The discovery of the Spindletop oil gusher in 1901 in Beaumont, Texas, occurred after nearly a decade of exploration. After the oil field had been abandoned by Standard Oil prospectors as unproductive, explorers found oil by drilling more than seven hundred feet into a salt dome. The oil gusher established the petroleum industry in Texas, where 491 oil companies were chartered in the next year. Anthony F. Luchrich is credited with the find; he was backed by Pittsburgh financiers John H. Galey and Col. J. M. Guffey. The company formed around the find was originally called Guffey Oil but later became Gulf Oil in 1907 after Guffey was implicated in a financial scandal. The field had more oil than the rest of the United States combined and created the first competition to Standard Oil. The initial burst of oil formed a 160-foot gusher.

The gusher made headlines around...