Early oil-boom towns didn’t have paved roads. When the roads became muddy, some people would charge 25 cents to carry others piggyback across the street.
Safety fact! Oil storage tanks and pipelines can emit fumes. The slightest spark, even static electricity, and they’ll be talking about you tomorrow – in History class.
Safety fact! Natural gas compressors are powered by huge engines that are as dangerous as they are LOUD. Listen to your instincts and get away.
Safety fact! Some wells produce hydrogen sulfide (H2S) gas, which smells like rotten eggs and is dangerous to inhale. If you smell it, you better scramble!
The Wild Mary Sudick, a well drilled in 1930 in the Oklahoma Cit Field, is the most famous gusher in Oklahoma history. It blew for 11 days, spewing 2,000 barrels and ten million cubic feet of natural gas per hour.
Safety fact! If you trespass on a well site, you’re not proving that you’re brave or cool. You’re only proving that you can’t read. Hey, nice reputation.
Safety fact! Well-site electric boxes say “High Voltage.” It’s no lie.
The group of control valves, pressure gauges and chokes on top of a well that control the flow of oil and natural gas is called a Christmas tree.
The Discovery Well of 1913 that opened Oklahoma’s Healdton Oil Field was a successful mistake. A wagon carrying drilling equipment got stuck in mud, so rig builders built the rig on that spot… and miraculously struck oil.
Safety fact! Ten-ton counterweights and massive steel gears swing into action on pump jacks with no warning whatsoever. Take this as your warning: pump jacks are bad news.
Oklahoma oilman Robert Garland drilled 40 dry holes in a row and was turned down for a loan of $100 by a Tulsa bank. Within a year, his drilling success in Seminole was worth $10 million dollars. He became a board member of the same Tulsa bank.
The Bertha Rogers No. 1 well of Oklahoma’s Washita County became the world’s deepest hole in 1974, reaching a depth of 31,441 feet.
For most of the 20th century, Tulsa was the “Oil Capitol of the World,” Cushing was the “Pipeline Crossroads of the World” and Elk City was known as the “Deep Gas Capitol of the World.”
When Oklahoma gained statehood in 1907, it was the nation’s top oil-producing state.
Petroleum is the Sooner State’s number one industry, employing thousands and contributing millions into our economy each year.
The small room on an oil rig’s floor that the drillers use as an office is called the “doghouse.”
Safety fact! The temperature in heated separator tanks is above 140 degrees.
Experts say that for every barrel of oil that has been pumped from the ground in Oklahoma, another two barrels remain in the ground.
The oil industry spends more than $10 billion each year to protect the environment-- equal to what the top 300 oil and natural gas companies earn in profits.
Americans use three and a half gallons of oil and more than 250 cubic feet of natural gas for every man, woman and child, daily.
The Capitol Building of Oklahoma is the world’s only capitol building built over an oil well.