Oilfield Revolutionary: The Career of Everette Lee DeGolyer
352
Oilfield Revolutionary: The Career of Everette Lee DeGolyer
352eBook
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Overview
Everette Lee DeGolyer wore many hats—and he wore them with distinction. Though not a geophysicist, he helped make geophysics central to oil exploration. Though not a politician, he played an important role in the national politics of energy. Though trained as a geologist, he became an important business executive. DeGolyer left his stamp on oil exploration and his name on a number of philanthropic institutions, including the DeGolyer Library at Southern Methodist University.
This account of DeGolyer’s life, at once readable and yet authoritative, covers the period from his training with the United States Geological Survey in the American West, to his geological exploration of Mexico during the Revolution of the 1910s, his pioneering investment in geophysical prospecting technologies, and his work on behalf of the United States government in World War II, including a ground-breaking mission to the Middle East.
Houston Mount develops his account of the career of Everette Lee DeGolyer in a way that provides a useful lens through which to examine the rising fortunes of earth scientists in the oil industry and in government—a process for which DeGolyer’s spectacular career was both an exemplar and a catalyst.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781623492243 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Texas A&M University Press |
| Publication date: | 09/28/2014 |
| Series: | Kenneth E. Montague Series in Oil and Business History , #23 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 352 |
| File size: | 16 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
HOUSTON FAUST MOUNT II is an assistant professor of history at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma. His PhD is from Southern Methodist University.
Read an Excerpt
Oilfield Revolutionary
The Career of Everette Lee DeGolyer
By Houston Faust Mount II
Texas A&M University Press
Copyright © 2014 Houston Faust Mount IIAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-62349-224-3
CHAPTER 1
Student
If in future life I should turn some bright celestial corner and come upon a patch of dull red earth, my throat would tighten and tears of joy would fill my eyes. I was born in a red land. I was raised in a red land. I live in a red land and it is my land.
–Everette Lee DeGolyer in an undated reflection1
For Everette Lee DeGolyer, the "red earth" of the western plains was in his blood. Born in Kansas in 1886, he spent his childhood in Missouri and his youth in the "red land" of Oklahoma. DeGolyer venerated this soil with all the fervor of a native son. But for DeGolyer, this earth had a special meaning that went beyond the typical, nostalgic associations. It not only colored the experiences of his youth but provoked his intellectual curiosity as well. The red earth of the old Southwest would tantalize his young imagination with visions of buried treasure. It would nurture an adolescent interest in the sciences. It would become an arena of his ambitions as a young man and the origin of his celebrity in adulthood. True, the red mantle that draped the surface of his native land was also only the outer layer of his interest. His curiosity and his aspirations would draw him to the ever deeper recesses of the earth, where he would at last find the buried treasure of which he had dreamed as a child. But however deeply he delved under the land, he remembered where he began. For DeGolyer, this first red earth of his youth was the first love of a scientist in the making—the first love of a geologist.
Geologists are made, not born, and it took years of sustained interest, hard study, and determined work before DeGolyer could count himself a member of that scientific fraternity. During those years, he struggled—both financially and academically—to earn an education. He struggled and he prevailed. DeGolyer would memorize the various categories of rock and grow to understand the forces that created them. He would become adept in the use of the instruments of the science. With experience, he would develop into a competent cartographer. He would obtain the intellectual tools that would allow for the spectacular successes of his later years. He received this education in his "red land."
DeGolyer's dedication to his native soil came in spite of his family's recent arrival on the western plains. That was not so unusual. The vast majority of those who made their homes in the area were relatively recent arrivals—even many of the Indians. They had all been a part of the vaguely westward progress of the United States. The DeGolyer family had also been a part of that national and international migration, tracing back their course across the continent to the eighteenth-century coastal colonies of France and Great Britain.
