Texas oil fields photograph album, 1919

Printable guide [HTML]
Request items

Summary

Title:
Photograph album of Texas oil fields
Dates:
1919
Creators:
Stephenson, J.W. (John Wesley), photographer.
Abstract:
Album of 25 canvas-backed gelatin silver prints of Texas oil wells and oil workers taken during 1919 by J.W. Stephenson, a commercial photographer in Wichita Falls, Texas.
Extent:
1 album (25 photographic prints) : gelatin silver, 22 x 30 cm (album)
Language:
Finding aid is written in English. and Materials are in English.
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Photograph album of Texas oil fields (Collection 94/56). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.

Background

Scope and content:

The album contains views of early Texas oil towns such as Burkburnett and Waggoner City (Ragtown), Texas, as well as the "highway" running through the Burk-Waggoner oil pool, along which a steady stream of horse-drawn wagons travelled, carrying equipment and supplies. Several of the photographs show oil gushing from a well, including the Texas Chief gusher, Burk Waggoner gusher, Golden Cycle gusher on fire (dated April 24, 1919), and spouting wells operated by Hill & Roberts, Motex, General Oil Co., and Arkansas-Texas Oil & Lease Co. Other photos depict workers operating the pipes filling huge barrels with oil--captioned "M&P Burk, Block 818," "Burk George southwest corner Blk. 818," "Lucinda Meadows Tract," and "Big Bob Brewer Block 84," while in other shots, workers oversee vast oil storage tanks in Thrift, and at the Parker Wells, or lay pipeline to the Burk Waggoner pool, Warrior Oil Company's Lucinda Meadows Tract, or Five Oil Company's Lilis Morgan Tract. A panoramic shot of oil wells operated by Motex Refining Company shows a landscape covered with hundreds of derricks, almost all in production. Shots of tanker cars at the rail station in Burkburnett, and rows of tankers sitting out in the fields by the pipelines, waiting to be filled document the importance of the railroad in transporting the oil. Finally, a group of workers poses on the platform at the base of a derrick, watching a torrent of oil gush from an open pipe into a canal in front of them, while a photographer at the side readies his camera.

Physical location:
Stored off-site at SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact UCLA Library Special Collections for paging information.
Physical facet:

Photographer identified in Library of Congress Catalog of copyright entries: Works of art.... v. 13-14

Photographs are backed with canvas.

Bound in canvas-backed plain brown paper covers; torn piece (40 x 80 mm) missing from top left corner of upper cover; covers secured with pieces of brown shoelace threaded through two sets of holes punched along spine.

Copyright date of 1919 on most photographs.

Spec. Coll. copy: in beige cloth clamshell box, with box title "Stephenson. Texas Oil."

Rules or conventions:
Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: a Content Standard

About this collection guide

Collection Guide Author:
Processed by Jane Carpenter with assistance from Simon Elliott; machine-readable finding aid created by Caroline Cubé.
Date Prepared:
© 2013
Date Encoded:
Machine-readable finding aid derived from MARC record, encoding added via Notetab Pro. Date of source: DATE . Supplementary encoding and revision by Caroline Cubé.

Access and use

Restrictions:

Open for research. STORED OFF-SITE AT SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact UCLA Library Special Collections for paging information.

Terms of access:

Property rights to the physical object belong to the UC Regents. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Photograph album of Texas oil fields (Collection 94/56). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.

Location of this collection:
A1713 Charles E. Young Research Library
Box 951575
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575, US
Contact:
(310) 825-4988
AskLSC@library.ucla.edu
Website