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Museum Plans Oil Patch Folk Art Exhibit

A great exhibition idea came July 1 from Ryan Smith, executive director of the Texas Energy Museum in Beaumont. Ryan e-mailed that he is planning a special exhibition for 2011 -- and wants to get the word out to oil patch communities.

It's a chance to share stories...and folk art.

Ryan says next year's exhibition will focus on folklore and folk art of the petroleum industry. He seeks help locating items for display at his southeastern Texas museum. Other oil and natural gas museum directors are invited to share their ideas and artifacts, he says.

"We are defining folk art in the traditional sense -- items of utilitarian nature that have been artistically embellished or are the result of ordinary people expressing their traditions or values through the creation of utilitarian objects," Ryan notes.

The museum is not looking for the ubiquitous painting of oil derrick scenes, he adds, but, for example, a wrench that has been artistically inscribed or a workman's bench with scrollwork. "I would consider a sculpture, model or work on paper or canvas, if it was created by someone reflecting their personal experiences or working or living in the oil industry," he concludes.

"Please feel free to post and share this request."

Contact:
Ryan Smith, Executive Director
Texas Energy Museum
600 Main Street
Beaumont, Texas 77701

409-833-5100
rsmithtem@msn.com
ryan.tem@sbcglobal.net

Popular entries from "This Week in Petroleum History"

On July 19, 1957, two years before Alaska statehood, Richfield Oil Company spuds (begins) its Swanson River Unit No. 1 -- the discovery well for the Alaska Territory's first commercial oilfield. The well yields 900 barrels per day from a depth of 11,150 feet to 11,215 feet. in Richfield's 71,680-acre lease within the Kenai National Moose Range (now the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.) More Alaska discoveries follow and by June 1962 about 50 wells are producing more than 20,000 barrels of oil per day.

On July 20, 1920,in West Texas, the Permian Basin's first commercial well comes in at a depth of 2,745 feet. The W. H. Abrams No. 1 well is named for Texas & Pacific Railway official William H. Abrams who owns the land and leases mineral rights to the Texas Company (later Texaco). At 7:45 p.m. -- after a shot of nitroglycerine -- a jet of oil and natural gas announces the discovery now known as West Columbia Field. The well initially flows 129 barrels a day then settles in to 20 barrels a day. Today, the Permian Basin produces 17 percent of America's oil, about 327 million barrels per year, and contains an estimated 22 percent of proven U.S. oil reserves.

On July 22, 1933, before 50,000 cheering New York City onlookers, famed aviator Wiley Post lands his Lockheed Vega Winnie Mae and becomes the first man to fly solo around the world. Post's trademark eye-patch resulted from his days working as an oilfield roustabout near Seminole, Oklahoma. A metal splinter damaged his eye in 1926; Post used the $1,700 workman's compensation check to buy his first airplane and launch his aviation career. He developed a close relationship with Frank Phillips of the Phillips Petroleum Company, which produced aviation fuels before it produced automotive fuels -- and sponsored Post's high-altitude test flights. His pressure suit and helmet are on display in the Phillips Petroleum Company Museum in Bartlesville.

On July 23, 1951, the Association of Desk & Derrick Clubs (ADDC) of is formed with articles of association signed by presidents of the clubs of New Orleans, Louisiana; Jackson, Mississippi; Los Angeles, California and Houston, Texas. Combined membership of the four charter clubs is 883. The association promotes "the education and professional development of individuals employed in or affiliated with the petroleum, energy and allied industries and to educate the general public about these industries." Today, there are there are 61 ADDC clubs in seven regions throughout the United States and Canada.

On July 23, 2009, Occidental Petroleum Corp. reports it has discovered oil and natural gas in a Kern County field that might represent the biggest find in California in more than 35 years. The company says it found the equivalent of 150 million to 250 million barrels of oil, adding that two-thirds of the new source is believed to be natural gas.

On July 25, 1543, the first documented report of oil in the New World results when -- near the mouth of the Sabine River on the Texas Gulf Coast -- a storm forces two of Spanish explorer Don Luis de Moscoso's seven brigantines ashore. According an account of the expedition, "There was found a skumme, which they call Copee, which the Sea casteth up, and it is like Pitch, wherewith in some places, where Pitch is wanting, they pitch their ships; there they pitched their Brigandines." The offshore oil seep near the Sabine River that supplies the Spaniards with their pitch is still active as late as 1903.

