From Bulletin 2003, Special Issue
by Francesco Guidi  and Franco Di Cesare

Captain Lucas, 1855-1921

Captain Lucas has given great contribution to the Hydrocarbon Upstream Technology. Born in the Croatia region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, arrived in Texas in the late 1890s when Oil Exploration and Production was moving the first steps in the United States, Lucas immediately took the lead, putting the base of the Petroleum Engineering. He has been the first Chairman of the Special Committee on Oil and Gas of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers which in 1956 changed the name into Society of Petroleum Engineers, SPE.

In 1936, the Petroleum Division of that organization, established the Anthony F. Lucas Gold Medal in recognition of the distinguished achievement in improving the technique and the practice of finding and producing petroleum. The SPE Italian Section wants to honour his memory, issuing the following very short biography notes, in this Special Bulletin Issue.

On this spot, on the tenth day of the twentieth century, a new era of civilization began. At ten-thirty on the morning of January 10, 1901 the first great oil well in the world, the Anthony F. Lucas Gusher, blew in, making an estimated 100,000 barrels of oil per day from a depth of 1,160 feet. Lucas supervised the drilling by J.G. and A.W. Hamill for J.M. Guffey and J.H. Galey on the Mc-Faddin- Wiess-Kyle lease. The well produced 800,000 barrels in the nine days it ran wild.

These words are written in the stone: in a pink Texas-granite obelisk, 15 meters high (50 feet).
The front inscription, together with other tributes to Lucas, reads:
Petroleum has revolutionized Industry and transportation; it has created untold wealth, built cities, furnished employment for hundreds of thousands, and contributed billions of dollars in taxes to support institutions of government. In a brief span of years, it has altered man’s way of life throughout the world.
Erected in July 1941 by the Lucas Gusher Monument Association, J. Cooke Wilson, President; Stephen W. Pipkin, Vice- President; Scott W. Myers, Secretary; and Marion E. Brock, Treasurer.

The great Adventure of Captain Lucas: from Croatia to the Chairmanship of SPE

The above words well epitomize one of the most adventurous episodes of the petroleum history in the United States where this industry was born, developed and has created wealth.
History is made by a mixture of facts and persons, where each other are strictly commingled. The history of Captain Lucas does not escape this simple statement so that at present when dealing with his history we cannot do without dealing with the Spindletop Oil field.

The Birth

Antonio Francesco Luchic (Antun Lučič) was born in the charming city of Split (Spalato) on September 9, 1855.
Split (Spalato) is in Croatia which, in those days, was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Lučič started his studies in Trieste (Italy), completed them in Graz (Austria) and made his fortune in Texas, so that, if we would summarize his life, we could easily write: Born in Croatia, educated in Italy and Austria, flourished in America.

Antonio Francesco was the son of Francis Stephen Luchic, a Montenegrin shipbuilder and ship-owner from the Croatian island of Lesina, few kms south of Split (Spalato). His mother name was Giovanna Giovanizio, clearly of Venetian origin.

The very interesting and complete book of Judith Walker Linsley, Ellen Walker Rienstra, Jo Ann Stiles: Giant Under the Hill published by the Texas State Historical Association in Austin in 2002, quotes an interview with Captain Lucas in which it he states that his complete name is: Count Anthony François Maria Vincent Giovanizio de Bertuchevich Lucas.

A long burden for that intelligent man who, after his arrival in USA, decided to adapt his name to Anthony Lucas. Very simple and very easy.
He started his elementary and gymnasium studies in the city of Trieste, the harbour of the Mittel-Europe and, being very keen in Mechanics, his parents sent him to complete his studies in Graz (Eastern Austria) where, in 1875 at the age of twenty, he graduated from the Polytechnic Institute.

Also attending the Institute of Graz there was another Croatian young man, Nikola Tesla (1857-1943), the famous electrotechnic creative genius. The two persons who largely contributed to the progress of USA, came from the same region and the same School.
After his graduation, he entered the Naval Academy of Fiume (Rijeka) and Pola (Pula) as midshipman. In 1878 he received his degree as Lieutenant and as such he started his career in the Navy. But it was not a lucky period. In fact, for some undisclosed reason, probably related to his Croatian origin, he started considering to emigrate out of Austria.

