History of The Petroleum Industry in The United States - Gulf Coast

Gulf Coast

Capt. Anthony Francis Lucas, an experienced mining engineer and salt driller, drilled a well to find oil at Spindletop Hill. On the morning of January 10, 1901, the little hill south of Beaumont, Texas began to tremble and mud bubbled up over the rotary table. A low rumbling sound came from underground, and then, with a force that shot 6 tons of 4-inch (100 mm) diameter pipe out over the top of the derrick, knocking off the crown block, the Lucas Gusher roared in and the Spindletop oil field was born. Spindletop became the focus of frenzied drilling; oil production from the field peaked in 1902 at 17,400,000 barrels (2,770,000 m3), but by 1905 production had declined 90% from the peak.

Spindletop Hill turned out to be the surface expression of an underground salt dome, around which the oil accumulated. The Spindletop gusher started serious oil exploration of the Gulf Coast in Texas and Louisiana, an area that had previously been dismissed by oil men. Other salt dome mounds were quickly drilled, resulting in discoveries at Sour Lake (1902), Batson (1904) and Humble (1905).

The Standard Oil Company was slow to appreciate the economic potential of the Spindletop oil field, and the Gulf Coast generally, which gave greater opportunity to others; Spindletop became the birthplace of oil giants Texaco and Gulf Oil. Although in 1899 Standard Oil controlled more than 85% of the oil production in the older oil regions in the Appalachian Basin and the Lima-Indiana trend, it never controlled more than 10% of the oil production in the new Gulf Coast province.