On July 14, 1863, French tunnel engineer Rodolphe Leschot patents his "Tool for Boring Rock" -- a ring of industrial-grade diamonds fixed on the end of a tubular drill rod and designed to cut a cylindrical core...
On July 1, 1914, four years after the United States Bureau of Mines is organized under the Department of Interior, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Division is established. W. A. Williams is named Chief Petroleum Technologist. The division's Petroleum Experiment Station in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. In 1977, under the newly established U.S. Department of Energy, the site becomes the Bartlesville Energy Technology Center (joining the Morgantown Energy Technology Center and the Pittsburgh Energy Technology Center). In 1998, DOE opens the National Petroleum Technology Office in Tulsa and closes the Bartlesville Project Office. In 2000, the technology office joins DOE�s 15th national laboratory, the National Energy Technology Laboratory. Today, the Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy continues to support research for "secure, reasonably priced, and environmentally sound fossil energy."
On July 2, 1910, as the U.S. Navy rapidly converts from coal to oil-burning ships, President William Howard Taft establishes three Naval Petroleum Reserves. Concerns about an assured oil supply in the event of war or a national emergency had resulted in the Pickett Act of 1910, which authorized the president to withdraw large areas of potential oil-bearing lands in California and Wyoming as sources of fuel for the Navy. Within 15 years, the properties that make up the Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale Reserves (NPOSR) include the three Naval Petroleum Reserves and three Naval Oil Shale Reserves. A Naval Petroleum Reserve Number Four, on the north slope of Alaska, is added in 1923. "As not only the largest owner of oil lands, but as a prospective large consumer of oil by reason of the increasing use of fuel oil by the Navy, the federal government is directly concerned both in encouraging rational development and at the same time insuring the longest possible life to the oil supply." -- Message to Congress by President Taft
On June 25, 1901, Tulsa begins its journey to becoming the "Oil Capital of the World" when two Pennsylvanians make a wildcat discovery in the Creek Indian Nation.
The first oil tanker ever built, the W. L. Hardison, burns at its Ventura, California, wharf on June 25, 1889. The Hardison & Stewart Oil Company (forerunner of Union Oil Company) built the revolutionary schooner W. L. Hardison as an alternative to paying one-dollar per barrel railroad tank car rates to reach markets in San Francisco.
Armais Arutunoff, inventor of the oilfield electric submersible pump, is born June 21, 1893, in Tiflis, Russia. He will develop an electrical centrifugal submersible pump in 1916 -- but after emigrating to America in 1923, he cannot find financial support for his revolutionary technology. In 1928, with help from Phillips Petroleum Company, Arutunoff moves to Bartlesville, Oklahoma. At Bartlesville, the REDA Pump Company demonstrates a working model of Arutunoff's oilfield electric submersible pump for down-hole drilling and launches his company into decades of success. The name REDA (Russian Electrical Dynamo of Arutunoff ) is the cable address of the company that he operated in Germany. REDA submersible pumping systems today are provided by Schlumberger.
On June 14, 1938, the federal government assumes regulatory control of the natural gas industry for the first time. Although passage of the Natural Gas Act does not apply to the production, gathering or local distribution of natural gas, it seeks to set "just and reasonable rates" for pipeline companies' transmission or sale of natural gas in interstate commerce. Regulatory functions are assigned to the Federal Power Commission (established in 1920) and subsequently transferred to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in 1977.
The revolutionary offshore drilling rig, Mr. Charlie, leaves its shipyard on June 15, 1954, and goes to work for Shell Oil Co. in a new field in East Bay near the mouth of the Mississippi River. A. J. LaBorde, a marine superintendent for Kerr-McGee in Morgan City, La., had proposed building the moveable, submersible drilling barge. When his company declined, LaBorde formed the Ocean Drilling & Exploration Co. The new company contracted with J. Ray McDermott Co. and built Mr. Charlie. This column-stabilized rig design revolutionized the offshore industry and now resides at the at the International Petroleum Museum & Exposition in Morgan City, Louisiana. See September 2006 Petroleum Age.
On June 17, 1816, America's first gas utility company is established when the Baltimore city council approves the Gas Light Company of Baltimore's plan to light streets and homes with manufactured gas. The company's founders include famed George Washington portraitist Rembrandt Peale, who earlier illuminated a room in his Holliday Street museum (now the Peale Museum) with a "magic ring" of 100 burners. Citzens are dazzled by the technology and Peale lays pipelines and builds street lights -- but the company shows no profit for seven years. His Gas Light Company of Baltimore persevere...and is in business today as the Baltimore Gas & Electric Company.
