Spindletop Boom Days

Spindletop. The word conjures images of Texas oil: roustabouts, roughnecks, oil barons, and endless rows of wooden derricks. The discovery of oil at Spindletop in 1901 revolutionized the oil and drilling industry in the United States: before Spindletop's seventy thousand barrels of oil a day, no other well in the United States had produced more than three thousand barrels in a whole month. In Spindletop Boom Days Paul Spellman weaves together first-person narratives to tell the story of this moment in history and to describe the day-to-day life of those involved with the Spindletop gusher. These are stories of people, men and women of differing backgrounds and ethnicity, who touched the lodestone of the American frontier character. Some were culturally polished; most were ragged and forthright and completely honest. They were self-reliant to a fault, but they knew exactly when and how to cooperate in the necessities of the moment. They were fiercely independent and democratic in their