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Indians found oil seeping from the soils of Texas long before the first Europeans arrived. They told explorers that the fluid had medicinal values. The first record of Europeans using crude oil, however, was for the caulking of boats in 1543 by survivors of the DeSoto expedition near Sabine Pass.
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Lyne T. Barret drilled Texas' first producing oil well in 1866 at Melrose in Nacogdoches County. The following year, Amory Reily Starr and Peyton F.
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For Texans, the 20th century did not begin on January 1, 1901, as it did for everyone else. It began nine days later, on Jan. 10, http://www.texasalmanac.com/sites/default/files/images/SPNDTOP.jpg
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spindletop's oil was becoming popular December 20, 1903 http://www.priweb.org/ed/pgws/history/spindletop/images/boiler-avenue_sml.jpg
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In 1911, a water-well drilling outfit on the W. T. Waggoner Ranch in Wichita County hit oil, bringing in the Electra Field. Salt dome oil fields followed at Damon Mound in 1915 (Brazoria County), Barbers Hill in 1916 (Chambers County), and Blue Ridge in 1919 (Fort Bend County).
