5.07 - Spindletop

Anthony Lucas's gusher at Spindletop marked "a new era of civilization," yet was the product of the humility, persistence, and practical genius of three Waco-area farm boys. Oil rapidly transformed the Texas economy from stubbornly agrarian and colonial into a first-world industrial power. For the first time in Texas history, Texans began to accumulate capital and were set on a countercyclical trajectory from the rest of the U.S. economy in a way that would only reinforce Texans' contrarian impulses.

Cover photo by John Trost, available online at the American Petroleum Institute.