How Dad Joiner Changed Oil Forever

This episode explores the fascinating history of the East Texas oil field, the perseverance of Dad Joiner, and the industry's impact on modern markets and everyday life.


Keywords

oil industry, East Texas oil field, Dad Joiner, petroleum products, oil discovery, market impact, oil history


 key  topics

The discovery of the East Texas oil field by Dad Joiner
The impact of the oil boom on the Great Depression era
Lessons on persistence and industry innovation
Petroleum's surprising role in everyday products like vanilla ice cream
The evolution of oil market regulation and management


 takeaways

Persistence can lead to industry-changing discoveries.
Conventional wisdom isn't always correct; challenge it.
Petroleum influences many everyday products, not just fuel.
Major discoveries often come from refusing to accept defeat.
Understanding industry history helps appreciate current market dynamics.

Sound Bites

"Dad Joiner discovered the East Texas oil field."
"It's persistence that changes history."
"Petroleum is in everybody's daily life."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the East Texas Oil Discovery
01:56 The Challenges and Failures of Dad Joiner
03:55 The Breakthrough: Daisy Bradford No. 3
08:06 Impact of the Oil Boom on the Economy
10:02 Market Oversupply and Price Collapse
11:58 Lessons from Dad Joiner’s Persistence
13:59 Petroleum’s Role in Everyday Products
20:10 Industry Lessons and Modern Implications
22:02 Closing Remarks and Future Topics

Resources

East Texas Oil Field - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Texas_oil_field
Dad Joiner - Biography - https://www.history.com/topics/oil-industry/dad-joiner
Railroad Commission of Texas - https://rrc.texas.gov/

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Let's get some coffee. Today we are talking about the discovery that changed oil forever, the East Texas oil field. Good morning. Oil is trading, rigs are turning to the right. Somebody forgot to order casing again. And somewhere in West Texas, there is already an argument on whose fault it is. This is crude logic. Let's go ahead and introduce today's topics. We're going to start off with a market update, as usual. Today that won't be done by Tabor because he is currently on vacation for the week, so everybody's stuck with just little old me. But he will be back next week. So, Tabor, I hope you're enjoying yourself while the rest of us are out here grinding. WTI crude climbed to $73.50 a barrel, while Brent crude reached $78. Consequently, U.S. gas pump prices are ticking upward, and European natural gas futures jumped roughly 3% due to the conflict in the Middle East. Current national average price for gasoline per gallon is $387, while diesel come in at $488 a gallon. That's your market update for today. Let's go ahead and jump right in what we're going to be talking about. First, let's talk about the headlines. One of the hot stories coming out right now is the death of Senator Lindsey Graham. This was an unexpected death. Apparently, it was an issue with his heart. He had just come back from Ukraine. He had spent a lot of time over in Ukraine talking to uh President Zelensky and trying to, you know, get it, get a uh get a resolution, I guess, or an end to the Russia-Ukraine war. I don't know if that'll ever happen. I got my own opinions about that. Personally, I think that Zelensky and Putin are in on it together, but you know, people say I'm crazy. Well, look around, everybody. It's pretty crazy right now. Back in the 1930s, we were experiencing the Great Depression. During this time, there were people that believed that the East Texas oil field did not really contain the geology to have massive oil reserve. They pretty much just didn't drill there because they didn't believe that it was worth the time or anything like that. Well, this one guy, his name was Columbus Marion Joyner. And he was a politician, he was an oilman, and he didn't believe the experts. He didn't believe everybody saying that there wasn't any oil in the East Texas area. So he embarked on proving everybody wrong. And he spent a lot of money doing it, and he continued to fail and continued to fail until one day he didn't.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

He discovered one of the largest oil fields in the United States.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

This oil field produced massive amounts of oil. It produced so much oil that newspaper articles referred to him as the daddy of Rusk County oil field. It produced so much oil that the oil prices went down and they dropped dramatically. And this was in part because of this field. It was also in part because people were producing so much at the same time. So prices naturally went down. By the time he made history, he was already in his 70s. So he wasn't a geologist, he wasn't backed by big companies. Everybody really kind of thought he was just chasing a fantasy. They probably thought he was crazy. Throughout the 1920s, most of the experts didn't believe that the East Texas oil field contained really that much oil at all. So they weren't pursuing it. Dad Joyner didn't buy that. So he decided to keep going. He spent years convincing friends, neighbors, and small investors to finance one more drilling attempt after another. He actually went broke several times trying to do this. Investors walked away, banks wouldn't loan him any money. Experts actually laughed at him. But he kept drilling. Finally, on October 3rd, 1930, near Kilgore, Texas, his well, known as the Daisy Bradford number three, struck oil.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