On June 4, 1825, during a visit to America, Revolutionary War hero and friend to George Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette, arrives in Fredonia, New York at 2 a.m. by stagecoach. He is surprised to find Mosley Abell's Inn and the town brilliantly illuminated by natural gas in his honor. Four years earlier, William Hart, a local gunsmith, had drilled America's first commercial natural gas well. He found shale at depth of 27 feet and then drilled a 1.5 inch borehole to reach plentiful natural gas at 70 feet. Using lead pipe, Hart supplied gas to Abell's Inn on the stagecoach route from Buffalo to Cleveland and later expanded to 30 burners for other Fredonia homes and businesses.
On June 4, 1872 Robert A. Chesebrough patents "a new and useful product from petroleum" which he names "Vaseline" (Patent No. 127,568). His patent extols the virtues of this purified extract of petroleum distillation residue as a leather treatment, lubricator, pomade, and balm for chapped hands. An 1886 issue of Manufacture and Builder would report that �French bakers are making large use of vaseline in cake and other pastry. Its advantage over lard or butter lies in the fact that, however stale the pastry may be, it will not become rancid.� Chesebrough himself consumed a spoonful of Vaseline each day and lived to be 96 years old. Read more about his invention in the Petroleum Age article Mabel's Eyelashes.
On May 28,1923, near Big Lake, Texas -- on arid land leased from the University of Texas -- Texon Oil and Land Company brings in the Santa Rita No. 1 well after 646 days of cable-tool drilling that averaged less than five feet a day. Named for the patron saint of the impossible, the well produces for the next 66 years -- and opens the Permian Basin's vast commercial oil production. Within three years, royalties endow the Permanent University Fund with $4 million. The original Santa Rita No. 1 is now located on the University of Texas campus in Austin. More petroleum history is exhibited at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin.
On May 29, 1940, Nebraska's first commercial oil well is brought in by the Pawnee Royalty Company at Near Falls City in Richardson County. The Nebraska legislature had offered a $15,000 bonus for the first well to produce 50 barrels daily for 60 consecutive days (hundreds of dry holes had been drilled since reports of oil in 1883). The Bucholz No. 1 discovery well produced an average of more than 169 barrels a day in its first 60 days. Richardson County experienced an oil boom for the next three years.
As a Pennsylvania community's historians explain, "the hilltop settlement of Cherry Grove saw national history in the spring and summer of 1882 when the '646 Mystery Well' ushered in a great oil boom." The true oil production of the closely guarded secret discovery well in the Warren County, Pennsylvania, township was revealed on May 18, 1882 -- with a devastating impact on oil prices. The Jamestown Oil Company well reportedly produced 40,000 barrels of oil a day. �The excitement in the oil exchanges was indescribable," notes an account of historian Paul H. Giddens. "Over 4,500,000 barrels of oil were sold in one day on the exchanges in Titusville, Oil City, and Bradford.� According to Giddens, the Cherry Grove discovery demoralized the market and drove the price down to less than 50 cents per barrel, the lowest in 20 years. See the website of the Cherry Grove Old Home and Community Day Committee, which hosts special events on the last Sunday in June.
ConocoPhillips opens new petroleum museums in Bartlesville and Ponca City, Oklahoma on May 12, 2007. Conoco -- founded in 1875 as Continental Oil Co. in Utah -- merged with Oklahoma's Marland Oil Co. in 1929. Phillips Petroleum Co. incorporated in Bartlesville in 1917 and merged with Conoco in 2002.
On May 9, 1863, Confederate cavalry Gen. William "Grumble" Jones and 1,300 troops attack an early oil town, destroying equipment and thousands of barrels of oil. Of his raid on Burning Springs, Virginia, Jones reports to Gen. Robert E. Lee: The wells are owned mainly by Southern men, now driven from their homes, and their property appropriated either by the Federal Government or Northern men. All the oil, the tanks, barrels, engines for pumping, engine-houses, and wagons -- in a word, everything used for raising, holding, or sending it off was burned. Men of experience estimated the oil destroyed at 150,000 barrels. It will be many months before a large supply can be had from this source, as it can only be boated down the Little Kanawha when the waters are high.�
For the first time since its establishment in 1919, the American Petroleum Institute launches a national advertising campaign. The Billboard magazine notes: "Radio this week struck real pay dirt as 'Gusher' will come mainly from entry into or expansion of current air time on spot local or regional levels by the thousands of petroleum and related corporations which participate in API campaigns�the theme of the drive is to be that the petroleum industry is a modern and progressive one, and is now turning out the best products in its history."
On April 19, 1892, American inventors Charles and Frank Duryea test drive a gasoline-powered automobile that's considered the first automobile regularly made for sale in the United States.
Failed oilman turns assassin. Not long after his "Dramatic Oil Company" goes bankrupt in the otherwise booming Pennsylvania oilfields, John Wilkes Booth changes history on April 14, 1865.
On April 15, 1897, a large crowd gathers at the Nellie Johnstone No. 1 oil well in Indian Territory.
In April 1922, the invention of the "Cameron Ram-Type Blowout Preventor" in Humble, Texas, helps bring an end to the era of oil gushers.

