1. OIL AND INDUSTRY

2. INDUSTRY Railroads = spread of industry Bread Cattle industry
Brought raw materials to Texas
Products sent to Northern U.S.
Refrigerated railroad car = Texas beef shipped unspoiled
Spread of coal industry in TX
Cotton farming = textile mills
Cottonseed oil
Bread
Flour and grist milling – top industries
Cattle industry
Meat packing – further north and west (Fort Worth)

3. LUMBER
Big Thicket National Preserve – protect 84,000 acres of forest – once forested
Sawmills – demand for wood; late 1800s leading industry
Railroad ties, fuel, houses
Company Towns
Kirby Lumber Company 1901; 300,000 acres of pine lands & 14 mills
So large – established communities
Company control – paid in scrip
Money only valuable at company stores

4. COAL - minerals Low-grade coal in Texas = little market value
1870s – used to fuel steam-powered locomotives
Raised demand – 2 million tons a year moved
Strip mining – method of mining that strips away layers of earth and rock
Altered landscape permanently
Quarries –
Granite, salt, copper, limestone
Oil and gas = state’s most valuable fossil fuels
Cities grew around industry

6. WORKERS Wage earners = new class Industry offered new way of life
Paid by day, week or month – varying wages (about $225 year)
Typically male - more children than women
1900 – more women – wage increased to about $425 year
Offered choice – towns, spending
Newspapers = more aware
Industry offered new way of life
Dangerous, unhealthy
Injuries = no pay

7. LABOR UNIONS Change for bad conditions
Employers too powerful; employees organize to form LABOR UNIONS
Knights of Labor – appeared in Texas 1882
Accepted minorities
Organized strikes

8. VISUAL SUMMARY Farming Leads to Growth New Industries Emerge
Industry, railroads, and commercial farming create a demand for new products
New Industries Emerge
The growth of lumber, coal, and mineral industries leads to the creation of company towns and the growth of industrial cities
The New Industrial Worker
Industry growth creates a new working class in Texas. The need to correct poor working conditions leads to the creation of labor unions.

9. OIL INDUSTRY Oil in Texas = no value without a use
Railroads – use as fuel
Oil wells – 1894 drillers found major reserve in Corsicana
Pattillo Higgins – searched for oil in Spindletop Hill
Failed attempts – hired engineer Anthony Lucas
Lucas drilled and failed; then hit oil on January 10, 1901
The gusher shot oil for 9 days – then capped
Anthony Lucas
Pattillo Higgins

10. OIL INDUSTRY Spindletop well = Lucas No. 1
Produced 70, ,000 barrels per day
Oil drillers rushed to Gladys City; within weeks the fields were covered with derricks
Land worth more
Beaumont grew rapidly
Most companies set up in Houston – closer to railways

11. OIL INDUSTRY

12. EFFECTS Changed the future of Texas Too many wells = overdrilling
After 17,500,000 barrels of oil 1902 – wells began to slow (47,900 a day)
Down to 10,000 a day
Businesses in Gladys City began to close
Led to the creation of 600 oil companies
Shift to oil economy in Texas
New source of inexpensive, efficient oil

13. OIL BOOM After Spindletop – next boom 1920s and 1930s
Growth occurred rapidly
Population, new industries and economy
Boomtowns
Boomers arrived – thrill seekers; work until oil is struck then move on
Crowded, noisy, crime, disease, little safe water to drink
Clean water more expensive than oil
Oil workers –
Dangerous – fumes, falls; 12 hr days; good pay for hard work; wells shutdown quickly
Oil search spread across the state – wildcatters found it in unexpected places
Pumping more than was useful

14. DEPRESSION
Great Depression – time of low economic activity and high unemployment Limits were put on the production of oil Hot oil – illegal production of oil Prices fluctuated over time – effect on transportation based industries

15. PETROCHEMICAL Removal of chemicals from petroleum
Makes household items
Explosives, Synthetic rubbers - i.e., tires
Environmental concerns – processes create toxic waste (cancer causing fumes and gases)

16. TRAVEL Creation of automobile 1900
Oil led to improved transportation system – need for better roads
“good roads” association – concerned citizens
Highway system – Federal Aid Road Act 1916
State highway departments
Spurred businesses along roadways
Airplanes = demand for fuel
War, commercial