1917 - Energy

Energy

Petroleum pioneer William Knox D'Arcy dies at Stanmore, Middlesex, May 1 at age 67, having made Persia a major source of oil.

Phillips Petroleum is incorporated at Bartlesville, Oklahoma, June 13 as the war doubles oil prices (see Healdton Field, 1913). Nebraska-born banker Frank Phillips, 43, and his brother Lee (Eldas) Phillips, 40, sold most of their properties last year to Tidal Oil Co., retaining some Oklahoma acreages that Tidal would not accept; their new company starts with $3 million in assets, owns 16 gas and oil leases, produces 384 barrels of oil per day, employs 27 people, and has a gross income of $218,000 in its first 6 months; net assets by 1922 will exceed $50 million, with earnings of $3 million on a gross of $12.5 million, as Phillips adds refineries (see 1927; Skelly, 1919).

Oil prospectors discover the Gerber-Covington oil pool east of Enid in Oklahoma's Cherokee Strip as oil prices revive.

Houston real estate operator Jim Cheek asks Hughroy Cullen to serve as his agent in acquiring oil leases in western Texas (see transportation [Houston Ship Canal], 1914). Now 36, Cullen agrees on condition that Cheek take him in as partner; he quickly learns how to lease property and drill for oil, and in the next 14 years will discover oil fields worth billions of dollars (see 1934).

U.S. use of electric signs is restricted November 16 to conserve coal. Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels will later write, "New York responded with such howls and denunciations as can hardly be described . . . It raised such a row that coal operators doubled their energies to furnish enough coal so that the White Way could again blaze brightly and let New York City turn night into day."