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Spindletop
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Spindletop |
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| (U.S. National Historic Landmark) | |
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| Location: | Spindletop Hill, South of Beaumont, Texas, USA |
| Coordinates: | |
| Built/Founded: | 1900 |
| Designated as NHL: | November 13, 1966 |
| Added to NRHP: | November 13, 1966 |
| NRHP Reference#: | 66000818 |
  Spindletop Hill in Texas
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Spindletop is a salt dome oil field located in south Beaumont, Texas (approx. 30.02 -94.07) in the United States. On January 10, 1901, a well at Spindletop struck oil ("came in"), marking the birthdate of the modern petroleum industry. At 100,000 barrels of oil a day, the gusher tripled U.S. oil production overnight, ensuring the second industrial revolution would be fueled not by wood and coal but by oil and its byproducts. Some of the companies chartered to exploit the wealth of Spindletop are some of today's largest and well known corporations such as ExxonMobil, and Texaco.
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There had long been suspicions that oil might be under "Spindletop Hill." The area was known for its sulfur springs and bubbling gas seepages that would ignite if lit. In August 1892, George W. O'Brien, George W. Carroll, Pattillo Higgins and others formed the Gladys City Oil, Gas, and Manufacturing Company to do exploratory drilling on Spindletop Hill. The company drilled many dry holes and ran into trouble as investors began to balk at pouring more money into drilling with no oil to show for it.
Pattillo Higgins left the company and teamed with Captain Anthony F. Lucas, the leading expert in the U.S. on salt dome formations. Lucas made a lease agreement in 1899 with the Gladys City Company and a later agreement with Higgins. Lucas drilled to 575 ft (175 m) before running out of money. He secured additional funding from John H. Galey and James M. Guffey of Pittsburgh, but the deal left Lucas with only a small share of the lease and Higgins with nothing.
Lucas continued drilling and on January 10, 1901, at a depth of 1,139 ft (347 m), what is known as the Lucas Gusher or the Lucas Geyser blew oil over 150 ft (46 m) in the air at a rate of 100,000 barrels a day. It took nine days before the well was brought under control. Spindletop was the largest gusher the world had seen and catapulted Beaumont into one of the United States' first oil-fueled boomtowns. Beaumont's population of 10,000 tripled in three months and eventually rose to 50,000. Speculation led land prices to increase rapidly. By the end of 1902 over 600 companies were formed and 285 active wells were in operation.
Production began to decline rapidly after 1902, and the wells produced only 10,000 barrels a day by 1904. On November 14, 1925, the Yount-Lee Oil Company brought in its McFaddin No. 2 at a depth of about 2,500 feet, sparking a second boom that completely eclipsed the first discovery. Over the next ten years, over 72 million more barrels of oil were produced, mostly from the newer areas of the field. Spindletop continued as a productive source of oil until about 1936. It was then mined for sulfur from the 1950s to about 1975.
- McKinley, Fred B., and Greg Riley. Black Gold to Bluegrass: From the Oil Fields of Texas to Spindletop Farm of Kentucky, historical non-fiction, Austin: Eakin Press, 2005, ISBN 1-4241-7751-0
