Month of May 2022: Local History

This was a pretty interesting history book that reads much like a novel. The main characters are introduced and followed through the discovery, the oil boom, and their deaths. The three female authors did a great job setting the stage for the discovery of oil and its effects on the people and the area in and around Beaumont, Texas, and included a ton of early photos.

Spindletop is only a 40 minute drive from my house. I have driven by this place right off Highway 69 a million times throughout my life and have never once stopped to investigate. The only thing there today is a field with a bit of a replica built village and, according to this book, a marker where the original Lucas Gusher was discovered…never any people.

Spindletop was not the first oil discovery in the U.S, but it was the first to spew more oil than all the oil already discovered in the U.S. and around the world put together. The Lucas Gusher was the first big oil gusher discovered on January 10, 1901, on Sour Mound Hill, a natural salt dome, but no one was ready for it. They hadn’t even considered how to cap it off, and a million barrels worth of oil spewed 150 feet into the air and out all over the fields for nine days straight, until a cap was invented, then it dried up.

Before the Lucas Gusher, Corsicana laid claim to the largest oil drilling site in the State of Texas, producing 65,975 barrels a year.

Drilling on Sour Mound Hill continued and six more gushers were discovered in the area in the following two months. This time they were ready. A cap had been created and storage tanks as well. They were ready to roll. These discoveries put America in first place for oil over Russia’s oil discoveries. Beaumont, Texas, once a settlement called Tevis Bluff, became an overnight sensation, people came in from all over hoping to strike it rich. The population rose from about 9,000 to 30,000 in a matter of a few weeks. Beaumont was not prepared to house or care for so many people. This provides little nuggets of interesting reading.

It's crazy to think that oil wasn’t actually “drilled” before 1859. They used to gather it wherever they saw a spring or hand dug to get to the oil. Pennsylvania eventually had the first drilled wells, owned by none other than John D. Rockefeller.

After the Lucas Gusher, and following the six gushers, in 1901, another six more wells by different companies were built and began digging into Sour Mound Hill, now known as Spindletop, and the next gusher blew 11 weeks later, on March 26. By June, all thirteen had discovered oil. By October 1901 there were 440 wells, 77 were gushers. By Nov and Dec there were 138 more gushers with 46 rigs in the process of being built.

Within four years, 1905, Texas was producing more than 1/4 crude oil in the country, and by 1942, the eve of WWII, there were forty-six oil fields within 100 miles of Spindletop, with 2,440 wells producing oil. The wells were so numerous and close together that some legs of one well would have to be cut off to allow another well to fit. Also at this time, it’s estimated there were from 25 to 30 saloons just at Spindletop alone.

Drilling for oil in Southeast Texas presented a couple of new, major problems to overcome: quicksand and gas pushing up sand and clogging the pipes.

Perry McFaddin was a cattleman who leased the rights to his land for drilling (p. 93). Here, they came across quicksand. To overcome the quicksand, they drilled an 8” pipe down the well to keep the walls from caving in, then a 4” pipe, with a drive shoe attached to the bottom for driving through rocks or anything else, inside the 8”. Using rope, they had to manually lift a drive block as high as they could and let it loose, hitting the 4” pipe. Each pounding only brought the pipe down a foot or two at a time, and they had 1,200 feet to go. It took them 20 days to go through this quicksand. Some days after hauling up the drive block by hand over and over, they’d manage only a few feet.

Another major problem they had to learn to deal with was controlling the gas. Gas would push sand up into the pipe, clogging it up to a hundred feet or so. They created a valve that would open when water was poured down the pipe, but close when gas pressure tried to push the sand up so the sand would stay at the bottom of the well and not fill the pipes. Of course, this first valve attempt was made out of canvas and became useless the deeper they drilled where gas pressure was just too great. Another more stable valve had to be invented on the fly.

Two types of small oil fields were being discovered in the U.S.: light oil used for kerosene lamps and such things, and heavy oil used for the beginning discoveries of fuel uses. For example, depending on how much more oil could be discovered like the Lucas Gusher, would determine the eligibility of companies moving from coal to liquid fuel.

INTERESTING LITTLE TIDBIT ON JOHN D. ROCKERFELLER

By 1880, John D. Rockefeller had pretty much bought up stock options from most other smaller oil companies until he was the sole owner of 90% of all oil companies in America. Standard Oil was owned by Rockefeller who, at first, declined financial support in the beginning of the oil discovery at Spindletop. But, by 1902, they were looking for a way in. One problem: Texas didn’t want Standard Oil back into Texas because of anti-trust laws they had broken a few years back. They had been evicted from the State of Texas. So, Standard Oil sent in one man, as a cover, to build the largest refinery in Beaumont in 1902. A bank, backed by Standard Oil, was opened in the State of Texas, and subsequently loaned money to this man to build this refinery. As soon as it was built, the man walked away and it became Security Refinery. By 1906, Security Refinery was charged with anti-trust laws and, once again, evicted from the State of Texas. It wasn’t until 1911 when the U.S. Supreme Court ordered Standard Oil to dissolve.

FOLLOWUP BOOK TO READ ABOUT ROSINE MCFADDIN WILSON

I found it interesting that on the Acknowledgments page, credit was given to Rosine McFaddin Wilson (granddaughter of Perry McFaddin, a key character during the oil boom) for providing a generous financial gift to assist in publication and even proofed the manuscript for this book, which was published in 2002. In 1998, there was also a book published by Roger L. Shaffer called “Spindletop Unwound”, in which Rosine was charged with the murder of her ranch hand, and maybe her lover?, Joe Perkins. That is all I know. This book is on my TBR list. Hopefully, I’ll get to it sometime this year. Maybe a month of True Crime? ( )

Mrs. Linsley was one of the best history instructors I ever had. This is a great book! ( )