Spindletop Gusher

January 10, 1901 - It was on this date that 3 men put a new bit on a drill and lowered it into a 1000 foot shaft on the Spindletop salt dome near Beaumont, Texas.

The oil well  suddenly erupted with a major strike! The men scrambled to take cover as several tons of drilling pipe and thousands of gallons of black oil were blasted into the sky. It would take nine days to bring the gusher under control.

This Spindletop oil field would soon be producing over 100,000 barrels of oil a day. It ignited the Texas oil boom and within a year over 500 oil and land companies were created. For a moment in time America had unlimited access to affordable oil.

In the century that would follow, the Spindletop oil field would bring in over 155,000,000 barrels.

To commemorate the historical impact of this oil field, a pink granite monument was erected on the site in 1941, but due to the massive withdrawal of oil, sulphur and brine from beneath the surface, the Spindletop dome started to sink and the monument had to be relocated.