From Frank Trost’s image of the 1901 Lucas oil gusher at Spindletop, photographers captured views of the growth of the Texas petroleum industry. Many of these photographs were produced and sold as real photo postcards (RPPCs) and mailed throughout the United States and the world bringing images to the masses of gushing oil wells, boomtowns, oil field fires, and fields of oil derricks. Two men known for their photography of several 1920s and 30s Texas oil fields and associated boomtowns were Ralph Doubleday (1881-1958) and Jack Nolan (1889-1972). Both photographers captioned their postcards with oil field names or well names and both men often included their names in the captions. Over 150 different Nolan and 60 different Doubleday oil-related RPPCs are known.

Keywords:
photographer, photography, texas oilfield photographer, nolan, rppc, reservoir characterization, ralph doubleday, exploration geophysicist, jack nolan, applied geoscience
Subjects:
Reservoir Characterization
This content is only available via PDF.
Copyright 2022, Society of Exploration Geophysicists and the American Association of Petroleum Geologists