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Description

Early Texas Oil Map.

Very rare oil map covering all of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas along with portions of New Mexico and Mexico proper. It prominently shows oil fields, gas fields, and oil and gas fields in red overprinting. The largest concentrations of these are in northeastern Oklahoma and southeastern Kansas, reflecting those states' outsized importance in the oil industry of the period.

The map is highly detailed, showing hundreds of new developments of wells as well as main pipelines. These extend all over the main three states and into neighboring regions. The map predates the extensive exploitation of the Permian Basin, and thus West Texas is less developed than the Dallas area. Oklahoma and Kansas are particularly rich in deposits. Oklahoma has lots of oil in the Arkoma Basin and the Cherokee Platform and in the 1920s alternated with California as the top oil-producing state. Kansas became a significant oil-producing state in 1915, with the discovery and exploitation of the El Dorado field near Wichita.

This map was produced by the Currier & Company Oil Securities company, which sold oil assets and produced several trade periodicals. The cartography and lithography was done by the F. E. Gallup Map Company. The map also advertises the Harvey Crude Oil Company and the Universal Petroleum Corporation.

Yale University dates the map to the period between 1900 and 1910. The map shows many new drill sites in Texas and Kansas in vastly different locations than a Gallup map dated from 1920. In particular, this map shows the Ebano, Panuca, and Topila fields in Texas as still under development, which likely dates the map to the period 1915-1917. Thus, we suggest a 1915 circa date for the map. An advertisement for the map appeared in the Indianapolis Times on the 31st of January, 1920. This suggests that multiple editions of the map may exist, of which this is an early edition.

The title on the map's wrappers is "New Revised Map of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas with Portions of Old and New Mexico."

Rarity

OCLC locates two examples of the map, at the University of Kansas and Yale University. We have not located any examples of the map having appeared on the market.

Condition Description
Folding map, with original printed covers.