American Oil & Gas Historical Society
Oil History is Energy Education
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This Week in Petroleum History, November 2 – 8
November 2, 1902 – First Gasoline-Powered Locomobile – Known for building luxury steam-powered automobiles, the Locomobile Company of America delivered its first gasoline-powered auto to a buyer in New York City. The company had hired Andrew Riker, a self-taught engineer and…
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Cantankerous Combustion — First U.S. Auto Show
The most popular models in 1900 proved to be electric, steam, and gasoline — in that order. The first U.S. auto show opened in New York City’s Madison Square Garden in November 1900, just five years after Charles Duryea claimed the first American patent for a gasoline-powered…
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Natural Gas is King in Pittsburgh
19th-century “Smoky City” skies cleared when factories replaced coal with natural gas. In 1878, the Haymaker brothers discovered a Pennsylvania natural gas field near Pittsburgh – and laid the foundation for many modern petroleum companies. Like many young men of their time,…
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George Bissell’s Oil Seeps
New resource for making kerosene for lamps created the U.S. petroleum industry. America’s petroleum exploration and production industry began in the mid-19th century when a lumber company sold 105 acres along a creek known for natural oil seeps. On November 10, 1854, the lumber…
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Oilfield Firefighting Technologies
A highly flammable workplace brings danger everywhere. Whether ignited by accident, natural phenomena, or acts of war, oilfield fires have challenged the petroleum industry since the earliest wells. Catastrophic fires — and technologies needed to fight them — began with the…
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This Week in Petroleum History, October 26 – Nov. 1
October 26, 1970 – Joe Roughneck Statue dedicated in Texas – Texas Governor Preston Smith dedicated a “Joe Roughneck” memorial in Boonsville to mark the 20th anniversary of a giant natural gas field discovery in East Texas. In 1950, the Lone Star Gas Company’s Vaught No. 1 well…
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Gas Ration Coupons of 1974
The U.S. government in 1974 printed but never issued 4.8 billion gasoline rationing coupons. In response to the 1973 OPEC oil embargo, and after printing billions of emergency coupons with a portrait of George Washington, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing destroyed almost all…
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“Golden Rule” Jones of Ohio
Acme Sucker Rod founder — and the future mayor of Toledo — patented an oilfield innovation in 1894. Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones of Ohio made a fortune in oilfields and supplying equipment and services, patented an improved sucker rod for pumping oil, and created a better…
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Edwin Drake and his Oil Well
Biography of father of U.S. oil industry reaches total depth. In August 1859, the man who would launch America’s petroleum industry was down to his last pennies — and a letter was on its way to “Colonel” Edwin L. Drake telling him to cease drilling at Titusville, Pennsylvania.…
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Rocky Beginnings of Petroleum Geology
The petroleum pioneers who took earth science to a deeper level. When oil burst onto the U.S. marketplace as a commercial opportunity for refining into kerosene lamp fuel, the art and science of petroleum geology was born. The coal-mining industry had long provided employment…
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This Week in Petroleum History, October 19 – 25
October 19, 1990 – First Use of Strategic Petroleum Reserve – As world oil prices spiked after the August 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi troops, the first presidentially mandated emergency use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve was authorized by George H.W.…
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Blue Flame Natural Gas Rocket Car
Gas industry executives recognized the public relations value of LNG fueling a land speed record. Proclaiming natural gas “the fuel of the future,” the American Gas Association sponsored a sleek rocket car powered by liquified natural gas (LNG) that in October 1970 set a world…
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First Wyoming Oil Wells
A popular 1837 book by Washington Irving helped reveal natural resources of the Far West. Tales of a Wyoming “tar spring” convinced the experienced Pennsylvania oilfield explorer Mike Murphy to drill a shallow well in 1883. He sold his oil to Union Pacific to lubricate train…
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This Week in Petroleum History, October 12 – 18
October 12, 1964 – Methane Princess delivers LNG – Four months after entering service in June 1964, Methane Princess, the first purpose-built liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier, delivered its cargo to Canvey Island in the United Kingdom. With nine tanks capable of holding the…
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Roaring Ranger wins WWI
After months of hard drilling, a North Texas oil well roared in at Ranger in 1917. As World War I continued in Europe, the “Roaring Ranger” oilfield discovery well of October 1917 in Eastland County, Texas, revealed a giant oilfield that would help fuel the Allied victory.…
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First Arizona Oil and Gas Wells
Navajo Nation wells produced oil, natural gas, and helium in the 1950s. Reports of natural seeps in the late 1890s encouraged exploration for commercial quantities of oil more than a decade before Arizona statehood in 1912. Finding a productive oilfield would prove elusive. At…