Calgary Herald (Firm) - 100 Years of Oil

Investors wait to buy oil stock on May 15, 1914, the day after the Dingman well came in.

Glenbow Archives, NA-601-1

Over the last 10 decades, Alberta has seen oilfortunes rise and fall. Booms have come and gone - and then returned.

In the first half of the 19th century, petroleum waswidely accepted as a medicinal agent, used as an ointment for things likearthritis, or as a lubricant on machinery.

But the discovery of how to turn crude oil intokerosene for lamps in 1852 transformed a marginal business into a roaringindustry. Oil exploration in Canada dates to 1858 in southwestern Ontario, withthe first commercial well at Oil Springs. The first oil rush in the UnitedStates took off in Pennsylvania in 1859.

Just as the electric light bulb threatened oilsdominance in the late 1800s, along came the automobile - sparking a new surgein exploration.

The Spindletop gusher launched the Texas oil industryin 1901 and the same year, in southwestern Alberta, John Linehams RockyMountain Development Company struck oil near Waterton and produced ashort-lived boom.

In 1908, Eugene Coste discovered the Bow Island gasfield and, four years later, a 275-kilometre pipeline was built to ship it tobustling Calgary, allowing the ambitious city to declare itself gasified.(Canadian Pacific Railway had first discovered natural gas in Alberta whiledrilling for water near Medicine Hat in 1883.)

By now, Calgary had a population of 50,000 people andbig plans for the future. The city had become a thriving regional hub whereentrepreneurs came to get rich, often through land speculation.

Calgary was surrounded by farmers and ranchers, withsome of the prettiest land located south of the city. Despite the naturalbeauty, however, there were some spots that didnt always smell good - a rottenegg odour often percolated from the ground.

It made one farmer curious.

Stewart Herron was an Ontario native who spent time inthe Pennsylvania oilfields before he settled on a farm near Okotoks in 1905.

Herron had a consuming interest in petroleum geology,says author David Breen in his book, William Stewart Herron: Father of thePetroleum Industry in Alberta. One day, in 1911, Herron was hauling coal nearBlack Diamond when he stopped along Sheep Creek. He decided to check outseepages thought to be swamp gas.

Herron returned with an overturned tub, siphoned thegas into bottles and shipped them to labs in the United States. They confirmedHerrons suspicions and he began quietly acquiring land and mineral rights inthe region.

He then convinced some of Calgarys most prominentcitizens - Sen. James Lougheed, rancher A.E. Cross, and future prime ministerR.B. Bennett - to gamble on his venture. Thus, the Calgary Petroleum ProductsCompany began drilling early in 1913.

Archibald Dingman, a partner in the company, was namedgeneral manager and became the face of the operation. Marty Hovis was the chiefdriller.