Early History The Kansas oil industry celebrated its 100th birthday in 1960. Oil was first found near Paola in 1860 in a well 275 feet in depth. In 1884, natural gas was transported to Paola through a pipeline from a field seven miles eastward. About 1886, the first refinery was built at Paola. Despite considerable drilling activity in Eastern Kansas, only six counties produced about 74,000 barrels of oil in 1900 (Jewett, 1954, Table 2, p. 19) from 108 producing wells (Oliphant, 1904, p. 666). Most of the early drilling was apparently near oil and gas seeps, trend, controlled by creekology, doodlebugs, or purely random in character. Jewett (1954, p. 23) reports that Erasmuth Haworth, J. W. Beede and John Bennett were applying geologic principles to the occurrence of oil and gas by the early part of this century. By 1908, Haworth (1908, pp. 161-179) had recognized the relationship of lenticular sand bodies and anticlinal structure to the accumulation of oil and gas. The real impetus to oil and gas development was the discovery of the huge Eldorado field on a dome in 1915 as a result of geological work by Haworth and others. Development spread rapidly both east and west. The next 15 years marked the development of most of the shoestring sands fields in Butler, Greenwood and Cowley Counties. Although gas had been known in Rice County before the turn of the century, first oil production in Western Kansas was the unimportant Walton field in Harvey County. The discovery well of the huge Hugoton gas field was completed in 1922. The Fairport field was discovered in Russell County on a large surface anticline in 1923, and Kansas had entered the ranks of the important oil producing states.