The operations in Ohio spread across the State line into Indiana early in the nineties, and that portion of the Lima-Indiana field was the scene of vigorous drilling. These important strikes in the new Ohio and West Virginia fields also led to re newed, persistent efforts to discover oil in a great many places where some indications of its pres ence were known, but where previous attempts had not been particularly encouraging in their results. A number of new districts were thereby proved to be oil bearing. Kentucky and Tennessee, contain ing the southern extremity of the great Appalach ian field, developed a few successful wells and ap peared in the list of productive states, though they never attained any importance. Illinois, Kansas, Texas, Missouri, Indian Territory, and Wyoming all yielded a few barrels of petroleum each year from about 1890 onward, while California and Col orado gave many indications of becoming impor tant producers.
The Colorado region in the vicinity of Florence, between Pueblo and the famous Royal Gorge, was the scene of prospecting operations as early as 1862, during the general attempt to find oil throughout the country. Small supplies were found near the surface and the usual stock companies were formed, but the total output, instead of increasing as it gave good promise of doing at one time, has steadily declined for the last fifteen years.
California, however, has borne out every possible expectation so far as the quantity of oil is con cerned. The existence of oil in California was known from the very beginning of its settlement. Oil floating on the surface of the ocean off the shores of Santa Barbara county was a constant source of wonder among the early navigators, and a semi-solid form of bitumen, formed apparently by the slow seepage of petroleum, was widely used as fuel and as a sort of cement roofing for houses.
This general knowledge of the existence of im portant petroleum deposits somewhere under ground led to the usual course of events at the time of the Pennsylvania boom. Professor Silli man, of Yale, whose favorable report had furnished the basis for Drake's operations, was secured to make a report on the oil from seepages in Ventura county, California. His report here, also, was glow ing with praise for the new oil and its possibilities. Coming just as it did, near the height of the Pit hole excitement, it aroused wild enthusiasm among the speculators. Developments were started from one end of the State to the other, and in their dreams promoters saw California turned into one great oil field. But trouble quickly appeared ; drilling was extremely difficult, slow, and expen sive. It soon leaked out that the samples of oil tested by Professor Silliman were quite unlike the low-grade oils found in the wells. None of the
localities outside of Ventura county could be prof itably operated. The boom was short lived.
More than a quarter of a century later, a well was drilled near the old asphalt deposits in Los Angeles, and a small steady supply of oil was se cured. Once more the whole State was drilled over amid feverish excitement, and once more without success for some time. The Los Angeles wells, however, were visible proof that the oil was not confined to Ventura county. This knowledge was highly comforting and encouraging to the pros pectors who had been filling the State full of holes, and wildcat drilling went on with untiring energy. In 1895 and 1896 the much-deserved success finally. crowned their persistent efforts. The climax came when the famous " Blue Goose " flowing well was struck in the Coalinga district only to be followed immediately by the more important strikes at Bakersfield.
The boom of thirty years before was repeated on a much grander scale. Between two and three thousand oil companies were chartered in the course of three years ; all of them sold stock, most of it in the East, and probably half of them really sunk wells in some part of the State. Large sums of money were undoubtedly lost by the public through mismanagement and dishonesty on the part of officials and promoters, but the benefit to California was undeniable. New territory was proved productive by wells sunk where sane in terests would probably never have risked a penny, and by the time the excitement had subsided, the production was approaching 8,000,000 barrels a year, from which point it has risen steadily to nearly 40,000,000 barrels in 1907.
One direct result of the oil craze is to be seen in the curious spectacle of oil being pumped from beneath the sea, at Summerland, a condition to be found nowhere else in the world. No less than sev eral hundred productive wells have been drilled from derricks erected on piers which extend a thousand feet out into the surf, some of the wells having yielded profitably for a number of years.
The successful expansion of operations in Cali fornia was followed, and for a time quite outdis tanced by the developments accompanying the great Texas boom. The story of the Texas fields is much the same as in California. Oil was discovered there as early as the sixties, though no valuable supplies were encountered until about 1894. Then a well drilled for water near Corsicana struck a good flow of oil at a depth of somewhat over 1,000 feet, but curiously enough no attempt was made to secure the oil at that time. The news that oil had been encountered, however, was spread, and a few years later outside interests began what proved to be the first successful oil development in Texas.