In 1929, with a billion barrels of oil being produced in the U. S., the price was $1.27 a barrel, high enough to give a company like Gulf Oil $44,000,000 in profits. Then a wildcatter named Dad Joiner brought in a well in East Texas and. within a year crude was selling for 10ยข.
It took martial law in two States and the best efforts of Secretary Ickes and the NRA to get the price up again. When NRA went out, oilmen relied on proration: no well in the East Texas field was allowed to run off more than a fixed amount...
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