Read the latest offshore history articles added to Petroleum History Resources.

Swimming Wrenches -- A History of Offshore ROVs

Much of today�s offshore oil and natural gas industry relies on remotely operated under-water vehicles (ROVs) that can trace their roots back to Howard Hughes, Jr. In the late 1950s, Hughes Aircraft Co. developed its Manipulator Operated Robot � MOBOT � for the Atomic Energy Commission. Working on land, MOBOT performed tasks in environments too radioactive for humans.

Weighing 4,500 pounds with hydraulically powered steel claws and television eyes, MOBOT was liked by a 200-foot cable to the operator, who used pistol grips to control it. �Marvelous MOBOT will do Work too Hot for Man,� declared a 1960 article in Popular Science Magazine. The petroleum industry was quick to perceive the MOBOT�s offshore potential.

As the offshore search for petroleum reached deeper, traditional hard-hat diving technology advanced to keep up. Saturation diving and helium/oxygen mixtures extended depths and diving times and reduced the dangers of decompression sickness � �the bends,� but there were limits to what divers could accomplish at increasingly hazardous depths (see Deep Sea Roughnecks - LINK).

Beginning in 1960, Shell Oil Co. took the lead in transforming Hughes Aircraft�s landlocked MOBOT into what would one day become known as an ROV. A series of evolving patents described �a remotely controlled manipulator device for carrying out operations underwater at an assembly position at the top of a well.�

Hughes Aircraft Co. built the first marine MOBOT for Shell Oil, using sonar and television cameras for navigation, propellers for propulsion, and an umbilical cable for control. With a mechanical arm, it could turn bolts, operate valves and attach control hoses and guide lines.

�It was basically a swimming socket wrench,� said a Shell engineer, describing the 14-foot, 7,000-pound underwater robot.

Because of the necessity to pay traditional divers to rescue entangled MOBOTs, early models also became known as �a diver�s best friend.� Nonetheless, Shell successfully used a MOBOT on a wildcat well in 250 feet of water off the coast of Santa Barbara, Calif., in October 1962. Over the next 10 years, MOBOT worked on 24 offshore wells � operating to depths of 1,000 feet for extended periods.

Military Technologies

During the Cold War, the U.S. Navy developed its own deep-sea technology for both submarine rescue and antisubmarine purposes. In 1963, the nuclear attack submarine USS Thresher sank with the loss of all hands 220 miles off the coast of Cape Cod, Mass.

The only vehicle capable of reaching the depth of 8,400 feet was the Navy�s manned bathyscaph Trieste, which found and photo-graphed the wreckage. Unfortunately, Trieste had little capability to retrieve objects.

In January 1966 near the coast of Spain, a U.S. Air Force B-52 collided with its refueling tanker, scattering debris and four, 70-kiloton hydrogen bombs over the Spanish coast. Three of the bombs were recovered on land, but the fourth was lost in the Mediterranean Sea.

With a combination of divers and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution�s manned submersible, Alvin, the missing atomic bomb was located at a depth of 2,850 feet. To retrieve it, the Navy employed its new CURV I (Cable-Controlled Underwater Recovery Vehicle), which snagged the bomb and pulled it to the surface.

In 1982, oceanographer and former naval intelligence officer Dr. Robert Ballard, in search of RMS Titanic, approached the U.S. Navy as a possible source of funding. The Navy cared little for the Titanic, but was interested in developing Ballard�s fiber optic video system for deep sea survey and its potential to examine the debris fields of USS Thresher and USS Scorpion, lost in 1968.

