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Oil & Natural Gas
Natural gas was discovered in Shreveport in
1870 while drilling for water for the Shreveport Ice
Factory. A night watchman struck a match to see if the
wind he heard blowing from the site would blow it out,
but it ignited. 1 The gas was used to light the ice
factory and this is the state’s first documented use of
natural gas. 2
At
the turn-of-the-century oil was discovered at Spindletop
near Beaumont, Texas and in Jennings and White Castle,
Louisiana. 3
In 1902 Ellison M. Adger drilled a water
well near Dixie along Cottonwood Bayou for his
livestock, but at 400 feet he found soured water. After
sending soil samples to the United States Geological
Survey, Adger learned that if he drilled deeper to 1,000
feet he might hit oil or gas. Adger, however, was not
interested. 4 Other farmers were having the same
difficulty as Adger, but the possibility of gas and oil
being in the area interested Shreveporters Judge S. C.
Fullilove, D. C. Richardson, and Ira G. Hedrick. In 1904
they leased land in Caddo Parish near the railroad stops
of Surrey and Ananias.
Brothers J. S. and W. A. Savage of West Virginia brought
in the first well in the Caddo Oil Field. The timbers
for the derrick were hauled in by teams of oxen. In May
of 1904 Dr. Frank H. Morrical came from Jennings to help
the brothers in their venture. Roughnecks were paid
$2.50 a day for a twelve-hour work day. The crew hit
natural gas, but continued to drill deeper. They first
got oil on March 28, 1905 when they reached 1,556 feet.
5
On May 7, 1905 Producers’ No. 2 Well had gas pressure
that could be heard ten to fifteen miles away. It also
caused a crater which swallowed the seventy-foot
derrick, a steam engine, two Gardner pumps, and 3,500
feet of drilling pipeline. 6
 Caddo Oil and Gas Company’s No. 1 emitted gas for over
three years. 7
Producers’
Harrell No. 7 caught fire, burning four men
and killing the foreman
and a roughneck. It was
reported that flames from this fire were
seventy-five
feet high. 8
Oil
workers would let the gas escape into the air because it
was considered useless at first. The waste of natural
gas in the Caddo Field necessitated Louisiana’s
conservation law in 1906, which forbade companies from
letting fires burn. 9 On May 24, 1906 natural gas was
first put into the city’s mains. 10 Shreveport was one
of the first southern cities to have natural gas
service. 11
 A
group of planters in the
Belcher area organized the
Dixie Oil, Gas, and Pipeline Company in 1907. Their
first well was near where Ellison M. Adger had drilled
and at 2,167 feet they hit oil. The next one in the
company ran wild,
but supplied gas for
Dixie and
Blanchard after it was capped. 12 The first
natural gas
compressor in the world was located at Rodessa. 13
Mike
Benedum and Joe Trees leased land from W. P. Stiles on
December 2, 1907 and soon set up
Trees City around their
oil base. Cavy formations formed in some of their later
wells. Trees’s father, a millwright, suggested that they
pour cement into the well, let it harden and then drill
it. This method proved to be successful, and it
prevented future cavings. 14
 In
1908 the surface casing of Hostetter No. 4, built on the
edges of
Caddo Lake, was cemented. No gas could escape,
but the high pressure was able to find a break in the
stone and seeped out beneath Caddo Lake. Lake water was
thrown twenty-feet into the air in some areas of the
lake. 15
In
1909 construction began on the first long distance
pipeline. It would transport crude oil from Caddo Parish
to the refineries at Baton Rouge by 1910. 16
In
1910 Gulf Refining Company paid $30,000 for the rights
to drill for oil on Caddo Lake, which was also known as
Ferry Lake. 17 They set up the first oil drilling rigs
on barges, after leasing twelve sections of underwater
land, and in May of 1911 they completed Ferry Lake No. 1
Well. 18 By the end of 1911 they had eight offshore
wells drilled. 19 Their success made it the first
off-shore oil well in the nation.
By
1910 the Caddo Parish oil fields produced 75% of
Louisiana’s oil, and by 1911 derricks were everywhere.
20
Harrell’s No. 7 well was drilled in 1911 and caught
fire, burning for thirty days. The explosion that
started the fire killed two men. Steam from forty-one
boilers was used to try to extinguish the blaze, but
this was unsuccessful.
Finally the crew was able to
break the casing after digging a fifteen-foot-deep,
fifty-foot-long tunnel. 21
The
next oil boom occurred in 1930 when the
Rodessa and
Sugar Creek fields opened. 22
Universal Oil
The
independent Universal Oil, Gas, and Mining Company,
owned by Odessa Strickland, was the first
African-American owned oil company in Shreveport. It was
also the only oil company run by black personnel. The
company had oil production as far away as Kentucky and
also had interests in zinc, lead, and silver. Strickland
also invented the electronometer, which helped locate
drilling sites. 23
Tiger Oil
Tiger Oil and Gas Corporation was a local operation,
owned and operated by blacks. The company, established
in the late 1930’s, acquired a 160-acre lease near Oil
City in 1938 and by the end of that year, they had
sixteen wells. Their office was housed in the Calanthean
Temple on Texas Avenue. 24
References
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