Oklahoma’s prominent place in the oil industry is fortuitous, a result of encompassing the bulk of the hydrocarbon rich Anadarko, Arkoma, and Ardmore geologic basins and their associated shelves and platforms.
Oklahoma’s prominent place in the oil industry is fortuitous, a result of encompassing the bulk of the hydrocarbon rich Anadarko, Arkoma, and Ardmore geologic basins and their associated shelves and platforms. The sedimentary basins that have yielded the bulk of Oklahoma’s oil production are mostly Pennsylvanian in age, but oil and gas reservoirs across the State range from Cambrian to Cretaceous. The first commercial paying well, the Nellie Johnstone No. 1, was drilled in 1896 near Bartlesville (Washington County). Completed in 1897 as the discovery well for the giant Bartlesville-Dewey Field, the well ushered in the oil era for Oklahoma Territory.
After the turn of the century, discoveries were made in rapid succession in areas that would eventually 