Texas Heritage, Summer 2001 Page: 32
46 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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BOOK
Spindletop
SPINDLETP The Untold Story
THE By Christine Moor
UNTOLD STORY Sanders
'~l ; 'Reviewed by
Joe Bridges
' & Greystone Petroleum
On her visit to the opening
of a Beaumont oil industry
history museum,
Christine Moor Sanders was
immediately confronted by
CHRISnTNEM OOQR SAMEUN S the mechanical figure of a
man whose recorded voice
proclaimed himself to be the
"Prophet of Spindletop" and the owner of her very own family's
oil company. Spurred by what she considered to be blatant
errors in an institution devoted to the preservation of historical
accuracy, Sanders set out to research and set the record
straight on the discovery of oil at the famous Spindletop Field.
She intended to document the significant role played in that
discovery by her family's company, the Gladys City Oil, Gas
and Manufacturing Company, beginning with one of the actual
owners and founders, her great grandfather, Captain George
Washington O'Brien.
The discovery of oil at Spindletop is a story truly worthy of
the global industry it spawned. Full of eternal optimism, great
technical skill, perilous financial risk, dashed hopes, fabulous
rewards, and no small amount of luck, the story painted by
Sanders is carefully and painstakingly rendered. She leads the
reader from the visionary dreams of her great grandfather, who
foresaw petroleum oil at Spindletop in 1865, to the struggling
attempts to drill deeply enough to find the buried treasure, to
the Lucas Gusher itself and its prolific capacity to produce oil.
As is so often the case, the discovery is not the end but only
the beginning of the story. The reader is then shepherded
through an intricate maze of land and mineral titles, corporate
stock dealing and misdealing, claims, counterclaims, and lawsuits,
some of which were still in litigation nearly 100 years
later.
Sanders brings to her book the private corporate records of
the family company, the internal legal correspondence of more
than three generations of the lawyers in her family, as well as
the public land and corporate transaction records that document
the tightly woven fabric of this fascinating story.
During this year that celebrates the 100th anniversary of theThe discovery of oil at Spindletop
is a story truly worthy of the
global industry it spawned. Full
of eternal optimism, great technical
skill, perilous financial risk,
dashed hopes, fabulous rewards,
and no small amount of luck,
the story painted by Sanders
is carefully...rendered.
discovery of oil at Spindletop, it is fitting that the names of
George Washington O'Brien, Emma Elizabeth John,
George W. Carroll, and Junius Fisher Lanier take their
proper place as the financial risk takers who, for nearly a
decade before the Spindletop discovery, put their assets on
the line to pursue the dream of oil production in Texas.
Anthony Francis Lucas, the gusher's namesake and the person
whose engineering skill and daring brought the well
under control without the loss of life or property, is rightfully
joined in fame by John Allen Veatch, B.T. Kavanaugh,
A.B. Trowell, Matthew Cartwright, M.B. Loonie, Walter B.
Sharp, Jim Jackson, Chenault O'Brien, W.P.H. McFaddin,
and the Savage and Hamill brothers. They all assume their
appropriate place in history as Sanders' careful research and
use of heretofore unpublished archival sources shows the
reader how each of these previously unheralded individuals
played a part in the oil discovery that so dramatically
launched the worldwide petroleum industry of today.
Order Spindletop: The Untold Story from: Christine Moor
Sanders, P.O. Box 619, Wooodville, TX 75979
* ISBN 0-9674460-3-1. 6 x 9 in., 352 pp. Cloth, $38.00
(tax included) plus $5.00 for shipping and handling for
each book.
* ISBN 0-9674460-4-X. 6 x 9 in., 352 pp. Paper, $27.00
(tax included) plus $5.00 for shipping and handling for
each book.HERITAGE M SUMMER 2001
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Texas Historical Foundation. Texas Heritage, Summer 2001, periodical, Summer 2001; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth45385/m1/32/?rotate=90: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Historical Foundation.