Everette Lee DeGolyer's father was the descendant of Jacques de Golier, a French soldier who abandoned Canada for the British colony of Massachusetts in the years before the French and Indian War. In Massachusetts, he would marry an English woman and settle down, but his children inherited Jacques's propensity for wandering. The year 1806 found his son, Anthony DeGolyer—now spelled with a "y"—having crossed the Appalachian Mountains, in the newly founded state of Ohio. Anthony's son, Jacob, traveled even further west to Indiana. It was there, in the town of Napoleonville, that Jacob's son, John, was born in 1859.
John DeGolyer, Everette Lee DeGolyer's father, was a dreamer and an optimist. Ever ready to seize an opportunity and willing to take risks, he suffered from bad fortune and a lack of business sense. From his forebears, John inherited a restless spirit, and what began as wandering from job to job soon became wandering from town to town. Continuing the family migration westward, he traveled to Illinois, where he met the woman whom he would marry, Narcissus Kagy Huddle.
Narcissus was born in Marion County, Illinois, in 1863, of Swiss-German descent. In contrast to her more convivial husband, she was a somber figure, thrifty and responsible. As her daughter-in-law remembered, "[S]he was a wonderful woman, but beside her husband she seemed to lack humor." Narcissus wed John in the spring of 1883. Shortly thereafter, the two, in the company of John's family, moved to Oxford, Kansas. John and his brother, Lee, built a two-story house there, and John worked for some time with a mercantile firm in the town. However, in 1886, the family left Oxford for the windswept plains of western Kansas. They settled near the town of Greensburg, a rural community situated just east of the hundredth meridian. The town was but one county removed from the notorious Dodge City, where gun smoke of western legend still lingered in the air. Most of the towns of western Kansas sought to downplay this notoriety and emphasize the economic potential of the region. Undoubtedly, this was what attracted John and Narcissus DeGolyer to the place and encouraged their dreams of success.
Young Everette Lee DeGolyer was born in this wild land of possibility. His father had selected a homestead near the small town of Greensburg in the summer of 1886. On that land, he built a humble sod house for his then pregnant wife.
The young couple gave the name Everette Lee to their son, who was born on October 9, 1886. The child's middle name, Lee, was in honor of his paternal uncle, who had shared the rigors of the family's move to Kansas. Although his first name, Everette, was not uncommon in those days, he seems to have preferred to go by others. Since at least his student days, his friends had called him "De." For most of his professional life, he preferred to abbreviate his name: E. DeGolyer or E. L. DeGolyer. Nevertheless, when the time came, he would pass the name on to his own son.
In 1886, the young DeGolyer family had more to worry about than the possible spelling variants of their son's name. The child's early years would be hard ones for the family. A few weeks after his birth, a tornado struck the DeGolyer homestead, an ill omen that came as they had only begun to farm. The storm ripped the roof off the crude home, and young Everette's story almost ended there. The storm was only the beginning. The winter of 1886–1887 and the following winter of 1887–1888 proved to be remarkably severe. Worse, rainfall in the region fell dramatically even as the DeGolyer family had just started to cultivate the land. Trying to scratch out a living, John and his brother opened a "German Restaurant" in Greensburg, but this also was ill timed. Almost all businesses in western Kansas were dependant on agriculture, and the weather took a harsh toll on the economy. Thousands fled eastward. The DeGolyer family would soon follow.
In August 1888, John DeGolyer traded in his homestead for a covered wagon and a team of horses. After loading their belongings, the family departed for Missouri. At each night's stop, John would unload the rocking chair, and Narcissus would rock their young son to sleep. The family's journey ended in Joplin, where they hoped for better fortune than they had found in Kansas.
Joplin was at the center of a regional zinc and lead mining industry. Ever the optimist, John hoped that he might find riches prospecting for mineral wealth in the surrounding countryside. Wandering the hills of southwestern Missouri, he searched for the next big strike. Soon enough, his young son would accompany him on these expeditions.
