WHAT DO YOU KNOW?

WHAT DO YOU KNOW about Spindletop? Spindletop was the first successful oil well in Texas located atop a minimal mound near Beaumont in the Gulf coastal area. Research and reference for this story is the comprehensive history of Texas written by Stephen Harrigan. ______________________________________________ I quote, “Oil was never discovered in Texas; it was just always there. It was the scum that the surviving members of the DeSoto and Moscoso expedition had found seeping up out of the Texas surf in 1543 and then used to seal gaps in their leaky handmade rafts…” Native Americans used it as a salve and a lubricant and to patch their canoes. Anglo settlers found petroleum blobs in ponds between the Brazos and Sabine Rivers and called them “sour lakes” because of the gaseous smell._____________ In 1859, the oil industry was founded in Pennsylvania. Crude oil was refined into kerosene and used mainly for lighting. Texas followed with an oil industry of energy prominence. However the first attempt at drilling in Texas was in a pig’s wallow in the Big Thicket of east Texas in 1865. A 100 foot tall derrick was built by a farmer, his mule pulled a weight to the top then it was released to pierce the ground. It made nothing but a nasty splatter. Unsuccessful attempts at drilling for oil today are ironically called dry holes. _______________________________ After drilling rigs and equipment became more sophisticated, and the oil refining process more improved, Spindletop put Texas on the map with an oil boom that helped change the history of the world. __________ An East Texas man named Patillo Higgins had joined with an Austrian engineer named Captain Anthony Lucas in the belief that there was abundant oil in Texas. Lucas brought experienced oil workers from Pittsburg to Texas. A loan was acquired from the Mellon banking fortune to finance the construction of a derrick on land called Sour Spring Mound. Equipment was purchased and drilling began. When a stratum of quick sand caused the drill to become ineffective, cattle were made to stomp on clay creating the mud to put in the hole. ____________________ In January of 1901, a violent spume of mud, rock and drilling pipe erupted causing workers to run for safety. A fire had to be extinguished but finally the mud gusher ceased. Then a monstrous column of crude oil shot into the air far above the top of the derrick. Farmer’s crops for miles were covered in a blanket of oil.___________________________________ “What do we do now?” The task of capping the astonishing power of the crude oil had to be invented by the Hamill brothers who had constructed the derrick. It took nine days and a team of horses to get a valve over the pipe to shut down the gusher._________________________ Al Hamill had predicted the well would produce 50 barrels of oil each day. Instead each day almost 950,000 barrels of greenish colored crude oil was produced and refined to power engines for the new century. Higgins lived to be 91 years of age and continued to participate in the Texas Oil Boom but with little success. His fortune was wasted on dry holes. He squabbled with partners losing control of companies and he was pushed aside by major oil companies. But it was he who first believed that oil existed in his state of Texas.________________________________ Carole Sikes_________ Reference: Big Wonderful Thing, a history of Texas by Stephen Harrigan.