Anthony Francis Lucas

Anthony Francis Lucas (born Antun Lučić; September 9, 1855 – September 2, 1921) was an American Croatian-born oil explorer.[1] With Pattillo Higgins he organized the drilling of an oil well near Beaumont, Texas, that became known as Spindletop. This led to the widespread exploitation of oil and the start of the petroleum age.[2]

Antun Lucas
Anthony Francis Lucas
Born(1855-09-09)September 9, 1855
Split, Austria-Hungary
DiedSeptember 2, 1921(1921-09-02) (aged 65)
Washington, D.C., United States
NationalityCroatian/American
Scientific career
FieldsMechanical Engineering

Early life

Count Anthony François Maria Vincent Giovanizio de Bertuchevich Lucas was the son of Francis Stephen Luchich, a Montenegrin shipbuilder and shipowner, and Giovanna Giovanizio.[3][4][5][6] Born in the Austrian Empire city of Split, his family moved to Trieste, where his father served in the Austro-Hungarian navy.[7]

At the age of 20, Lucas completed studies at the Polytechnical Institute (Technische Hochschule) in Graz, Austria, and became an engineer. After graduating from the Austrian Naval Academy of Pula and Rijeka, Lucas was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1878.[7]

Move to the United States

In 1879, Lucas visited his uncle in Saginaw, Michigan, and started work in a sawmill, improving the design of a gang saw then in use. In 1883, he started working in the Colorado, California and North Carolina gold, copper, silver and iron mining industries. He changed his name to Anthony Francis Lucas, receiving his naturalization papers on May 9, 1885, at Norfolk, Virginia.[8] He married Caroline Weed Fitzgerald in 1887. They moved to Washington, D.C. in 1888, where Lucas worked as a mechanical and mining engineer, except for a two year break prospecting for gold in Colorado. Their son Anthony FitzGerald was born on 21 July 1889.[7]:55–56

Career

In 1893, Lucas started to work as a salt mine superintendent for Myles and Company of New Orleans. The gamaged mine was located at Petite Anse (Avery Island), and over the next three years, Lucas restored operations.[7]:56–57

Lucas drilled and explored for salt on Jefferson Island for Joseph Jefferson, and Belle Isle, where he discovered the relationship between salt deposits, sulfur, natural gas, and oil deposits. In Lucas' words, "This led me to study the accumulation of oil around salt masses, and I formed additional plans for prospecting other localities. Thus I began my investigations into the occurrence of oil on the Coastal Plain." In 1898, Lucas mined salt on Grand Côte, Weeks Island, and Anse la Butte, having by then become an expert on salt domes.[7]:57–60

Lucas Gusher
The Lucas Gusher at Spindletop. January 10, 1901

In 1899, Lucas visited the Sour Spring Mound south of Beaumont, Texas, with Pattillo Higgins. This was the future site of Spindletop. Lucas noted, "This mound attracted my attention on account of the contour, which indicated possibilities for an incipient dome below, and because at the apex of it there were exudations of sulphuretted hydrogen gas. This has suggested to me, in the light of my experience at Belle Isle, that it might prove a source of either sulphur or oil, or both." Lucas then signed a lease agreement with the Gladys City Oil, Gas, and Manufacturing Company, and a separate agreement with Higgins.[7]:63–66

Using a rotary drilling rig from Louisiana, Lucas began his well in August or September 1899, reaching a depth of 250 feet (76 m) in Dec. At a depth of 575 feet (175 m), the casing collapsed, but only after a layer of oil sand was found.[7]:68–69

Short on money, Lucas sought funding from any source, including Henry Folger of Standard Oil, but to no avail. Lucas received an opportunity when Dr. William Battle Phillips, geologist for the University of Texas and the Texas State Mineral Survey, endorsed Lucas' dome theory, and wrote a letter of introduction to John H. Galey. Galey, with his partner James M. Guffey, put together financing with Andrew Mellon, allowing Lucas to drill three wells 1,200 feet (370 m) deep. Lucas also retained 12.5 percent of the deal. Galey further recommended that the Hamill brothers, Al, Curt, and Jim, drill the well.[7]:72–77

After reaching the depth of 1,139 feet (347 m), on 10 January 1901, mud and water erupted followed by a stream of crude oil reaching 150 feet (46 m). The eruption lasted nine days, flowing between 70,000 and 100,000 barrels per day, before the Lucas Gusher was finally brought under control.[7]:104–116

Beaumont became a boomtown. Yet, tiring of his loss of privacy, in May 1901, Lucas sold his stock in the Guffey Petroleum Company, and continued his scientific search for oil in the United States and Mexico.[7]:147–148,185–186

Legacy

The Lucas Gusher helped revolutionize world fuel use and transformed the economy of southeast Texas. It helped further the development of the combustion engine automobile since significant amounts of energy were needed for fuel. The city of Houston become the national center of the oil industry, with the United States surpassing Russia as the world's leading producer.

Anthony Francis Lucas is considered to be the founder of modern petroleum reservoir engineering. He later served as a consulting engineer in Romania, Russia, Mexico, Algeria, as well as in the United States. As a successful businessman and expert in mining, Lucas was the lifelong chairman of the American Committee for Oil and Gas.

Inventions and applications

A number of Lucas inventions and scientific or technical knowledge were used in early oil exploration and extraction, with most still being employed. Some are:

Heritage

Lucas died on September 2, 1921, in Washington, D.C.. He was often mistakenly described as Austrian, sometimes even as a Trieste-born Italian. On his grave in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C., he is described as being of Illyric origin, which was the standard term for Croatian at the time.

In 1936, the American Institute for Geological and Metallurgical Investigations founded the Anthony F. Lucas Gold Medal prize[9] for development in the area of oil exploration. A museum with a granite obelisk was built to honor the explorer about which is inscribed: "On this spot on the tenth day of the twentieth century a new era in civilization began."[10][11][12] A street and an elementary school in Beaumont, Texas, bear his name.

Notes
  1. "LUCAS, Anthony Francis". The International Who's Who in the World. 1912. p. 718.
  2. Adam S. Eterovich. "Luchich Discovery of Oil at Spindletop, Texas". croatianhistory.net. Archived from the original on 29 June 2010. Retrieved July 17, 2010.
  3. From Croatian-Americans at www.everyculture.com
  4. An article from Franco di Cesare
  5. American Biographies K through R
  6. Lucich-Lucas Goes to America, Antun Lučić declaring himself as Croatian
  7. Linsley, Judith; Rienstrad, Ellen; Stiles, Jo (2002). Giant Under the Hill, A History of the Spindletop Oil Discovery at Beaumont, Texas in 1901. Austin: Texas State Historical Association. pp. 53–54. ISBN 9780876112366.
  8. Lucich-Lucas Goes to America
  9. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2007-04-03. Retrieved 2007-11-01.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) The American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers, Anthony F. Lucas Gold Medal
  10. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2001-07-26. Retrieved 2015-11-19.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) Texas History: Oil's Big Day
  11. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2008-02-18. Retrieved 2007-11-01.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) Legend of Spindletop
  12. Gusher Monument and Replica Oil Boomtown
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