John's career as a prospector seems not to have met with much success, but the family again extemporized by starting several small businesses. Soon after moving to Missouri, the DeGolyers began operation of a water-powered mill near town. Grinding wheat for local farmers, the place doubled as a swimming hole for Everette's childhood frolic. And he would soon have playmates within the family. In Missouri, the DeGolyers welcomed two more children. Edith Christine DeGolyer was born in August 1890. Two years later, John and Narcissus's last child, Homer DeGolyer, was born. These were eventful years, with the family moving into town in the mid-1890s. In Joplin, John would open another "German Restaurant." It must have been here that Everette's father began to instruct him in the culinary arts—an apprenticeship that would later play a surprising role in furthering his career path as a geologist.
Everette's childhood in Missouri exercised a powerful influence on the young man's aspirations. Despite the fact that his father had failed to thrive as a prospector, the idea of a mining career fascinated Everette. Although the family did not profit greatly from the zinc and lead boom of southwestern Missouri, there were those in the community who did prosper. Everette was keenly aware of the fortunes promised by prospecting, and he was attracted to the possibility of such a career even at this early age.
Despite high hopes, the DeGolyer family struggled in Missouri, and John set his mind to join in the land runs that were opening Indian Territory for settlement. In 1893, he traveled to the border of the Cherokee Outlet near Wellington, Kansas. The federal government threw its extensive lands open to settlement on September 16 of that year, but John's run of bad luck seems to have continued unabated. He returned to Missouri soon thereafter, apparently having failed to secure an acceptable claim.
As the government continued to open Indian lands to settlement, the more orderly lottery system replaced the chaos of the land run. Always willing to try his luck, John DeGolyer registered for surplus lands distributed in the former Kiowa-Comanche reservation. From July 9 to August 6, 1901, the federal government assigned claims to aspiring settlers. Fate smiled on John DeGolyer at last, and he received a city lot in the newly founded town of Hobart.
It was not entirely clear how the DeGolyers would prosper in this new environment, but move they did. Eventually, John turned to the same sort of venture that he had struggled with in Missouri and Kansas, opening another restaurant: The Blue Point Chop House. An acrostic advertisement for the family diner, promising a modern, convenient meal with an impressive menu selection, follows:
The Blue Point serves a meal that's O.K.
Here cooking is done in an up-to-date way.
Excellent viands served clean and nice.
Best kind of victuals at a very fair price.
Lunches the best, short orders all kinds,
Unexcelled goods at the Blue Point you find.
Everything fixed in a manner O.K.
Pull into The Blue Point any time aday.
Oysters, Game and Fish we serve here.
In every variety, never too dear.
Neat, courteous attention—you don't have to wait.
The Blue Point is right up-to-date.
The handbill suggested the sophistication to which the DeGolyer family and the founders of Hobart aspired. Who would have believed that patrons of a restaurant in Hobart, Oklahoma, would have been able to enjoy oysters, hundreds of miles from the sea? The town had scarcely been put on the map. Yet no matter how stridently the town's boosters professed its respectability and culture, there was still much of the Wild West about the place.
On one occasion, John DeGolyer had an unwelcome experience with the untamed recklessness of frontier life and became an unwilling celebrity in the process. This occurred when John witnessed the first "official" murder in the county, while on duty at The Blue Point. The details of the affair are somewhat murky. The basic story involved a Texas gunslinger by the name of Tom Varnell, who shot another character, known as "Frenchy," somewhere near the restaurant. When Varnell stood trial for the killing, John DeGolyer was the main eyewitness. Varnell's mother, a wealthy Texas ranch owner, spent a fortune trying to save her son and secured his release on bond. Despite her efforts, Varnell himself became a victim of frontier violence when another Texan shot him dead while he awaited the conclusion of the case. It is unclear whether young Everette was also present when the murder occurred, but the excitement must have affected him.
This was the Hobart of Everette Lee DeGolyer's youth. He had less time to enjoy himself here than he had had in Missouri—the more birthdays he celebrated, the more he had to work. In Hobart, he took on a series of jobs to help support the family. DeGolyer probably spent many hours helping with the family business, but it was his job at a local china shop that encouraged him to think about the future.
