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Show 730 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT 2,560 contiguous acres of coal land.220 A further provision invalidated any combinations in restraint of trade. Apparently no patents were issued under the 1908 Act.221 The result was that no coal lands were developed in Alaska from the date of the general withdrawal order on November 12, 1906,222 until 1914. At that time, the earlier statutes were repealed and leasing was authorized for the first time in Alaska.223 The statute will be considered in connection with the public land history of the oil laws. The Petroleum Lands We are inclined to associate oil in the United States with the famed strike at Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859 when "Colonel" Edwin L. Drake, an erstwhile railroad conductor who took over a defunct oil company, pumped oil from a depth of 69i/2 feet.224 What proved to be the first commercial well in this country was so unexpected that one of Drake's assistants, a blacksmith called "Uncle Billy," was compelled to fill every whiskey barrel in town with the "black gold."225 At the outset, the well produced around 1,000 gallons of oil a day. It is said that the price of $20 per barrel at this time created a boom comparable to the California gold rush.226 Although this may be something of an exaggeration, the decade which followed was 22035Stat. 424 (1908). 2212 Lindley, Mines 1148 (1914). For an example of an application cancelled for fraud, see United States v. Munday, 222 U.S. 175 (1911). 222 The date of the general withdrawal order. See Circular, 35 I.D. 572 (1907). 223 38 Stat. 741 (1914). zu Even the lease under which Drake drilled is legendary. See Williams, Maxwell and Meyers, Cases on Oil and Gas 141 (2d ed. 1964). 236 Dolson, Sitting on a Gusher, 10 American Heritage 65, 71 (February 1959). 22811 Ency. of the Social Sciences 439 (1954 reprint). characterized by frenzied prospecting and wild investments in oil companies. Although crude oil was originally valuable for the production of a high-grade illuminant, lubricating oils were also discovered as a joint product. The demand for crude oil in the last 2 decades of the 19th century led to extensive oil development in areas of the United States which had long since passed into private ownership. It began in Pennsylvania and New York and progressed from there to the southeastern states, to Ohio and Indiana, then to Texas and the mid-continental states. The great Texas well in the Spin-dletop district in 1901 spouted oil 160 feet high and produced from 5,000 to 100,000 barrels daily-and, lacking Uncle Billy's presence of mind, it was 10 days before they saved any oil! Spindle top introduced a new era227 in private oil development, the history of which has been carefully recorded by John Ise.228 Turning, however, to the public domain states, the California history is particularly interesting.229 Although there was early experimentation in the 1850's in extracting gas for illumination from asphaltum, also used extensively for the paving of streets, there was little oil activity in California until the mid-sixties when a group of speculators, spurred on by the excitement in Pennsylvania, purchased an immense quantity of land in southern California (Ventura). One of the promoters, John B. Church, prevailed upon his brother-in-law, Benjamin Silliman, Jr., then a distinguished scientist at Yale University, to report on the potential for oil in this area. Testing samples of seepage which had been given him by Church, Pro- 227 See McKay and Fault, Texas After Spindle-top (1965). 228 Ise, The United States Oil Policy 310 (1926) (2d printing 1928) . 229 The best account of early oil companies in the West is White, Formative Years in the Far West: A History of Standard Oil Company of California and Predecessors Through 1919 (1962). |
