Early Louisiana and Arkansas Oil: A Photographic History, 1901-1946

The oil and gas industry in Louisiana and Arkansas has played as great a role in the shaping of the destinies of those two states as any other factor. Here, in 325 contemporary photographs, many of them never before published, is an eyewitness record of the early years of that industry.

The rich oil legacy of the region had been noticed centuries ago when the area’s Indians used natural oil seeps as sources of medicinal oil for themselves and their animals. Non-Indians became aware of the p...