The Rise and Fall of America's Richest Oil City: Beaumont, Texas

On January 10, 1901, a gusher south of Beaumont, Texas, produced more oil in a single day than every other well in America combined — and within months drove the price of crude to three cents a barrel. The Spindletop discovery didn't just transform a small Gulf Coast lumber town. It launched the modern petroleum industry, gave birth to Texaco, Gulf Oil, and what became Exxon, and turned cattle pasture into the most valuable real estate on the continent. Behind it all was Pattillo Higgins, a one-armed, self-taught geologist who spent a decade being called a fool before the earth proved him right — and who was cut out of the deal before the well came in. This is the story of the oil boom that built Beaumont's grand hotels, million-dollar theaters, and downtown commercial district, the fortunes made and lost in weeks, the second Spindletop boom of 1925 that funded an architectural golden age, and what happened to the city after the industry it created moved its ambitions eighty-five miles west to Houston.
Sources

"Spindletop Oilfield," Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association (tshaonline.org)
"Higgins, Pattillo," Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association (tshaonline.org)
"Spindletop History," Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum, Lamar University (lamar.edu)
"Oil and Texas: A Cultural History," Texas Almanac (texasalmanac.com)
"Beaumont, TX," Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association (tshaonline.org)
"The Brief Glory of the Spindletop Field," American Heritage, December 2000 (americanheritage.com)

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