Paul Neal Adair, better known by his nickname “Red” Adair, was born on June 18, 1915 in Houston, Texas to Charles Edward and Mary Emeline Smith Adair. Charles was a carpenter and blacksmith. Both he and Mary had been born in Kansas where they married. By 1910, they were living in Houston. Red got his nickname from being red headed and was the middle child of at least five siblings. When he was young, the family lived northwest of downtown Houston in an area known as The Heights, where Red attended school through the 9th grade at Houston Reagan High School. He as a good athlete and student, but dropped out of high school to help support his family in the midst of the Depression.
Tag: oil and gas
Petrolia, a Texas Boom Town
Petrolia is one of several Texas towns that sprang up during the Texas oil boom. Petrolia took its name from an oil town in Pennsylvania. It is located due east of Wichita Falls in Clay County, and succeeded a nearby settlement that was named Oil City.
(Image credit: UNT Portal to Texas History)
Joseph Stephen Cullinan
(Image credit: Houston Chronicle)
The name Joseph Cullinan might not be that familiar to some Texans regarding the state’s oil boom, but he was involved in the development of several of the early large Texas oil fields and had significant interests in several companies that are major energy companies today.
C. M. “Dad” Joiner
Columbus Marion “Dad” Joiner was a familiar name to folks in the early days of the oilfields in Oklahoma and Texas. The East Texas town of Joinerville is named for him. Joiner is credited for having discovered the East Texas oil field in 1930 when his third wildcat well came in west of Henderson, Texas.
Pegasus
(Image credit: American Oil and Gas Historical Society)
This is a well known image most likely to every American who is at least 40 years old. For decades, it was the trademark of Mobil gas stations and other Mobilgas products and facilities. Prior to 1911, the Standard Oil Company was the largest oil company in the world. It was founded by John D. Rockefeller in 1863 as the Standard Oil Trust and within a few years it had become a company that dominated the oil industry in the United States. The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 was enacted to help prevent monopolies from controlling too much of the U. S. economy. The Standard Oil Company was declared a monopoly under the Act and was ordered by the U. S. Supreme Court to break itself up into seven different “state” companies in 1911, similar to the action that was required of AT&T several decades later.
TEXAS HISTORY NOTEBOOK 