higgins and Lucas. Edna
Ferber’s novel Giant and the
1956 Warner Bros. epic
movie starring Rock Hudson,
Elizabeth Taylor, and James Dean partially
modeled the bitter and jealous character Jeff Rinks on Higgins.
More recently the Academy Award
winning 2008 film There Will Be Blood based on Upton Sinclair’s muckraking novel Oil! starring
Daniel Day Lewis also drew
inspiration Spindletop.
The
Lucas Gusher Monument is a nearly 60
foot tall obelisk topped by a Texas Lone Star was erected at the site of
the original well head in 1941. In 1977
it was moved to the Spindletop Gladys
City Boomtown Museum in Beaumont near a reproduction of the original oil derrick. Today
a flagpole marks the original well.
No comments:
Post a Comment