In 1859, Edwin Laurentini Drake, a former train driver, drilled the first oil well in the United States. The well is located in Tussville, Pennsylvania, with a digging depth of more than 21 meters. This oil well kicked off the U.S. oil industry. This article comes from public micro-channel number: blood Diamond story (ID: xuezuangushi) , author: left page, story blood diamond researcher < / span>

The cost per gallon of kerosene must be calculated to three digits below the decimal point and accurately calculated to one thousandth of a cent. ——Rockefeller

Daddy Joe

In 1930, in order to raise drilling funds, Columbus Joyner once again picked up the rusty pen and sold oil stocks to widows.

The 70-year-old Joeyna, known as “Daddy Joe”, carried his back, a bitter gourd face, and can’t see the slightest male demeanor. If you see this old man with a wind candle for the first time, few people will believe that he was a genius who dumped all sentient beings. He took away snakes and wonderful flowers, and peddled a “rich book” to deal with the anxiety of young people. Write a love letter to the lonely woman to soothe the heart.

Joyner

1In the early 920s, he came to East Texas alone and wandered around major farms. Everyone said that he was an oil entrepreneur, talked about oil exploration, and boasted that he was “worth hundreds of millions.” He is secretly human, good at emotional games, and especially likes “single chat” with widows.

The lonely woman took out refreshments and warmly entertained her. After a long afternoon talk, she was always willing to give him the mineral exploration right. But this clever old man, in fact, has nothing but a broken mouth, and his pockets are empty. He quietly read the obituary of their husband in the newspaper and made a special visit.

As of 1927, Dao Qiao successfully “single-talked” dozens of widows, and finally had enough land to successfully launch his grand undertaking, oil exploration. The first thing he started was to make a ” XX Petroleum Survey Report, claiming to have the most oil-rich land in the world. Although none of the reports was conscientious, it successfully won the trust of dozens of relatives and women and raised nearly $ 1,000-enough to dig the first oil well.

As of the eve of the autumn of 1930, after three years of hard exploration and excavation, it was reasonable and failed to dig out a drop of oil. In order to continue the life of the “digging” career, the old comrade Daddy has once again extended his sickle to his most familiar “leek”-widow, touting his already flawed personality and credibility.

At the end of the 1920s, when Joyna devoted himself to the “digging business”, the American oil industry has gone through 70 years, and completed the cycle from a disorderly diversified market to an absolute monopoly market and back to the diversified market. At that time in the United States, countless hyperactive “Night Cat Explorers” became active again. They dug, cheated, speculated, and ventured like a gambler, and the industry seemed to be back to the original wild days.

At the same time, the boiling oil stock trading has spread this enthusiasm to the whole society. A large number of stock sellers have sent a publicity leaflet to the public, especially housewives, “You want to invest $ 100 and Get $ 50,000? “The promise is exaggerated, and it’s no different from despicable fraud. A doctor named Cook sent 300,000 sales letters to the country within a month. When the police arrested the goods, he had properly defrauded 2 million US dollars.

However, in 1930, no matter how wonderfully Joyna made flowers, those housewives did not seem to be able to impress them. First, there were too many such semi-deceptive “crowdfunding” at that time, and the leek also became immune.

Second, the location where Joyna excavates oil is concentrated in Lasker County, East Texas. The hills are scattered and the sand is full of yellow sand. No one has previously dug out the oil. The geology of a Texaco company Home is even ironic”I can drink a barrel of oil if you can get a barrel of oil out of these holes,” he stabbed.

Third, the United States was in the midst of the Great Depression, the stock market plummeted, and the company went bankrupt, and the place where he digged oil just happened to encounter a rare drought. The residents nearby were having trouble eating enough food. other.

The rhetoric is no longer valid, and Joyna ’s purse gradually dwindles. Finally, the worker strikes and picks. He can only use the ultimate trick to exchange the mining rights for the workers’ labor.

Just as Dao Joe was completely desperate, on October 3, 1930, the moment when history changed the tide direction finally came. At 8 o’clock in the evening, an oil well called “Dacey Bradford No. 3” (named after the widow cheated by Father Joe) Suddenly a black liquid burst out, and the captain in charge of the well immediately dropped the operating tools and exclaimed excitedly to the surrounding sheds: “Fight out the fire! Put your cigarette butts out! Quick!”

As soon as the voice fell, a stream of oil mixed with muddy water, like a tyrannosaurus that has been buried underground for thousands of years, rushed into the night sky, and the earth trembled for a moment, and the beasts heard the fear.

The workers are boiling, cheering and hugging, letting the dripping black oil splatter. A worker couldn’t help but pull out a pistol and tried to shoot at the oil column. The three workers next to him fell over him with lightning, because a slight spark at this moment would trigger a huge explosion.

Seeing this magnificent moment, Dao Qiao, who has lived on his mouth for many years, wept with joy. He immediately instructed the worker to measure the flow in the pipe. When he learned that the flow was 6,800 barrels per day, he opened his eyes and exclaimed: Unbelievable!

Hunter Scam

The local newspaper boasted that Joe was a “master of the oil field.” The townspeople sang songs and dances and held a full-day parade for him alone.

But at the time of celebration in town, a middle-aged man who was mingling with the crowd and watching the crowd was secretly thinking about how to seize the glory and wealth that belonged to Dao Qiao. This middle-aged man is in his early 40s, with a cold appearance, blue eyes hiding under the cowboy hat, and calls himself H.L. Hunt.

Hunter is not native of Texas, and his father is a farmer. Because he is good at mental arithmetic, he was regarded as a child prodigy from an early age. At the age of 22, his father died and he inherited a $ 5,000 inheritance.