So first he obtained a six months’ leave and went to USA to visit his father’s brother who was living in Saginaw, Michigan. He obtained a six month extension of his leave and, then, decided to remain in USA.

Arriving in Saginaw, he realized that his uncle had changed his family name of Lučič into Lucas because of the difficulty people had in spelling it. The Lieutenant immediately followed his uncle and from that moment he is known as Captain Anthony Francis Lucas.

In 1881 he decided to become American Citizen and, accordingly, presented his application at the Circuit Court in Saginaw. Four years later, on May 9, 1885, at the age of 30 years, he became an American citizen, receiving the relevant papers at the Corporation Court in Norfolk, Virginia.

Michigan, the Great Lakes State, at this time was timber country and Lucas started working in this region, in mechanical industry improving, for instance, one type of saw in use in the timber activity. From timber he moved to gold, silver and copper mining business in Colorado and California, where he worked also in a railroad.

From West back to East and mostly working in the mining field. In North Carolina he found one of the richest iron deposits in that State, and then in South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and eventually in Louisiana. In North Carolina he met with a beautiful lady from the South, Miss Caroline Weed FitzGerald, who married in 1887, when Captain Lucas was 32 years old.
Lucas was an impressive person, even if there are few physical descriptions from these early times; we know that he was 1.90 m tall (six feet two inches), weighing in the range of 100 kg (220 pounds), with a massive chest and an erect military bearing. “Almost a giant”.

In the occasion of the marriage the couple went to Europe for honeymoon where they spent one year and they visited Spalato, Trieste and Pola. When back in USA they made their home in Washington D.C., where Lucas declared his profession of Mechanical and Mining Engineer. Here, in Washington their only child, Anthony FitzGerald Lucas, was born on July 21st, 1889.

In 1893, at the age of thirty-eight, Lucas made his attention to Louisiana salt formation of the Gulf Coast, finding employment in a salt mine, induced by a piercement salt dome known as Avery Island, even if it is not an island at all. The salt produced from the Avery Island was mostly used for the Tabasco Brand hot pepper sauce.
In Avery Island, Lucas worked for three years, solving many mechanical problems mostly related to the way mining was conducted.

The Scintilla

Aturning point of the Lucas’ profession and fortune was in 1897 when he explored Belle Isle in Louisiana, the legendary isle of the pirate Jean Lafitte, where the piercement salt had been growing causing the origin of the isle.

Here, in Belle Isle, Lucas had the opportunity to study the occurrence of salt, its movements, its stratigraphy where he noticed, this is very important, the presence of oil associated with salt. His vision of the peculiar behaviour of salt was confirmed by continuing operations in the area so that in 1898, Anthony Lucas most probably was the one that knew the maximum on the salt domes. Finally he possessed the intellectual capacity and the imagination to know what could be done and the iron determination to accomplish it (Judith Walker Linsley et Alia, 2002, page 60).

Salt dome drawing, reproduced with Authors’ permission from the book “Giant Under the Hill” by Judith Walker Rienstia et Alia. (2002)

Lucas Gusher

In June 1899, the self-taught geologist Pattillo Higgins (1863-1955), after some correspondences with Captain Lucas, brought this latter to Sour Spring Mound. In that area few shallow wells had been drilled in the past, without success. From his past experience Lucas already knew that oil and salt and sulphur shows can coexist, while Higgins was convinced that the above suites were present because he had observed surface seepages of these.

Lucas immediately realized the presence in depth of growing salt which was, according to his past experiences, indicative of oil. The name of the location was an indirect confirmation of his supposition. It is a gentle swell reaching approximately 5 meters (15 feet) above the flat surrounding plain.

Lucas started acquiring leases for exploration and production of oil in an area which had been previously unsuccessfully tested and started, as well, looking for financing. He found the investors and by June 1900, he had leased approximately 61 sq km (15.000 acres) on and around Sour Spring Mound. Early in the morning of October 27, 1900 the well was spudded. It was one of the first well drilled with rotary system. In January 10th 1901, at a depth of 313 meters (1.020 feet being this the driller’s estimate based on pipe used, while Captain Lucas stated that the blow-out depth occurred at 1.160’ depth) the well went in eruption blowing more than 60 meters (200 feet) into the air and delivering a quantity of oil of approximately 100.000 barrels per day.

