Pattillo Higgins was an American businessman and self taught geologist known as the Prophet of Spindletop for his role in one of the most consequential oil discoveries in American history. Reading mineral water and gas seepage near Beaumont, Texas as signs of oil underground, he predicted a rich deposit lay beneath a low rise there, and in 1892 helped found the Gladys City Oil, Gas and Manufacturing Company to drill the site, though the earliest attempts failed. After partnering with fellow driller Anthony Lucas in 1899, the resulting Lucas Gusher erupted on January 10, 1901 at the location Higgins had predicted, producing more oil than every other well in the United States combined at the time and breaking the effective monopoly John D. Rockefeller had held over the American oil industry.
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Higgins predicted and promoted exploration at Spindletop Hill years before the 1901 gusher that Anthony Lucas drilled.
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