Be Sure to Visit my new 1900 Galveston Storm Website at: http://freepages.genealogy.rootseb.com/~barnette 

SPINDLETOP BIRTHPLACE OF MODERN OIL

The modern petroleum industry was born near Beaumont on January 10, 1901. The Lucas Gusher at Spindletop oilfield in Jefferson County was drilled to a depth of 1160 feet when the 4 inch pipe used for lining the hole was blown out of the ground. The well spouted a column of oil 6 inches wide 150 to 200 feet in the air until it was capped 9 days later. By October 1901 there over 65 working wells in Spindletop Field.

Operated by Lamar University the Spindletop/Gladys City Boomtown Museum in Beaumont is a fifteen-building complex which re-creates Gladys City, an early 1900s era Texas boomtown on the Spindletop oil field. The museum functions as an educational facility and is open to the public from 1 P.M. to 5 P.M. Tuesday-Sunday (except holidays) year-round.

Visitors to the museum can relive the boomdays on a tour through the buildings representing actual businesses in operation during the boom, including a Post Office, Saloon, General Store, Dry Goods Store, Blacksmith Shop, and Livery Stable. The original Gladys City played a major role in the rich and colorful history of Spindletop. For more information visit the museum online at http://hal.lamar.edu/~psce/gladys.html

TSGS MEETS IN TYLER

Co-sponsored by the East Texas Genealogical Society the Texas State Genealogical Society will hold their annual seminar Friday and Saturday November 9 and 10 at the Sheraton Hotel in Tyler.

Speakers of the Friday sessions will be John Sellers of Sulphur Springs, Barbara B. Wylie of Grand Prairie and Paula Perkins Parke of Houston. The featured speaker on Saturday will be Dr. George K. Schweitzer who will lecture in costumes relative to each talk. His topics will include Scots-Irish Genealogical Research , Frontier Religion and Its Genealogical Effects and German Emigration, Immigration and Migration Patterns.

For more information contact TSGS at 2107 54th Street, Lubbock, TX 79412-2610, call 806-747-1319 or visit the TSGS website at http://www.rootsweb.com/~txsgs/ or the ETGS website at  http://www.rootsweb.com/~txetgs/ .

MELCHIORI FEATURED IN ARKANSAS

Marie Melchiori will be the featured speaker at the Arkansas Genealogical Society's Fall Seminar. The seminar will be held at the Holiday Inn Airport-East in Little Rock on Friday evening and all day Saturday November 2 and 3.

Melchiori is a professional genealogist in the Washington, DC area specializing in U.S. military records research at the National Archives. Her topics will include: Using records in the National Archives; Confederate Records at the National Archives; Locating Women in Records Created By the Military; and Overlooked Revolutionary War Records at the National Archives.

For more information visit the AGS website at

http://www.rootsweb.com/~args/

MILAM COUNTY SEMINAR

The Milam County Genealogical Society will host their Fall Seminar Saturday November 10 from 8:30 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. The seminar will be held at the Chamber of Commerce office, 102 E. 1st Street in Cameron. The featured speaker will be genealogical columnist, Lynna Kay Shuffield.

Shuffield's topics will include: Basic Research Methods and Sources; 20th Century Military research and War Dead Projects; Computers and Genealogy; and Cemetery Indexing and Preservation.

For more information visit the MCGS website at http://geocities.datacellar.net/milamco/ or call Charles Hubert at 512-446-3937.

NEWS FROM THE BOOKSHELF

Anyone interested in oilfield or East Texas history will delight in reading Christine Moor Sanders' Spindletop The Untold Story: As Seen Through the Eyes of Captain George Washington O'Brien and the Gladys City Oil, Gas and Manufacturing Company Founded in 1892.

Priced at $38 for cloth cover and $27 for softcover Spindletop The Untold Story is available from the author at P.O.Box 619 Woodville, TX 75979. Postage is $5 per book.

Using diaries, legal files maintained by attorneys, personal papers and the archives of the Gladys City Oil, Gas and Manufacturing Company Sanders weaves an intriguing history of Spindle top from the 1860's to present day.

Sanders' goal in writing her book was to dispel the history of Spindletop as manufactured by Patillo Higgins in the early 1900's with one created from historical records depicting Higgins as a lesser player than he has been proclaimed. In so doing she has created from historical documents a totally different picture than is generally recognized in popular history.