The oil and gas industry in Louisiana and Arkansas has played as
great a role in the shaping of the destinies of those two states as any
other factor. Here, in 325 contemporary photographs, many of them never
before published, is an eyewitness record of the early years of that
industry.
The rich oil legacy of the region had been noticed centuries
ago when the area's Indians used natural oil seeps as sources of
medicinal oil for themselves and their animals. Non-Indians became aware
of the presence of crude in the early 1800's, and by 1860 several
petroleum-rich sites had been located in Louisiana. In 1901, W. Scott
Heywood's discovery of the huge Jennings Oil Field thrust Louisiana to
the forefront in American oil production.
Other discoveries in Louisiana followed rapidly; Caddo Lake,
Homor, Cotton Valley, the tremendous Monroe gas field, and many smaller
pools contributed their share to the great flood of oil and gas from the
state. Eventually the search for crude crossed the state boundary into
southern Arkansas, and a new boom began there in the 1920's. Though a
small portion of that state was involved with the industry, the volume
of oil from El Dorado, Smackover, and other fields in the surrounding
southwestern counties brought Arkansas, too, into the upper ranks of oil
producers.
The giant tri-state Rodessa Field, shared by Louisiana,
Arkansas, and Texas, continued the initial boom, but just as production
began to slow, technological innovations opened entirely new horizons
among the coastal salt domes and offshore, and the rush for black gold
began anew.
Finding and drilling for oil in Louisiana and Arkansas was no
easy matter, as these photographs show. The pineywoods thickets of
southern Arkansas, the overgrown likeshores and river bottoms of
northern Louisiana, the swamps and marshes of the coastal region, and
later the deep waters out of sight of land presented constant new
challenges, contributing immeasurably to the development of their region
and to the advancement of oil technology and the industry.
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