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An additional collection of books related to the oil industry and its people.
The Big Rich
$29.95
700020
By: Bryan Burrough (Author of Public Elements and coauthor of Barbarians at the Gate) “Bryan Burrough has long been one of this nation’s best storytellers, but he has outdone himself with his tour de force, The Big Rich. Set amid the rough and tumble of the Texas oil fields and stretching to the halls of political power in Washington, this epic tale reveals the hidden undercurrents of modern American history that flowed from four families of unimaginable wealth and recklessness. With an unerring eye for detail, Burrough dissects their lives and histories, starting with the patriarchs – struggling, poorly educated men who might have remained forever unknown if not for their success at pulling black ooze from the ground. The Big Rich lays bare their ignorance and aspirations, their principles and hypocrisy, their daring and foolishness, taking readers deep inside a world of affluence that has remained secret for far too long. It is, quite simply, a triumph.” – Kurt Eichenwald, author of The Informant and Conspiracy of Fools “It’s hard to imagine a greater literary marriage than that of the oil barons of Texas and Bryan Burrough. On the one hand, you have a collection of gargantuan personalities who in the 1920’s struck it rich and then, in the decades that followed, used their wealth to transform American business, culture, and politics. On the other, you have an author – and native Texan – who writes, as he always does, with enormous insight and panache. The Big Rich has all the hallmarks of a classic American saga.” – David Margolick, author of Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling, and a World on the Brink
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Black Diamonds!
$29.95
700106
The Saga of Texas Pacific Coal and Oil Company By: Don Woodard Texas, they say is so rich you can pull money right out of the ground. This was surely true in a West Texas town called Thurber where the Texas Pacific Coal and Oil Company grew rich digging coal, drilling oil, and making bricks from the clay soil. The history of this company is not only a story about a company, but of the people whose dreams and actions moved a fortune from the dusty ground of prairie into the new bustling frontier economy that created the twentieth-century Texas. The Texas Pacific Company as it was known at its beginning, was born in 1888 just seventy five miles west of Fort Worth. It took its name from its only customer, Texas Pacific Railroad. Employing mostly immigrant workers in the coal mines, the company prospered and created a town eventually called Thurber. The company added a brick works in 1984. For several years Thurber rivaled Ft. Worth as the largest population and cultural center for the region. The discovery of the famous Ranger oil fields in 1917 by the company’s general manager, W.K. Gordon, began not only a whole new chapter in the development and expansion of the company, but also in the growth of Texas. The company survived by both anticipating and adapting to the changing economy until its eventual sale in 1963. The latter part of the book offers an insider’s look into the post World War II development of Ft. Worth, including the political maneuverings of the last chairman of the company, H.B. Fuqua. Through photographs, newspaper articles, company archives, and oral recollections, the reader catches a glimpse of the life and times of the people and events that shaped the socioeconomic growth of the region from its beginnings, though wars, the Depression, and post-war booms.
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Come Drill a Well in my Back Yard
$8.95
700212
By: Vincent Scoper, Jr. This book explains how oil was formed, how it is found, how a well is drilled, how the oil is produced, and how to invest in oil if you have a little gambling blood in you. If you’ve never experienced the sensation, few things can equal the stomach-churning anticipation of waiting for a well to be drilled in which you own an interest.
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Drawing Conclusions from the Oil Patch
$9.95
900012
By Norman Johnson A Collection of Oil Business Cartoons published in the Midland Reporter-Telegram from 1987 to 2006.
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Geologic Wonders of West Texas
$30.00
700614
By: Donald P. McGookey Written for anyone interested in the geology of West Texas.
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GIANTS - Legends of the Oil and Gas Industry
$70.00
700601
By: Veronica Dye Johnson GIANTS is unusual for an oil and gas book. It doesn’t focus on company histories, technical processes, or economic trends. Instead, GIANTS, aims for something for fundamental. Boldly delving into the personal lives of the industry’s major players, the books asks, what special qualities make for a GIANT career? Are GIANTS more committed, more daring, more enthusiastic, more political – or maybe just more cuckoo – than other people? Each profile probes a GIANT’s essence, looking for interests or eccentricities that reveal their secret to corporate success. For example, the self-confidence David H. Arrington exhibited in 1983, moving to West Texas during an economic crisis, can be glimpsed today in his goal to build an unparallel Ansel Adams collection. And, in the case of Joe Gifford, the quick thinking Gifford applied to a touchy cultural exchange in the Sahara Desert is the same talent he would employ a few years later with the blowout of his first independent oil well. A percentage of the net profits of GIANTS will be donated to the Permian Basin Petroleum Association’s Scholarship Fund. GIANTS includes stories about: Ernest Angelo David H. Arrington Ace Barnes Arlen Edgar Joe Gifford Jim Henry Dr. Diana Davids Hinton Harvey Page Dick Saulsbury Angie Sims Don L. Sparks Nick Taylor Clayton Williams, Jr. In honor of Johnny Warren
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Greatest Gamblers
$21.95
700605
The Epic of American Oil and Exploration By: Ruth Sheldon Knowles “This bestselling oil classic is the account of the great wildcatters and scientists who made the story of oil and gas the greatest romance in industrial history and who evolved the art of exploration which continues to help solve America’s energy problems. The book makes clear that despite our present difficulties America’s energy future is still bright and the Petroleum Age is far from ended.” – Wyoming News. “This book gives the reader an exciting look at the early crude days of the oil industry, beginning with Col. Drake and the early crude attempts at producing oil in Pennsylvania. Full of anecdotes on the people and events that helped shape a fledgling industry into a dynamic force it is today. The book reads interestingly and is hard to put down.” – Oil & Gas Journal “If you can afford to buy only one book on the drama of the oil industry, this is the one to buy.” – Southwest Chronicle “Knowles’ expertise in petroleum is amply documented and her skill in writing insures pleasant reading.” – The Pacific Historian “Written with the warmth of personal insight and knowledge, this work is an excellent addition to the bibliography of American oil exploration.” – Arizona and the West. Ruth Sheldon Knowles is a seasoned oilwoman in her own right. She is an internationally known petroleum specialist, writer, foreign correspondent, and lecturer. In addition to several books, Mrs. Knowles has written for leading popular magazines, newspapers, and professional journals.
