1. Chapter 23: The Oil Boom
Section 2: The Growth of the Oil Industry

2. 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.

3. Wildcatters & New Oil Fields
• 1893: Oil first discovered at
Sour Lake
• 1902: first big strike occurs
• 1903: 150 oil wells at Sour
Lake

4. Wildcatters & New Oil Fields
• Overdrilling led to a drop in pressure,
making further drilling difficult

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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.

9. 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

10. Oil Business Is Big Business
• The Texas Company used
vertical integration
• Horizontal Integration—
owning many businesses in
a particular field