History
Several early attempts were made to produce oil in the area, beginning in 1911, with the failed Millville Oil Company, but drilling technology had not progressed sufficiently to reach oil at the depths at which it is found there, which are mainly below 3,500 feet (1,100 m); most early wells ended in broken bits, dry holes, and bankrupt operators. Finally, an enterprising Alabama man, Columbus Marion (Dad) Joiner, was the first with enough persistence to succeed, and on October 5, 1930, his Daisy Bradford No. 3 well (named after the widow who owned the farm) hit oil at 3,536 feet (1,078 m) below ground surface. This well is located near the southeastern boundary of the oil field.
Shortly after the Daisy Bradford find, and after another two smaller wells were drilled near the original hole, another new well, this one on the Crim family farm about nine miles (14 km) north of the Bradford farm, reached oil, producing a gusher with a spectacular initial daily flow of 22,000 barrels (3,500 m3). That the two wells were in a connected oil reservoir was not immediately obvious to those who drilled them; no field this large had ever been discovered. In January 1931, yet another group of investors and drillers put in a third important well about 25 miles (40 km) north of the initial Daisy Bradford well; this one gushed 320 barrels (51 m3) of oil per hour, from approximately the same depth as the other two wells – 3,587 feet (1,093 m). Within a few months, drillers, landowners, and investors began to realize they had a spectacular oil field two-thirds of a mile under their feet, one which would produce enormous quantities of high-grade oil almost anywhere they drilled.
It was the enormous quantities of oil from the East Texas Oil Field, and their importance to the Allied effort in World War II, that led to the creation of the world's largest pipeline until that time, the "Big Inch", a 24-inch (610 mm), 1,400-mile (2,300 km) pipeline which transported crude to refineries in the Philadelphia area. Prior to building the pipeline, oil could only be transported by ship, and many such ships were sunk by German submarines during the early part of the war, especially in 1942 and early 1943. Construction of the pipeline commenced in August 1942, and on March 2, 1944 it was done. By the end of the war, over 350 million barrels (56,000,000 m3) of crude flowed from East Texas to the northeast states through the Big Inch.
In the middle of the twentieth century, the East Texas Oil Field was the center of a slant-hole scandal. Some unscrupulous operators had drilled slanted holes from across their lease lines into the productive portions of the Woodbine formation. Inspectors found 380 deviated wells and shut them down, with the assistance of the Texas Rangers. An estimated $100 million worth of oil was stolen over several decades from legal owners.
Since its discovery, the East Texas Oil Field has produced more than 5.2 billion barrels (830,000,000 m3) of oil, and originally contained more than 7 billion barrels (1.1×109 m3).
Read more about this topic: East Texas Oil Field
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