Boom

Luis de Moscoso , a survivor of the DeSoto expedition, recorded the first sighting of oil in Texas. After the expedition was forced ashore in the area between Sabine Pass and High Island in July 1543, the explorers observed oil floating on the surface of the water. They collected the asphaltic substance and used it to caulk their vessels. Thereafter, settlers in Texas and visitors commonly observed seepages of crude oil. During his visit to Texas in 1854, Frederick Law Olmsted noted "a slight odor of sulphurreted hydrogen" at Sour Lake. The discovery and production of oil occurred sporadically during the second half of the nineteenth century. After the Civil War , encouraged by the growing national market for kerosene and other petroleum products, Lyne T. Barret drilled and completed a well near Oil Springs in Nacogdoches County, but a decline in prices barred further financing of the venture. In 1886, George Dullnig, a Bexar County rancher, discovered a small quantity while drilling for water, but it was not sufficient to justify additional development. The first economically significant discovery came in 1894 in Navarro County near Corsicana. The Corsicana oilfield developed gradually and peaked in 1900, when it produced more than 839,000 barrels of oil. The first relatively modern refinery in Texas, operated by the J. S. Cullinan Company, opened at the field in 1898. The major importance of the Corsicana field lay in establishing the potential for commercial oil production in Texas. Its success prompted random exploration in various parts of Navarro County, which led to the discovery of the Powell oilfield qv in 1900. This field rose to 673,221 barrels of oil a year in 1906 and peaked at 33,177,831 in 1924 after the Woodbine sand was found in January of the previous year.