Secret of the Titanic Discovery

With Navy support and the highly classified mission presented to the public only as a search for RMS Titanic, Ballard�s Argo (an unmanned video-camera sled) surveyed and photographed the lost submarines. Completing the secret mission�s final objectives with 12 days to spare, Ballard�s team then used Argo to find the wreck of RMS Titanic on Sept. 1, 1985 � receiving worldwide acclaim. For 73 years Titanic had remained hidden at 12,460 feet.

When Ballard brought the Woods Hole veteran deep-diving manned submersible Alvin to the Titanic, the public looked into Titanic�s ghostly decks through the fiber optic eyes of Jason Jr., and later, Hercules, two increasingly sophisticated ROVs.

While such �eyeball class� ROVs were well suited for marine archeology, observation and inspection, the demands of deep offshore oil production demanded further development of heavy �Work Class� ROVs that could be equipped with many tools.

Today, ROVs can lift more 1,000 pounds and operate at 10,000-foot depths. The petroleum industry is the principle user of this under-water technology.

Offshore exploration is prompting a new generation of marine robotics � the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV), which abandons the use of a cable connection to the mother ship.

Survey class AUVs remain an emerging technology � separated from Howard Hughes� simple MOBOT by only 50 years.

Petroleum Survey Finds U-166

The Minerals Management Service requires companies operating in the Outer Continental Shelf to provide sonar data in areas that have archeological potential. MMS reviews about 1,700 such surveys annually and �a German submarine definitely got our attention.�

During the World War II, U-boats prowled the Gulf of Mexico seeking to disrupt the flow of oil carried by tankers departing ports in Louisiana and Texas. In just one year, they sank 56 allied ships while losing only one submarine, the U-166. Its final resting place remained a mystery for almost 60 years.

The last victim of U-166 was the freighter Robert E. Lee, sunk on July 30, 1942, by a torpedo. Although her Navy escort ship dropped ten depth charges, U-166 was believed to have escaped. It did not.

In 1986, a Shell Offshore Inc. survey recorded two wrecks about 45 miles off the Louisiana coast in 5,000 feet of water. In March 2001, advanced sonar technology disclosed the wrecks to be U-166 and the Robert E. Lee. BP and Shell altered their proposed deepwater pipeline route to preserve the site as a war grave where 52 German sailors remain entombed with their ship.

The historical society continues to post orginial energy education articles -- written for researchers, teachers and students. Recent additions to our Petroleum History Resources website include stories about the history of U.S. offshore exploration.

America's offshore petroleum industry began in 1896 when California oilmen built piers into the Pacific Ocean. More than 50 years later, no company had ever risked drilling beyond sight of land. That would change as new technologies resulted in important discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico. Offshore Oil History tells the story.

Also see these two offshore related features: Although America's "first offshore drilling" is generally acknowledged to be over Louisiana's Caddo Lake in 1911, Ohio oil historians say otherwise. Read more about Ohio Offshore Wells. More than 5,000 offshore oil and natural gas platforms operate in the Gulf of Mexico around the clock, seven days a week. It is the largest artificial reef system in the world. Read more about Rigs to Reefs.

The man who would create the American petroleum industry was down to his last few pennies in late August 1859. A letter was on its way from the company that had hired him to drill a well in Titusville, Pa. The letter instructed him to close operations.

"As far as the company was concerned, the project was finished," writes William Brice, PhD, in his new biography, Myth, Legend, Reality - Edwin Laurentine Drake and the Early Oil Industry. "Fortunately that letter was not delivered until after they found oil."

Also featured is The Natural Gas Industry in Appalachia by David A. Waples explores the evolution and significance of the natural gas industry.

If you asked a resident of Beaumont on Jan.1, 1901, what big news of recent months most interested him, he would have said the great Galveston hurricane of Sept. 8, or the dawning of a new century, notes a southeastern Texas oil museum website. But if you asked him on January 10, he would have said the great gusher at Spindletop.

The Blue Flame

There are more than 120,000 vehicles on U.S. roads powered by natural gas, the cleanest-burning fossil fuel. Technological advances promise even greater natural gas use for transportation. Historic pursuit of the world land speed record is the heritage of this "fuel of the future."

