The one-arm man stood atop Sour Hill Mound in a state of almost bewildering disappointment. He had been severely criticized by the local newspaper because of his idea. He was considered by them to be a fool, a dreamer who had almost no scientific foundation on which to base his ideas. He had tried four times and failed. He was Pattillo Higgins of Beaumont, Texas.

He had only completed the fourth grade, then apprenticed as a gunsmith under his father’s instruction. He was a bit wild in his youth.

At the age of seventeen, he was playing a joke on congregation members of a local Baptist Church when a sheriff’s deputy arrived. At one point, the deputy fired a warning shot over Pattillo’s head. Pattillo fired the second shot, leaving the deputy dying on the ground, but before he died, the deputy fired one last shot that caught Pattillo in the left arm
He was sent to jail to await trial for the murder of the deputy.
The jury found Pattillo innocent of the charge, saying it was obviously self defense. He would not have been able to tell if the deputy was firing over his head or at him. Pattillo was set free.

Pattillo worked as a one-armed logger around the Texas-Louisiana border for several years, he saved his money.

At some point in his early twenties, he became a Christian and decided to move to Beaumont. There he invested his money in real estate, eventually he opened and operated the Higgins Manufacturing Company, which manufactured bricks. He became interested in finding a smoother burning fuel for the kilns used to bake the bricks. He read a lot about gas and oil, but didn’t know how to go about getting it. Pennsylvania was the biggest oil producing state in the union and there were some wells near Corsicana, Texas.

Upon his return home, Pattillo started planning. He convinced investors George O’Brian, George Carroll, Emma John and J.F. Lanier to join him in a company called, the Gladys City Oil, Gas and Manufacturing Company. Three attempts at drilling wells proved a dismal failure for the company. The unstable sand and mud made it almost impossible to drill to the required depth. In spite of the three failures, Pattillo retained ownership of the land .

Late in October, 1900 drilling was started again at the Lucas#1 well. Lucas had with him, drillers Al and Curt Hamill of Corsicana. They used a newer, heavier rotary bit.

After ten weeks of drilling, things had become a bit routine around Lucas #1. But, on January 10, 1901, all that changed. The ground around Lucas#1 began to shake, noises were heard coming out of the hole and suddenly six tons of 4-inch diameter drill pipe began to shoot skyward from the hole, one section at a time. Workers scrambled for safety to avoid the heavy drill pipe, the sky filled with a blast of crude, blowing 150 feet into the air before falling back to earth to coat everything in the vicinity.

The Lucas #1 blew in with an estimated flow of 100,000 barrels of crude per day! That was more than all the oil wells in the US at that time - combined! The name, Spindletop would resonate around the world and for many decades, the Texas oilfields would become the most productive on the planet! Throughout all of history and all of time, that day belongs exclusively to Pattillo Higgins, Anthony Lucas, Al Hamill, Curt Hamill and the crew of Lucas#1.
__________________________________________________________________________

For more information on Spindletop, visit Here.

If you're in Beaumont, visit the Spindletop - Gladys City Boomtown Museum, located at Highway 69 at University Drive
Beaumont, Texas 77710
(409)835-0823

Return to the Texas Page