He began work there soon after the family moved to town. At the time, he was the impressionable age of fifteen. Recalling that job in later years, DeGolyer explained the effect it had on him: "I would look at all those gifts and art objects which I thought then were the height of luxury and I used to wonder if I would ever be able to own any myself. I remember I really studied them, which I suppose was a substituted way of possessing them." In later years, DeGolyer would become an avid collector, satisfying those desires awakened in the Hobart china shop. But to realize his dreams, he knew that he would need more than just a job; he needed a career. He knew that he would need to succeed where his father had failed. Somehow, he would win the wealth and security that had eluded his family throughout his childhood. It was a desperate desire heightened by yet another change of residence.
Neither The Blue Point nor young Everette's wages from the china shop brought in enough money to keep the family in Hobart. Soon, the DeGolyers were on the move again. Leaving Hobart behind, they traveled to Oklahoma City in search of better opportunities. Here, events would turn the young man's attention increasingly away from convenient, if unskilled employment, toward higher education.
DeGolyer's schooling had suffered from frequent interruption caused by his family's migrations. He had only begun high school in Missouri, when the family moved to Oklahoma. In Hobart, he had completed a third year in high school before the next relocation. In Oklahoma City, DeGolyer continued his studies, attending Central High School while waiting on tables at Delmonico's restaurant, where his father worked as a chef.
In Oklahoma City, DeGolyer made the fortunate acquaintance of the Edgar S. Vaught, the superintendent of the city schools, who became something of a mentor for young DeGolyer, encouraging him to continue his education. He presented the young man with his first book, an item that DeGolyer treasured greatly. Learning of Everette's interest in mining, he took the young man to the college town of Norman, where he introduced him to Professor Charles N. Gould of the University of Oklahoma. With the superintendent's recommendation, Gould offered DeGolyer a job dusting off rock samples and performing other maintenance tasks in the geology department. Could he have known that this moment would be a turning point in his life? DeGolyer accepted and his training in the science of geology began.
Although he had spent years in high school, DeGolyer was not quite ready for college. Enrolling in the preparatory school at the University of Oklahoma, he spent two years in preliminary studies before entering as a freshman in the fall of 1905. It was excellent timing. The years that DeGolyer spent in high school, preparatory school, and the university were among the most exciting years yet in Oklahoma. Opportunities abounded for the ambitious and the bold, and DeGolyer's budding interest in minerals would offer a profitable venue for the talented young man.
DeGolyer himself was still too young to enter the fray, but the westward movement of the oil industry affected his education and his aspirations. The giant strike at Spindle-top, Texas, may have seemed far afield to the young man who had only recently arrived with his family in Hobart, Oklahoma. Yet the 1905 discovery of a giant oilfield at Glenn Pool in Indian Territory was just next door. The size of the strike and the fortuitous proximity to rail lines passing through nearby Tulsa and Red Fork ensured that the highly productive Glenn Pool wells would provoke great interest. The future of the region would be bound up with the energy and optimism—often to the point of folly—of that time and place, and it certainly exercised a formative influence on the young man.
Despite the excitement over oil, it was a promising career as a mining engineer that DeGolyer first envisioned as he embarked on studies of geology at the University of Oklahoma. The school itself was younger than the petroleum industry; indeed, it was younger even than DeGolyer himself. Opening its doors for its first students in September 1892, the founders of the university bubbled with the ambition and optimism of the newly opened land. From humble beginnings, the school flourished under the presidency of David Ross Boyd, offering education free of charge to residents of the Oklahoma Territory.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Oilfield Revolutionary by Houston Faust Mount II. Copyright © 2014 Houston Faust Mount II. Excerpted by permission of Texas A&M University Press.
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Table of Contents
Contents
List of Illustrations,Preface,
Acknowledgments,
Introduction. Prospector,
1. Student,
2. Geologist,
3. Executive,
4. Technologist,
5. Entrepreneur,
6. Scholar,
7. Technocrat,
8. Geopolitician,
9. Sage,
Epilogue. Legend,
Notes,
Index,
Interviews
Ada, Oklahoma