A "Joe Roughneck Monument," erected in a Kilgore, Texas, community park, serves as memorial tribute to the working men in the oilfields - well known as roughnecks.

Since 1955, the Chief Roughneck Award, sponsored by U. S. Steel Tubular Products (formerly Lone Star Steel) annually recognizes the petroleum industry's one individual whose accomplishments and character best represent the highest ideals of the oil and natural gas industry.

The Historical Society's Petroleum History Resources website, frequently updated with articles from the the Petroleum Age newsletter, now includes a state-by-state listing of contacts for educators and students.

Teaching the evolution of the nation's oilfield technologies is fundamental to the historical society's network of oil and natural gas museums, historians and energy educators -- and young people.

One result is that this website is becoming more widely known and respected as an energy education resource. Every day more young people are finding our Petroleum Age newsletters and links to other resources. Google search the phrase �American oil history� and you will find that of about 40 million hits, this website is top of the list for the most visited. Two new AOGHS websites now are adding even more unique visitors.

With the help of a few volunteers, AOGHS has established two sites that include individual articles from The Petroleum Age -- and offer additional Petroleum History Resources. A third site is in the works. These innovations -- using Google cost-free templates -- allow the historical society to continue to expand its public outreach, despite an urgent need for financial contributions.

In just a few months, the websites show a strong and steady growth in "unique visitors." Hopefully, they leave with a better understanding of a complex and still vital industry that began in 1859. As noted on all AOGHS websites, today more than ever American needs and educated public making informed decision about future energy challenges. This energy education work continues. Visit the new sites and donate a tax-deductible contribution to our cause.

Every year, thousands of tourists, students and educators visit community museums in more than 30 oil and natural gas producing states. In an effort to expand energy education programs, two leading facilities in Pennsylvania and Texas recently began major renovations.

In Titusville, Pa., the Drake Well Museum main building, built in 1963, is undergoing a $6.34 million upgrade. According to the Erie Times-News, the work will involve reconfiguring the space to make room for a comprehensive research library and collection storage area. A larger orientation theater will be added, along with an education center and a multipurpose room.

The project's scheduled summer start was delayed temporarily while the museum and grounds played a primary role in the region's Oil 150 celebration which culminated with a series of special events in and around Titusville in late August. The celebration helped boost museum attendance, as the facility welcomed about 1,200 more visitors in August than in the previous year and nearly doubled its previous year's attendance in September. The museum grounds will remain open during the project, and officials will use a mobile-education classroom for schoolchildren and other visiting groups, notes Director Barbara Zolli.

In Galveston, Texas, a major renovation to the exterior hull of the Ocean Star Offshore Drilling Rig and Museum is underway. Various components of the drilling rig are being removed, modified or improved to increase the educational value of the museum -- and its maintainability. Rust issues are being addressed as paint preparation continues. Gulf Copper Dry Dock and Rig Repair, who Galveston Facility is across the channel from the Ocean Star, is providing project management and performing most of the exterior renovation, according to Sandra Mourton, executive director of the Houston-based Offshore Energy Center, which operates the museum.

Portions of the museum, which was damaged by Hurricane Ike last year, will remain open. Preliminary work is underway for new education displays, including a safety exhibit and new models. A new interactive video featuring offshore workers also will be installed. "Gulf Copper's close proximity to the Ocean Star and the expertise in managing this type of rig repair has really provided the opportunity to move forward with this much needed renovation," noted Operations Director Lisa Lisinicchia in the museum's third-quarter newsletter. "Gulf Copper's in-kind donations along with the funding we've already received mean we can see the light at the end of the tunnel and visitors will have a whole new experience before the holiday season."

Planning is underway for the 2010 Oil History Symposium of the Petroleum History Institute (PHI). according to Jeff Spencer of Black Pool Energy, Houston. Next year's symposium will take place April 29 to May 1 in Lafayette, La. The symposium, co-sponsored by the Lafayette Geological Society, will include oral and poster presentations -- and a field trip to Jennings, the Texas Energy Museum and the Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum in Beaumont. Learn more about the 2010 PHI symposium at www.petroleumhistory.org

The West Kern Oil Museum will be holding their annual Boom Town Days and BBQ on October 17, 2009, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at The Oil Museum located at 1168 Wood Street. Admission is Free and a BBQ lunch will be available at 11:30 am for $10. Music by �Forever Surf� Small Gas Engine Show and arrowhead making demo. For more info contact the museum at (661) 765-6664. -- www.taftindependent.com

