1927 · Primarily Fort Worth, Texas
Primarily Fort Worth, Texas, 1927. Very good. 23 pieces or small groups of ephemera and correspondence, some with original mailing envelopes, ranging from around 3½” x 6” to 11” x 8½” + one 18” x 12” newsletter, all folded to around 4½” x 10”. Generally very good: creased at folds; some envelopes with light wear or soiling; one form with portion of envelope adhered over text; one letter with scrawled inked notations to verso; a few pieces with offsetting or light toning.
This is a fantastic group of mailings, including sales pitches, order blanks and company prospectuses documenting the get-rich-quick oil craze of 1920s Texas and Arkansas.
The Texas oil boom, also known as the “gusher age,” began in 1901 with the discovery of a huge petroleum reserve at Spindletop, near Beaumont, and speculation and development soon took off statewide. By the 1920s Texas led the nation in oil production and before long the United States was out-producing Russia. Some historians trace the onset of the world's “Oil Age” to this particular era.
The materials on offer here reflect the sales, subscriptions and schemes that accompanied the oil craze, primarily in Fort Worth, Texas, but also in Eastland, Dallas, Houston, and El Dorado, Arkansas. Many of the materials were addressed to one S.E. Harvey of Jamestown, New York, and include drastic letters urging immediate action. One letter that came with an application blank for the “Coke County Drilling Fund” promised that “some of the best geologists of this country” had “put their stamp of approval on the location of this well” and that “there was never such an attractive proposition ever offered by any person at any time than the one I am submitting to you . . . $5 or $10 should place you in fortunes [sic] path.” An oilman known as Trapshooter Reilly swore, “My Kansas company is hailed in oil history as the greatest single pay-out achievement of one man. I came to Texas to repeat – and I am repeating. Luck followed me. I formed the Trapshooter Development Company, went into the great Currie field and during the last five months drilled SEVEN GUSHERS . . . These gushers are YOUR gushers as soon as you become one of my stockholders.”
Other ephemera included a prospectus and subscription form for “Capital Stock” of Houston's Silverman-Lord Oil Corporation, a “Profit Sharing Certificate” and the “Preorganization Details” of Consolidated Oil Ventures of Dallas, led by Chairman C.D. Neff. Neff promised that his offer was “different from any oil proposition you have had placed before you” and included an oversized bulletin, the November 1927 issue of General Texas Oil News. This newsletter, unrecorded in OCLC, listed “Wildcat Operations” in West Texas and the Panhandle, ran articles on speculation and “Natural Gasoline” statistics for Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and California. A few pieces offered stock in Arkansas, “at Smackover . . . the world's greatest oil well and money-maker!” and a pitch from C.B. “Chan” McKennon of Dallas declared, “Play $20 to win a thousand – That's good bay horse sense.”
The era was, of course, not without its hucksters. A letter from V.G. Schimmel, “Trustee” of “The Super Syndicate” of Fort Worth, avowed that “We have our own tools on the ground ready to start well #2. We are OIL OPERATORS – not ex-lawyers, ex-doctors or ex-some-other-humbug who is trying to make a quick cleanup in oil at your expense.” While we have no doubt that some of the offers were too good to be true, we found evidence that only one of the men named here was sentenced to prison for fraud.
A terrific set of ephemera from a noted oil era. (Inventory #: 7201)
This is a fantastic group of mailings, including sales pitches, order blanks and company prospectuses documenting the get-rich-quick oil craze of 1920s Texas and Arkansas.
The Texas oil boom, also known as the “gusher age,” began in 1901 with the discovery of a huge petroleum reserve at Spindletop, near Beaumont, and speculation and development soon took off statewide. By the 1920s Texas led the nation in oil production and before long the United States was out-producing Russia. Some historians trace the onset of the world's “Oil Age” to this particular era.
The materials on offer here reflect the sales, subscriptions and schemes that accompanied the oil craze, primarily in Fort Worth, Texas, but also in Eastland, Dallas, Houston, and El Dorado, Arkansas. Many of the materials were addressed to one S.E. Harvey of Jamestown, New York, and include drastic letters urging immediate action. One letter that came with an application blank for the “Coke County Drilling Fund” promised that “some of the best geologists of this country” had “put their stamp of approval on the location of this well” and that “there was never such an attractive proposition ever offered by any person at any time than the one I am submitting to you . . . $5 or $10 should place you in fortunes [sic] path.” An oilman known as Trapshooter Reilly swore, “My Kansas company is hailed in oil history as the greatest single pay-out achievement of one man. I came to Texas to repeat – and I am repeating. Luck followed me. I formed the Trapshooter Development Company, went into the great Currie field and during the last five months drilled SEVEN GUSHERS . . . These gushers are YOUR gushers as soon as you become one of my stockholders.”
Other ephemera included a prospectus and subscription form for “Capital Stock” of Houston's Silverman-Lord Oil Corporation, a “Profit Sharing Certificate” and the “Preorganization Details” of Consolidated Oil Ventures of Dallas, led by Chairman C.D. Neff. Neff promised that his offer was “different from any oil proposition you have had placed before you” and included an oversized bulletin, the November 1927 issue of General Texas Oil News. This newsletter, unrecorded in OCLC, listed “Wildcat Operations” in West Texas and the Panhandle, ran articles on speculation and “Natural Gasoline” statistics for Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and California. A few pieces offered stock in Arkansas, “at Smackover . . . the world's greatest oil well and money-maker!” and a pitch from C.B. “Chan” McKennon of Dallas declared, “Play $20 to win a thousand – That's good bay horse sense.”
The era was, of course, not without its hucksters. A letter from V.G. Schimmel, “Trustee” of “The Super Syndicate” of Fort Worth, avowed that “We have our own tools on the ground ready to start well #2. We are OIL OPERATORS – not ex-lawyers, ex-doctors or ex-some-other-humbug who is trying to make a quick cleanup in oil at your expense.” While we have no doubt that some of the offers were too good to be true, we found evidence that only one of the men named here was sentenced to prison for fraud.
A terrific set of ephemera from a noted oil era. (Inventory #: 7201)
(713) 443-4697![[Scrapbook of an Admired Socialite and Daughter of an Eminent Physician]](https://d3525k1ryd2155.cloudfront.net/h/532/226/1657226532.0.m.jpg)
![[Scrapbook of Poems by a Union Army Captain of the United States Colored Troops]](https://d3525k1ryd2155.cloudfront.net/h/530/226/1657226530.0.m.jpg)