Higgins, Pattillo

Pattillo Higgins (December 5, 1863 - June 5, 1955) was a businessman from Jefferson County, Texas, who was a pioneer in the Texas oil industry. During his rowdy and delinquent youth, Higgins was harassing a local Black church when he had an encounter with a local sheriff's deputy, which resulted in an exchange of gunfire and the deputy being killed. Higgins was found not guilty of murder on grounds of self-defense, but was injured and had to have his left forearm amputated. Afterward, while working as a logger, Higgins attended a Baptist revival meeting, became a born-again Christian, and decided to turn his life around. He began pursuing various business ventures, including a brick manufacturing company. Curious to learn more about the oil and gas used in his brick kilns, Higgins traveled to Pennsylvania to learn about the burgeoning petroleum industry. He also began teaching himself geology by reading reports from the U.S. Geological Survey and any other resources he could find. Recognizing that a hill (Spindletop) in his hometown of Beaumont might have oil underneath, he partnered with some other local businessmen and founded the Gladys City Oil, Gas, and Manufacturing Company in 1892. Initial attempts to locate oil deposits failed, and Higgins sold his shares in the company to his partners in order to buy a plot of land at the hill's summit. A second attempt to find oil in partnership with Anthony Francis Lucas also initially failed. However, through the use of newer equipment and trained crews that could drill deeper, a geyser was struck at Spindletop on January 10, 1901, producing roughly 100,000 barrels per day, more than all of the other oil wells in the United States combined at that time. (Which, among other things, ended the virtual monopoly on petroleum held hitherto by John D. Rockefeller.) This event is generally considered the start of the Texas oil boom and even the beginning of an 'Oil Age' - a new era in human history. Until the Spindletop discovery, most trained geologists believed the Gulf Coast did not contain significant oil deposits. Despite his uncanny skill as a self-trained geologist, Higgins made some questionable business decisions that caused him not to always reap the profits of his remarkable discovery, though his retention of the valuable leasing rights to his plot atop Spindletop did allow him to continue launching new ventures. He fell out with some of his closest business partners, especially Anthony Francis Lucas (1855 - 1921). His personality was also eccentric, being an autodidact in several fields, including drafting, drawing (including artistic works), and engineering. He also adopted several young orphaned girls and, controversially, married one of his adoptees, a woman thirty years his junior, in 1905.