A Brief Look at Oklahoma’s Early Oil Industry

Duke Ligon, head of Mekusukey Oil Company, also serves on the boards of numerous other oil and gas concerns in and around Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. These positions include membership on the board of Panhandle Oil and Gas, Inc. Duke Ligon joined the board in 2007 when the former Panhandle Royalty Company changed its name.

After noting Native Americans’ extensive medicinal use of the surface petroleum found under rock beds and on creeks and ponds, 19th-century European-American settlers in Oklahoma began to prospect for oil. In 1872, the Chickasaw Oil Company became the first named corporate oil concern.

Like many of its peer companies, Panhandle originated during the boom days of the 1920s. Oklahoma, situated in a particularly advantageous part of the petroleum-rich Mid-Continent Region, led its neighboring states in the production of oil. 

Over the first three-and-a-half decades of the 20th century, Oklahoma generated well over $5 billion from the production of close to a billion barrels of oil. The state used its prosperity to spur further development over the succeeding decades.

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