There is no debate that the extraction, refining, and production of petroleum was the most defining and significant facet of the Texas economy in the 20th century, and perhaps in any century. Texas has been the fortunate beneficiary of sitting “on top” of one of the largest and most accessible sources of oil reserves in the world, a happenstance that has gone a long way toward making Texas’ economy one of the most dynamic in the nation—even the world—in the last one hundred years. The state of Texas’ commercial success continues to rise and fall with the fate of the petroleum industry.
Spanish explorers during the 17th and 18th centuries used petroleum to caulk their ships and later grease the axles of wagons, a practice that early migrants to Texas in the 19th century continued. Lyne Taliaferro Barret drilled the first commercial oil well in the state near Nacogdoches in 1866, and small discoveries continued within the state through the 1880s, but in 1894 a significant discovery in Navarro County near Corsicana truly signaled the beginning of the Texas oil industry. The Corsicana Field began the industry, but the beacon of what the oil industry would one day become occurred on January 10, 1901 when Anthony Lucas brought in the Spindletop gusher.
Drillers and speculators fanned out in the Gulf Coast area in the next half-decade, as the Sour Lake, Batson-Old, Humble, and Goose Creek fields came into production. This first “boom”—there would be many others in .