Road Trip 2022, Spindletop Oil field and The Lucas Gusher

 As we were continuing our trip westbound from Florida to California, we stopped to spend the night in Beaumont, Texas, which is on the eastern edge of Texas.

As we were driving around checking out the town, we came across the Spindletop Oil Field Museum, which is located on the campus of Lamar University.

It is a nice little museum that is a reproduction of the oil boomtown that grew up after the Lucas oil well struck oil on January 19, 1901.

As soon as you enter the property, you are taken back to an old time oil boom town and it was very interesting going into all of the buildings and seeing the beautiful, original artifacts that had been collected from locals whose family had been at the original oil boom.

The well reached a depth of 1,139 feet on January 10, 1901 when the drill bit failed and needed to be replaced.  The drillers pulled all of the pipe out of the well in order to replace the drill bit.  They then started reinserting the drill pipe back into the hole and when they got to about 700 feet, the drillers heard a low rumble and then all of the drill pipe was blown out of the well and oil began shooting more than 150 feet into the air.

It is estimated that 100,000 barrels of oil per day blew out of the well and this went on for 9 days before the well was finally capped.

Within 3 months, the population of Beaumont grew from 10,000 to over 50,000 and more than 500 wells were eventually drilled on this one hilltop.  In 1902, 17,420,949 barrels were produced.  

In 1903, production began to decrease and leveled off at about 10,000 barrels per day which sold for 25 cents per barrel.

The wells were eventually drilled to 2,500 feet and this increased production again and they continued to produce large quantities until 1927 when the boom was over.

The interior of each building was furnished with great displays.

The judge had a nice office and a small courtroom.

There were furnished rooms.

The stores had lots of neat old stuff on the shelves.

There was even and ice cream parlor that was also the doctors office.

That malt looked really good but it was just a prop.

This was a great little museum that we had never heard of and we were glad we found it.

We are continuing westbound and will send more soon,

Tom & Suzie