November 20, 2024 – Oil & Gas History News, Vol. 5, No. 11

Oil & Gas History News

Bienvenidos a nuestro boletín de Noviembre y gracias por suscribirse.

Bruce Wells/bawells@aoghs.org

Los hitos históricos de este mes comienzan con la iluminación a gas inaugurado en el Capitolio de los EE. UU. en 1847; la fundación de Consolidated Edison Company en 1884; y un método para refinar queroseno en 1860. También se incluye un informe de un periódico de 1868 sobre el “Torpedo Roberts” y el descubrimiento de gas natural en Nuevo México en 1921.

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La foto de este mes es una postal de 1950 del Canal de Navegación de Houston, inaugurado por el presidente Wilson en 1914, seguida de una plataforma marina experimental independiente de 1947; el otrora famoso pozo de gas Haymaker de 1878; y el primer salón del automóvil de los EE. UU. en noviembre de 1900. Concluimos con las próximas reuniones y revistas de historia del petróleo y con una investigadora que busca una revista de la empresa de los años 20 en la que aparezca su abuelo.

This Week in History Monthly Update

 Links to summaries from five weeks of U.S. oil and natural gas history, including new technologies, oilfield discoveries, petroleum products, and pioneers.

November 18, 1847 — Manufactured Gas illuminates Capitol

Lamps fueled by “coal gas” began replacing kerosene and whale oil lamps in the U.S. Capitol. Manufactured gas distilled nearby flowed through newly installed pipes into light fixtures, including chandeliers in House and Senate chambers. James Crutchett invented the lighting system, which included an 80-foot mast with a lantern atop the Capitol dome…MORE

November 11, 1884 – Six Gas Companies become Con Ed

America’s largest gas utility company was created in New York City when six gas-light companies — using manufactured coal gas — combined to form the Consolidated Gas Company. The Consolidated Edison Company, “Con Ed,” began as the New York Gas Light Company, which received a charter from the state legislature in 1823…MORE

November 6, 1860 – First Multi-Still Oil Refinery

As the Civil War neared, construction began on America’s first multiple-still oil refinery. William Barnsdall, who completed an oil well soon after the 1859 first commercial U.S. oil well, spent $15,000 to build six stills for refining kerosene one mile south of Titusville, Pennsylvania. He purchased equipment in Pittsburgh and shipped it up the Allegheny River to Oil City…MORE

October 28, 1868 – Newspaper praises Explosive Technology

The Titusville Morning Herald (1865 – 2022) praised the results of an explosive oilfield production technology, the nitroglycerin torpedo patented by Civil War veteran Colonel E.A.L. Roberts. “It would be superfluous, at this late day, to speak of the merits of the Roberts Torpedo,” explained the first daily newspaper of the Pennsylvania oil region…MORE

October 21, 1921 – First Natural Gas Well in New Mexico

The New Mexico natural gas industry began when the newly established Aztec Oil Syndicate’s State No. 1 well found a field about 15 miles northeast of Farmington in San Juan County. The drilling crew used a tree trunk with a two-inch pipe and shut-off valve to control the well until a wellhead could be shipped from Colorado. The well produced 10 million cubic feet of natural gas a day…MORE

Energy Education

A 1950 postcard of the Houston Ship Channel, which opened as an ocean-vessel waterway in 1914, linking Houston, the San Jacinto River, Galveston Bay, and the Gulf of Mexico.

President Wilson opens Houston Ship Channel

The Houston Ship Channel opened for ocean-going vessels on November 10, 1914, when President Woodrow Wilson pushed an ivory button on his desk in the White House and fired a cannon in the Texas port city. Before dredging to 25 feet deep (today 40 feet), the waterway — originally known as Buffalo Bayou — had been “swampy, marshy and overgrown with vegetation,” according to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), which in 1987 designated the channel a civil engineering landmark. “With the discovery of oil at Spindletop in 1901 and crops such as rice beginning to rival the dominant export crop of cotton, Houston’s ship channel needed the capacity to handle newer and larger vessels,” reported Port Houston, operator of eight public facilities along the 52-mile channel. 

Learn more in Houston Ship Channel.

Featured Articles

Kermac No. 16 begins Modern Offshore Industry

The modern offshore industry began in the Gulf of Mexico on November 14, 1947, with the first oil well completed out of sight of land. Brown & Root Company built the Kermac No. 16, a freestanding platform 10 miles offshore for Kerr-McGee, Phillips Petroleum, and Stanolind. The experimental platform could withstand winds as high as 125 miles per hour at a time when no equipment specifically designed for offshore drilling yet existed. 

Learn more in Offshore Drilling History.

Natural Gas Well lights Pittsburgh

A well drilled by Michael and Obediah Haymaker seeking oil erupted natural gas instead on November 3, 1878, near Murrysville, Pennsylvania. “Every piece of rigging went sky high, whirling around like so much paper caught in a gust of wind,” Michael Haymaker later recalled. Without technologies to cap the well and no pipeline, the Haymaker well drew thousands of onlookers to a flaming torch that burned for 18 months. “Outlet of a natural gas well near Pittsburgh — a sight that can be seen in no other city in the world,” noted Harper’s Weekly. 

Learn more in Natural Gas is King in Pittsburgh.

New York City hosts First U.S. Auto Show

America’s first gathering of automotive technologies on November 3, 1900, attracted thousands to New York City’s Madison Square Garden. Manufacturers presented 160 vehicles and conducted driving and maneuverability demonstrations on a 20-foot-wide wooden track that encircled the exhibits. A 200-foot ramp tested hill-climbing power. New Yorkers welcomed autos as a way to reduce the estimated 450,000 tons of horse manure annually removed from the city’s streets.

Learn more in Cantankerous Combustion — 1st U.S. Auto Show.

Museum News & Events

Oil History Symposium — The 23rd annual Petroleum History Institute Oil History Symposium & Field Trip will take place in the historic Permian Basin from March 30 to April 1, 2025. Abstracts for PHI’s Oil-Industry History are due February 15.

Oilfield Journal — The Friends of Drake Well, Inc., Titusville, Pennsylvania, is accepting article submissions for its publication the OilField Journal to be published by winter 2025. 

East Texas History Summit — The East Texas Oil Museum will host its second annual East Texas History Summit on January 25, 2025, in the Van Cliburn Auditorium at Kilgore College. 

Learn more in News & Events.

Research Forum

A Pennsylvania researcher is looking for a copy of The Gargoyle, a company magazine published circa 1923 by Vacuum Oil Company (later Mobil) and featuring her grandfather, “The Mobiloil King.”

Learn more in Petroleum History Research Forum.

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— Bruce Wells