It was the Spindletop Oil field, the first oil field discovered on a salt dome structure. It proved the worth of the new rotary drilling rig and established many standard drilling practices still in use. Even much of today’s field jargon was coined in Spindletop; in fact this gave credence to ideas about oil accumulation. Basic concepts concerning oil seals were first envisioned with the success of this well.

In August 1901, only seven months after the Lucas Gusher, the New York Journal wrote: Texas has found its glory. It is OIL…

Back to Lucas

Lucas did not develop Spindletop. He sold his interests to the Guffey Petroleum Company, which had financed his drilling, for 400.000 US$ and continued to work for that Company for a limited period of time. In 1902, he accepted an offer to search for oil in Mexico, on behalf of the Mexican Eagle Oil Company Ltd. and located two oil fields near Coatzacoalcos.

In 1901 Lucas left Spindletop and eventually returned to Washington where he spent the rest of his life as consulting engineer, travelling all over the world. He came back to Europe twice in 1905 and 1910, visiting Croatia (always under the Austrian Empire). During one of these travels he went to Algeria for a petroleum consultancy which he made even in Russia, Rumania, and Galicia.

Lucas developed the first ideas on Petroleum Engineers, especially in the Field studies, with the aim to decrease the number of dry wells and increase the number of producing ones. Most probably, he has been one of the founders of the Petroleum Engineering as a Science. He used to say: In a field it is not necessary to drill many wells but to stimulate the production from a minimum number of them: this is necessary.

In 1913 the Commission for Oil and Gas of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, which in 1956 changed the name in Society of Petroleum Engineers SPE, was founded in Texas and Anthony Lucas was appointed as first Chairman and he remained in this position until 1918.

In 1936 the Petroleum Division of that Institute created the Anthony Francis Lucas Gold Medal to recognize distinguished achievement in improving the technique and practice of finding and producing petroleum.

Anthony Lucas passed away in Washington on September 2nd, 1921, twenty years after his discovery of Spindletop. He is buried in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington D.C. The tombstone inscription reads: Anthony Francis Lucas, of Illyrian Parentage.

The invaluable book of Mrs. Judith Walker Linsley et Alia, reports a memorial article of that period: An energetic, magnetic, personality…noted for his persistence, industry, endurance, and courage. He was sincere, honest, firm against all obstacles, backing his judgment with his own hard work along any course which he had determined to correct. Those who numbered him among their friends found him a congenial, hospitable host with a keen sense of humor, besides being a veritable storehouse of information gleaned from his experiences in many countries.

Spindletop

This oil field is now a legend in the USA, mostly in Texas. The overall production has totalled approximately 150 million barrels. That area has been completely explored and several important oil companies had the opportunity to grow including the Standard Oil Company, from which Exxon has derived, and Texaco. The former Texas Governor, James Stephen Hogg set a Consortium in 1901 for the exploration and production of some leases in the area. The name of the Consortium was Texas Company, better known as Texaco.

Acknowledges

The importance of the Lucas Gusher and its influence in the development of worldwide progress is well appreciated when making a web research for articles relevant to Spindletop and articles where Captain Lucas and Spindletop are associated.

In the first case more than 12.000 articles/books are numbered and in the second around 150 pieces are quoted. It would have been very difficult to orient ourselves in this forest of information, micro information, bad information if our friends and colleagues had not helped us. So we express our gratitude to Mr. Riccardo Coen from Houston, to the Croatian Consulate in Milan, to Mr. Damir Skerl, Croatian in origin, from Houston who made available to us the necessary “dictionary” for the Lucas history i.e. the writers Judith Walker Linsley, Ellen Walker Rienstra and Jo Ann Stiles, authors of the nice and indispensable book Giant Under the Hill (Austin, Texas 2002).

Photos reproduced with Texas Energy Museum permission