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Auction: 407 - The Numismatic Collector's Series: Coins, Medals, Banknotes, Jewelry and Autographs - e-Auction
Lot: 869

Higgins Wonder Oil Company. Bond. 1914 (TX). $10. No. 324. Issued and uncancelled. Patriotic eagle flanked by photographic vignettes of Pattillo Higgens, Sr. President "Discover The Great Beaumont Oil Field" and Pattillo Higgins, Junior "Age Four Years Preparing For Future President". Liberty with Texas Arms at the bottom. Black on purple underprint and borders. A logger who ventured into turned real estate, then brick manufacturing, self-taught geologist Pattillo Higgins (1863-1955), was convinced oil lay below the "Salt Dome Mound" in the Spindletop field of Beaumont, Texas. In 1892, he formed the Gladys City Oil, Gas & Manufacturing Company. Formally-trained geologists poo-poohed the idea of oil being found there, while early drilling attempts were unsuccessful. Higgins resigned from the company, sold his stock, but wisely purchased 33 acres at the summit of Sour Hill Spring. Oil was finally struck in 1901 in the spot that Higgins predicted, with a geyser of oil over 150 feet high, which flowed an estimated 100,000 barrels per day. In its first year of operation Spindletop churned out 3 million barrels, then 17 million barrels the next year effectively ending John D. Rockefeller's world monopoly. Now known as the "Prophet of Spindletop", Higgins formed the Higgins Oil and Fuel Company and then the Higgins Wonder Oil Company, which actively drilled in Chambers, Wilson, Bexar and Gonzales counties of Texas. Good Very Fine with slight wear at the folds. A rare and historic bond; a similar example hammered at $2,100 in the Archive International Auction, October 19, 2013.

Estimate
$1,500 to $2,000

Starting price
$900