AUSTIN, Texas — At the dawn of the 20th century, there was a settlement near Beaumont in southeast Texas known as Gladys City – a collection of small businesses and primitive shacks where a handful of wildcatter-entrepreneurs hoped to find oil.
Early attempts there hadn’t been successful until Anthony Lucas arrived. He had a hunch that with a big salt dome nearby there had oil even though most geologists in the day had their doubts.
But Lucas persisted. And during this week in January 1901, his hunch finally paid off.
Newspapers reported that on Jan. 10, the Earth at Gladys City rumbled. From a deep oil well, drilling pipes came shooting out of the ground. Then mud. Then natural gas.
Then ... oil. A steady stream of oil so massive that it shot 100 feet in the sky. Geologists said that the well was producing 100,000 barrels a day, each day, for weeks.
Soon other wells nearby also began producing oil. As the news spread, speculators, dreamers and oil wells popped up around Beaumont.
The so-called “Lucas Gusher” at Spindletop Field would change history. It marked the birth of the modern oil industry as fledgling companies like The Texas Company (later Texaco), Gulf Oil (later Chevron) and what would later become Exxon got their start.