What substance is found in OKlahoma in 1897, resulting in a population boom
Answers
Oil ushered Oklahoma into the twentieth century and gave it an economic base that for decades allowed continued development. The state's petroleum deposits lie within a vast reserve called the Mid-Continent Region, an area that also encompasses Kansas, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and New Mexico. For twenty-two years between 1900 and 1935 Oklahoma ranked first among the Mid-Continent states in oil production and for nine additional years ranked second. During that period the state produced 906,012,375 barrels of oil worth approximately $5.28 billion.
Long before the onset of Oklahoma's great oil booms, the state's early inhabitants tapped into the region's many natural oil and gas seeps. Across the state American Indians employed the black liquid that oozed from beneath the rocks and accumulated on the surface of creeks and springs as medicine for both themselves and their animals. When the eastern tribes and non-Indians arrived, word of these seeps spread. As early as 1830 Chickasaw Agent A. M. Upshaw made note of local medicine springs. His successor, A. J. Smith, reported on seeps in the Wichita Mountains. Comanche Chief Asa Toyette showed the seeps to Thomas C. Battey in the 1870s and remarked "heap of medicine-good black medicine." By the 1850s visitors from neighboring states were utilizing the seeps. At Boyd Springs on Oil Creek in the Chickasaw Nation, travelers camping at the springs often drove a musket barrel into the water and then ignited the escaping natural gas for illumination. Maytubby Springs near Caddo and New Spring Place near Oaks became popular health spas.