Chapter 23: The Oil BoomSection 2: The Growth of the Oil Industry

Wildcatters & New Oil Fields

•Wildcatters—explorers who worked on their own when searching for new oil fields

•Wildcatting risky because many independent operators went bankrupt after drilling a few wells.

Wildcatters & New Oil Fields

•1893: Oil first discovered at Sour Lake

•1902: first big strike occurs

•1903: 150 oil wells at Sour Lake

Wildcatters & New Oil Fields

• Overdrilling led to a drop in pressure, making further drilling difficult

Wildcatters & New Oil Fields

•Oil fields have been discovered in many parts of the state.

•1903: North Texan W.T. Waggoner struck oil while drilling for water

•1919: oil field produced 31.3 million barrels of oil

Wildcatters & New Oil Fields

•1921: Oil discovered in Panhandle

•1921: Oil discovered in Permian Basin region of West Texas

•Little oil discovered in South & Central Texas

Wildcatters & New Oil Fields

•Geologists claimed there was little oil in East Texas

•1930: Wildcatter discovers oil in East Texas

•East Texas oil field one of largest in world

Oil Business Is Big Business•Natural gas discovered alongside

oil

• In early days, operators burned huge quantities of natural gas just to get rid of it.

•Could not be widely used before 1890s because there was no way to get it to market safely.

Oil Business Is Big Business

•First gas pipeline between Wichita Falls & Petrolia

•Vertical Integration—owning the businesses involved in each step of a manufacturing process

Oil Business Is Big Business

•The Texas Company used vertical integration

•Horizontal Integration—owning many businesses in a particular field