Tulsa's First Oil Strike

Tulsa's First Oil Strike. Fueling the rise of the automobile era. With the growing popularity of the automobile and the internal combustion engine in the early twentieth century, gasoline became the primary product derived from crude oil, rather than earlier products such as kerosene and lubricants. To produce gasoline, raw petroleum was refined to distill a more useful material. Because it was not easy to transport crude oil, small independent oil companies built refineries next to their oil fields. Just prior to 1920, West Tulsa was home to 18 mostly small independent refineries. As petroleum production stabilized in the 1930s, larger oil companies conglomerated smaller independent companies and consolidated the refinery process at larger, more expansive facilities.

Tulsa's First Oil Strike: Sue Bland No. 1. Indian Territory (prior to Oklahoma Statehood in 1907) attracted the attention of "Eastern oil interests" when a commercially producing well, the Nellie Johnstone No. 1, was drilled near Bartlesville in 1897. In the spring of 1901, Jesse A. Heydrick arrived in the small railroad/cattle town of Red Fork representing such "Eastern investors" prospecting for a possible petroleum producing site. He hired a drilling crew which had been active in the Sapulpa area and they shipped their drilling equipment to Red Fork on the Frisco. The Frisco refused to release their gear until shipping charges were paid. Two Red Fork promoters and physicians, Dr. Fred S. Clinton and Dr. J.C.W. Bland paid the charges to release their equipment. The two doctors steered Heydrick and the crew to a parcel of un-allotted land just east of platted Red Fork at the foot of Red Fork Hill (now called Lookout Mountain). The drilling began in late May. When the "gusher" came in the early morning hours of June 25, 1901, Dr. Clinton wasted no time in obtaining a power of attorney from Sue A. Bland, the wife of Dr. Bland and a Muscogee-Creek citizen, and taking the train to Muscogee where he persuaded the U.S. Indian Agent to designate the site of the well as the Homestead Allotment of Sue Bland, thereby making her the land owner and recipient of royalties for production from the well.

News of the gusher brought more than 2,000 people to Red Fork to witness this discovery, including Oklahoma City businessman Robert Galbreath who moved to Red Fork and leaped to fame and fortune with his drilling of the Ida Glenn No. 1 discovery well and the opening of the hugely productive Glenn Pool, starting on November 22, 1905 Red Fork, Sapulpa and Tulsa became hubs for the distribution and banking of this industry, which would make Tulsa the 20th Century oil Capital of the World.