Not just oil, a massive reservoir. What Joyner had discovered was the East Texas oil field.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

This would become one of the largest oil fields ever discovered in the United States. The numbers were staggering. The field stretched roughly forty-five miles long and several miles wide. Over the decades, it has produced more than five billion barrels of oil. At the time, nobody imagined a field of this size. So what did it change? The timing couldn't have been more dramatic. America was in the middle of the Great Depression, businesses were collapsing, people were unemployed, families were desperate. Then suddenly, East Texas exploded with opportunity. Thousands of roughnecks, truck drivers, welders, engineers, landmen, merchants, restaurant owners, and entrepreneurs poured into the region looking for work. Entire boom towns appeared almost overnight. Hilgore, Longview, Tyler, and dozens of small towns became economic centers of activity. Oil was flowing so fast there were almost too many wells. Ironically, the success created another problem. There was so much crude oil entering the market the prices plummeted. At one point, crude sold for just pennies per barrel. Because everyone was producing at once. Production controls became one of the foundations of how modern oil markets were managed for decades. So why does this matter today? Dad Joyner's discovery still matters nearly a century later. First, the East Texas oil field continues to produce today. Second, Joyner's discovery proves something that the industry still believes today. Conventional wisdom isn't always right. Biggest discoveries happen when someone refuses to believe what everyone else believes. Third, the East Texas boom helped shape modern engineering, reservoir management, leasing practices, pipeline development, and production regulation. Many of these lessons still influence how operators develop fields today. And finally, it reminds us that behind every great old discovery isn't just geology, it's persistence, it's risk, it's people willing to bet everything on an idea. Dad Joyner wasn't the biggest company. He wasn't the best funded driller. And he wasn't the smartest man in the room. But he was one that refused to quit. Sometimes that's enough to change history. So the next time you hear somebody saying there's nothing left to discover, think about Dad Joyner and his persistence. It might just make you rich. Sounds like a great segue into surprising things made by petroleum. One of the most surprising products made with petroleum is vanilla ice cream, which frequently uses synthetic vanilla derived from crude oil. While most people associate fossil fuels with gasoline, petrochemicals are chemically transformed and purified to create thousands of everyday household medical and food items. Synthetic flavors like vanilla and benzyl benzyl D almond flavor are engineered from petroleum-derived synthetic oils because they are cheap and chemically consistent. Chewing gum. Chewy texture of modern gum relies on synthetic base manufactured with petroleum wax. Now there's a whole list of things we can go down, but the bottom line is that petroleum is in everybody's daily life. Now, I don't know how healthy it is to eat this type of petroleum. Here recently with Maha and all that stuff, it sounds like it would be bad for you. Petroleum, eating it, drinking it, sounds pretty terrible. But is it? I guess time will tell. They're saying that it's proven that it's causing certain problems and all that stuff, and food companies are changing their the way they make things, or at least they're saying they are. Either way, petroleum is something that is involved in everybody's everyday life, and we will continue to give you examples every single day we have an episode. Not because we think that they're bad, but we want you to know exactly what this industry does for our everyday life. It's bigger than just gasoline and diesel and wars. There are so many products and things that we use that feed us, that take care of our medical needs, and a lot of other things. So we need to be aware before we start trying to crush an industry through protests and other things. We need to be aware of the things that we use. A lot of hypocrites out there on the uh climate activist side, but the bottom line is all those signs you're using to protest, all the equipment you're using to cause hell in the streets, was all made by petroleum. So you're welcome. So that's going to do it for us here today at Crude Logic this Monday, July 13th, 2026. Follow us on social media at crude logic show and on YouTube at Crude Logic Show. Our website is crudelogic.show. We appreciate all of our subscribers, viewers, and listeners. Join us tomorrow where we're going to be talking about how rotary drilling changed everything. Thanks for joining us. And remember, stay safe, keep drilling, and it's only logic if it's crude logic. We'll see you tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Four in the morning, coffee black, steel toes hitting an old gravel track, hard hats on, boots in the mud, turning diesel in the blood, from the Permian dirt to the Rocky Mountain stove. Sun comes up, another twelve. Ain't nobody gonna do it themselves. We drill it. We built this land with busting knuckles and calists. This is cruel. Welcome to the show.