Spindletop

Spindletop was the site of the first major oil discovery in Texas . In 1901, a well drilled in the Spindletop oil field tapped into an enormous quantity of crude oil. The discovery made nearby Beaumont the first petroleum boom town in Texas. Historians credit the successes at Spindletop with the establishment of the modern petroleum industry.

The first commercially successful oil well was drilled near Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859. A commercial market for petroleum quickly developed, and prospectors soon began to drill at oil deposits in other parts of the United States. The first oil well in eastern Texas was drilled in 1866. But the first major oil find in the state occurred in January 1901 at a salt dome known as Spindletop south of Beaumont. In a salt dome, a cylinder- or cone-shaped formation of salt pushes up through sedimentary rocks, causing the rocks to arch and fracture in its path. Petroleum may accumulate above or along the sides of a salt dome. By 1900, however, the notion that significant amounts of oil accumulated at salt domes like the one at Spindletop was not generally accepted among geologists.

Observers had known of oil seeps in the Spindletop area for hundreds of years. Spanish explorers noted their presence along the nearby Gulf coast in the mid-1500’s. In the 1890’s, the businessman and real estate investor Pattillo Higgins and his partners decided to drill oil wells on a low hill known as Spindletop. They planned to build a city around what they hoped would be a productive oil field. Drilling efforts in 1893, 1895, and 1896, however, were unsuccessful.

Anthony Francis Lucas was an Austrian-American mechanical and mining engineer. By the late 1800’s, he had become known as an expert on salt domes. In 1899, Lucas answered an advertisement that Higgins had placed for a drilling contractor. Lucas leased acreage around Spindletop and began drilling in June 1900. A layer of underground quicksand in the area made drilling difficult, and early efforts proved unproductive. In October, Lucas, together with the expert well diggers Al and Curt Hamill, renewed the drilling at Spindletop. By early January 1901, their well extended more than 1,100 feet (335 meters) into the underground salt dome. On the morning of January 10, mud began flowing out of the well, soon to be followed by flying drilling pipes, natural gas, and crude oil. A 6-inch (15-centimeter) thick stream of oil erupted more than 100 feet (30 meters) into the air. The well soon gained fame as a gusher—that is, an oil well that produces a great amount of oil without pumping. No one had ever seen anything like it. Until the well was capped on January 19, the gusher spewed about 100,000 barrels of oil per day. A petroleum barrel holds 42 gallons (159 liters).

The Spindletop discovery would give rise to the modern petroleum industry and transform lifestyles and economies around the world. But first it transformed Beaumont. Within the next several months, a number of other successful wells were drilled in the Spindletop field. Investors and workers flocked to the area. Land prices spiked, and prospectors made and lost fortunes. Oil companies built refineries, storage facilities, and pipelines. By 1916, a deepened shipping channel made Beaumont an important seaport. Beaumont’s population grew from less than 10,000 in 1900 to more than 20,000 in 1910. Oil also fueled the growth of other east Texas cities. Houston , 85 miles (137 kilometers) southwest of Beaumont, became one of the world’s leading petroleum distribution centers.

The Spindletop wells produced more than 3.5 million barrels of oil in 1901, and more than 17 million barrels a year later. With hundreds of wells soon plumbing the oil field, production dramatically declined through the early 1900’s. In the 1920’s, renewed drilling efforts led to a new boom at Spindletop. In 1927, the field produced 21 million barrels—its greatest yearly output. Discoveries in the mid-1900’s kept the field productive during the next few decades. Historians estimate that from 1901 to 1985, the field produced more than 150 million barrels of oil. In 1941, Beaumont officials dedicated a monument at the site of the “Lucas gusher.” Years of extraction at Spindletop later caused the land at the site to subside (sink) and in 1977 the monument was moved to a museum in Beaumont.