At first, cotton was poured, and then a casino was opened in Erdola, Arkansas, where prostitutes and gangs got together. The casino made a lot of money, but the local government colluded with the 3K party and shut down his casino. Like many unemployed vagrants, he later set his sights on the chaotic oil industry.

It was almost the same as Daddy Qiao in the beginning. Anyway, he was kidnapped, but he had good luck and found a small oil field with a value of up to 600,000 US dollars. At the age of 35, he cashed in $ 600,000, left his wife and 3 children in Arkansas, and ran to Florida by himself, because he saw a 21-year-old child named Frana Tay girl.

That’s it, Hunter has a scumbag and a handful of oil, smelling the wind and heading to East Texas to find new prey.

Old Hunt

Joyna and Hunt meet in the oil field

Daddy Joe was the first to discover a huge flow of self-injection wells in East Texas, but the process was full of fraud and lies, so when he became famous overnight, it was also the time when creditors came to the door.

In the past 3 years, he has sold 3 rounds of investment certificates to dozens of locals in order to raise funds for exploration and excavation. He only needs to invest $ 100 to obtain 4 acres of land. In order to supplement the growing deficit, Part of the landThe right of interest was repeatedly sold many times, and one piece of land was sold to 11 investors at the same time.

Hent had been secretly observing for some time, and he was quite convinced that Dao Qiao was holding a hugely underrated giant oil field in his hands. When a large number of investors discovered Joyner’s scheme and brought him to court, Hunt knew that his chance to attack was coming. He blocked the battered old man in the court hallway, and then said slyly: “You don’t have to be afraid of the lawsuit, I can pay for everything in your oilfield, including debt.”

In the face of Hunt, an uninvited guest, Daddy Joe drummed up. He really needed cash, but of course he wanted to sell 10,000 oilfields that had worked hard for many years. If more high-flow oil wells were excavated nearby, the hasty sale would inevitably outweigh the gains, but the lawsuit was too tight and he could not afford to hesitate.

The sly Hunter seized the old man’s mentality to retreat, and launched a fierce negotiating offensive in a short time. He was secretly housed in a hotel, softening his teeth while helping him hide his debt. At this time, it also happened that there was a depressing news: the two newly excavated wells near “Dacey Bradford 3” are dry wells.

There were thousands of dry wells in front, and a creditor came to the door later. The tormented father finally couldn’t hold himself. In the seventh week after the discovery of the first high-flow oil well, he promised to sell nearly 4,000 acres of land Lease rights in exchange for 30,000 USD in cash provided by Hunter and a follow-up payment of 1.305 million USD after production.

Joiner is relieved after signing all the written agreements, and it’s not bad to have a millionaire for years. But even more excited and even ecstatic is Gambler Hunt.

On the afternoon of the signing of the agreement, he secretly sent the field agent who was on the spot to track the oilfield, and quietly brought him the latest information of the oilfield: the northwestern part of Joyna Oilfield had just dug out 16-inch core material. Of these, 10.5 feet contained oil. This means that the 4,000-acre oil field that is being traded is far undervalued. If Joyner also gets the news in time, it will definitely increase the price by more than 2-3 times, or even sell it.

Hunter tried to hide his excitement and signed all agreements as quickly as possible. Father Joe, who has been deceiving the widow all his life, is too clever as the agency, this time into a game set by a gambler. It is said that after signing the agreement, the two shared a plate of delicious cheese and biscuits.

Later history proves that this is the most expensive dim sum in the 20th century, which directly affected the oil industry in the United States and the world. Because this oil field, which was sold for $ 30,000 in cash, is actually one of the core oil fields with the largest reserves in the United States. In the following 50 years, a total of 4 billion barrels of oil were produced. And this huge amount of oil not only profoundly affectsIt affects the daily life of Americans and became an American oil bag during World War II.

It is even more incredible that Hunter’s $ 30,000 cash was also borrowed from a bank for the prospect of this field. In other words, without spending a penny, Hunter easily sat in one of the largest oil fields in the United States. In the 1950s, once a gambler changed, becoming the richest man in the United States, and frequently appeared in major wealth magazines. His family is still one of the richest and most influential families in the United States.

As for the unlucky old man in Joyna, of course he regretted his intestines. Two years later, he brought Hunter to court on charges of fraud. But Hunter, who was already wealthy, calmed his anger easily by way of reconciliation out of court. What new agreement the two reached is still a mystery, but it is quite clear that when Joe, 87, died quietly in 1947, he was almost penniless.


The first bucket of black gold

Joyner and Hunter’s story is a typical slice of the 160-year-old American oil industry. Before and after them, such stories full of fraud, lies, luck and speculation have been repeated. Staged, because the legend of getting rich overnight is enough to dispel all fear and unbearableness, so that the greedy will never tire of it.

The history of human use of oil can be traced back to 3000 BC. The Babylonians used asphalt lighting, masonry, and paving. The Romans used it to treat diseases. The Trojans and Byzantines used it as a secret weapon and smeared it. On the bow and arrow, then lit and fired at the enemy ship. The Middle East and ancient China also have a long history of oil use, but the uses are similar, scattered, undersized, and there is no industry.

Large-scale oil extraction and refining first appeared in Galicia and Romania in Eastern Europe. Farmers excavated by hand to refine a small amount of kerosene. In 1854, merchants in Vienna treated kerosene as an important lighting commodity. In 1859, European oil production is already 36,000 barrels.

There are two main factors preventing oil from becoming a large-scale industry. One is the backward mining technology. The other is that the kerosene burning smoke is too heavy. It is used for home lighting, the house is easily blackened, and there is a sharp nose. Smell. Later, a pharmacist in Vienna invented a lamp with a glass cover to solve the problem of too heavy kerosene smoke. The kerosene industry rose on a large scale, leaving only mining problems to be solved. This problem finally fell on an American named Edwin Drake.

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