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Historic Photos of TEXAS LAWMEN
$39.95
709038
Text and Captions by: Mike Cox The history of law enforcement in the Lone Star State goes back well before photography, dating to Texas’ days as part of the Spanish empire. After that Texas became a province of Mexico and for nearly a decade stood among the nations as an independent republic before becoming the 28th state in the Union in 1845. Beyond the contribution to law and order made by constables, sheriffs, town marshals, city police officers, and federal lawmen, Texas is the birthplace of a law enforcement institution unique in the world, the legendary Texas Rangers. Historic Photos of Texas Lawmen features close to 200 images of Texas lawmen, bad men (and a few man women), assorted characters with a law enforcement connection like the legendary Judge Roy Bean, and shots of the places they did their work – for good or bad. Each photograph has a story to tell. Some of the images in this volume, coming from the author’s personal collection, are published here for the first time. But all of the images command attention, many as attention-getting as the business end of the Texas Ranger’s 45.
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Historic Photos of TEXAS OIL
$39.95
700704
Text and Captions by Mike Cox On January 10, 1901, near Beaumont, Texas, an unremarkable knoll of earth the world would soon call Spindletop shot a geyser of oil a hundred feet into the air, confirming the belief of Pattillo Higgins that black gold lay buried there. The Texas oil industry had begun in earnest, and neither Texas nor the world would ever be the same. In the years to come, Texas oil would fuel the nation’s automobiles and help to bring victory to the Allies in both world wars, shaping America’s destiny throughout the twentieth century. Join author and historian Mike Cox in this photographic visit to the heyday of Texas crude as he recounts the stories of key oil-patch discoveries around the state. Nearly 200 images in vivid black and white, with captions and introductions, offer a roughneck-close look at this uniquely American tale of dry holes and gushers, ragtowns and riches, boomtowns, blowouts, and wildcatters gone broke.
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Hubert's Peak
$24.95
700342
The Impeding World Oil Shortage By: Kenneth S. Deffeyes In 2001, Kenneth Deffeyes made a grim prediction: oil production would reach a peak within the next decade – and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. Deffeyes’s claim echoed the work of geophysicist M. King Hubbert, who in 1956 predicted that U.S. oil production would reach its highest level in the early 1970’s. Though roundly criticized by oil experts and economists, Hubbert’s prediction came true in the 1970’s. In this updated edition of Hubbert’s Peak, Deffeyes explains the crisis that few now deny we are headed toward. Using geology and economics, he shows how everything from the rising price of groceries to the subprime mortgage crisis has been exacerbated by the shrinking supply – and growing price – of oil. Although there is no easy solution to these problems, Deffeyes argues that the first step is understanding the trouble that we are in.
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James and Muriel Henry
$10.00
700000
Stories About Their Life By: James Cruce Henry Edited by Ellen M. Hopkins
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Oil
$15.00
704900
A Novel by Upton Sinclair The inspiration for the Paramount Vantage and Miramax Films motion picture"There Will Be Blood". As he did so masterfully in The Jungle, Pulitzer Prize – winning author Upton Sinclair interweaves social criticism with human tragedy in this glorious 1927 novel to create an unforgettable portrait of Southern California’s early oil industry. Enraged by the oil scandals of the Harding administration in the 1920’s, Sinclair tells a gripping tale of avarice, corruption, and class warfare, featuring a cavalcade of characters, including senators, oil magnates, Hollywood film starlets, and a crusading evangelist. Sinclair’s epic drama endures as one of our most powerful American novels of social injustice.
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Oil Patch Stories and Other Lies
$24.95
714031
Tales I Heard at My Tool Pusher’s Knee By: Johnnye Montgomery The story tellers you meet in the oil-rich Permian Basin call themselves “old boys” and sometimes “old sumbitches.” They have sat at conference tables and dinner tables with royalty and rascals and oil tycoons who had hardly two coins to rub together a week before. They love their wives, children and dogs, and there is nothing they’d rather do than tell each other stories they’ve heard a hundred times before. Most, they’ll say, are lies, but at their core lies the beating heart of the oil patch, where you have to be a gambler to survive. This collection of oil patch folklore contains a lot of humor, some tragedy, and vast generosity. Among the storytellers are Clayton Williams, Jr., oilman who once ran for governor of Texas, petroleum engineer T.B. O’Brien, who was sent to Kuwait to put out the fires resulting from the first President Bush’s war on Iraq, and others who have made and lost fortunes over and over again in the Permian Basin oilfields.
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Santa Rita
$9.23
709014
The University of Texas Oil Discovery By: Martin W. Schwettmann With illustrations by: Tom Lea Santa Rita. Patron of the Impossible, belied her name. Santa Rita, the University discovery oil well, blew in on May 28, 1923. The well marked a turning point for The University of Texas and started the institution in the oil business on a huge scale.
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Tom Lovell
$45.95
900019
Storyteller with a Brush By: Elmer Kelton Tom Lovell has chosen 14 fragments of a man’s history in the Permian Basin area of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico to represent man’s effect upon this unique place in the world, and the effect of this singular environment upon the men and women who left their footprints there.
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Yates
$22.00
700906
A family, a company and some cornfield geology By: Ellen M. Hopkins
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The PETROLEUM MUSEUM, Midland, Texas 432-683-4403