Pitch in to promote geoscience literacy. Make plans for Earth Science Week, held Oct. 11-17, 2009. The 12th annual Earth Science Week will celebrate the theme �Understanding Climate� with a range of activities, programs, and resources designed to help young people understand the large-scale weather patterns that make up climate. Founded in 1948, the American Geological Institute is a nonprofit federation of 45 geoscientific and professional associations that represents more than 120,000 geologists, geophysicists, and other earth scientists. -- www.earthscienceweek.org

Members of the Permian Basin Petroleum Pioneers celebrated the 50th anniversary of the group�s founding Sept. 25, 2009, holding their 26th Biennial reunion at the Petroleum Museum in Midland, Texas.

It was the petroleum pioneers, particularly the wildcatters, who �loved the challenge of the search, the risk, the hardship, the suspense and, yes, the reward of a successful outcome� that brought the Texas oil industry from its first discovery at Corsicana in 1894 through Spindletop, Sour Lake, Humble west to Westbrook and the legendary Santa Rita, said keynote speaker Kathy Shannon, the museum�s executive director. -- www.mywesttexas.com

American Oil & Gas Historical Society Executive Director Bruce Wells was among the featured speakers on Sept. 25, 2009, during the 36th annual institute of the National Association of Division Order Analysts in Washington, DC. NADOA members are responsible for distribution of revenues obtained from oil and/or natural gas production or other mineral deposits, which includes the ongoing maintenance of the mineral ownership of those wells. They possess a wealth of knowledge in land and mineral title work. -- www.nadoa.org

Area artists participated in the annual "Reflections of Texas� art competition at the Central Texas Oil Patch Museum in Luling. The show, in its sixth year, took place Sept. 13-22, 2009. The Oil Museum focuses on the life of Edgar B. Davis, who in 1922 brought in one of the most significant fields in the Southwest. Luling was transformed from a railroad community to an oil boom town of 5,000 people. �We put this show together mainly to honor Davis� love for the arts,� museum director Carol Voigt said. -- www.sanmarcorcrecord.com

The 74th annual Louisiana Shrimp & Petroleum Festival. took place Sept. 3 - 7, 2009, in picturesque downtown Morgan City, La. "This is an event that will prove that oil and water really do mix," organizers noted. Deep in the heart of Cajun Country, every Labor Day Weekend, tens of thousands of people celebrate at Louisiana's oldest chartered harvest festival. -- www.shrimp-petrofest.org

Representatives of the California Highway Patrol and Taft City officials gathered Sept. 3, 2009, to dedicate a 40 miles portion of California Route 33 as the "Petroleum Highway."

Les Clark, director of the Independent Oil Producers� Agency, moved from Oklahoma as a child and grew up on the Westside. He told the audience of 50 about his life experiences as he went to school, worked and played along the old highway. The road was named in recognition of the petroleum industry, which has made an important economic contribution to Kern County.

The Westside of Kern County produces 50 percent of California�s oil production. The largest gas field in the west, Elk Hills, is within sight of Route 33. Travelers on Route 33 can visit the only oil boomtowns in California and the West Kern Oil Museum in Taft. -- www.taftindependent.com

AOGHS member JoAnn Cowans of Fullerton, Calif., has published an outstanding collection of her paintings. Printed on heavy weight archival paper, the "gallery edition coffee table book" includes 42 paintings and stories from 27 oilfields. A special, limited-edition commemorating the 150th anniversary of the American petroleum industry is also available. Learn more about "Black Gold, the Artwork of JoAnn Cowans" by visiting her website.

Volunteers were geared up Aug. 27, 2009, as the public toured the Wood River Refinery Museum in Roxana, Ill., to learn about the discovery of crude oil 150 years ago. "We had around a dozen people come in," said Ollie Schwallenstecker, president of the museum's board. "That's a good day for us."

Schwallenstecker, along with Museum Board member Bill Generally, were enthusiastic about those who visited the museum, which opened in 1986, and wanted to learn more about the sesquicentennial. "The discovery of oil in America changed everything," Schwallenstecker said. -- www.wrrhm.org

American Oil &Gas Historical Society Executive Director Bruce Wells was interviewed by Susan McGinnis of Cleanskies.tv on Aug. 25. During the 10-minute segment, Wells described the historical significance of America's first oil discovery of Aug. 27, 1859. -- www.cleanskies.tv