Black gold. Texas-T. Somehow, people don't think of Illinois when you mention that some guy "made his money in oil".

The image of the uncontrollable well spewing oil into the sky (The Lucas Gusher at Spindletop was not capped for nine days) is a symbol of wild success. It also fed the dream that you too could become rich from what lay beneath your own little half-acre of Texas.

Or maybe that was The Beverly Hillbillies? I forget.

According to the postcard folder that housed these beauties, things are big in Texas:

If the 485,339,998 barrels of oil produced in Texas in 1939 were made into gasoline, it would run a well known make of light car throughout eternity.

From the first drilled well in Texas (Nacogdoches County, 1866) to 1978, Texas wells produced in excess of 40 billion barrels of oil. In 2000, Texas accounted for nearly 19% of the oil production in the United States. The first salt dome oil discovery, at Spindletop, in January of 1901, produced 17 million barrels in 1902.

It's hard to estimate the effects that Texas oil had on the world economy and various industries including automobile manufacturing and highway building, but they are still with us today.

Oh, and those three guys wouldn't be standing under a blowing well like that. Ducking, running, and hat-waving, with loud shouts of "yahoo!" are the proper behavior. Please work on it.