This A-to-Z treatment of Oklahoma history, geography, and lore features magnificent full-color contemporary photography throughout-along with intriguing historical black-and-whites. Region by region, the authors chronicle the varied landforms, along with the people from ancient times to today. Here are the major cities and the small towns, their stories, their colorful characters, the triumphs and tragedies, the dramas and comedies.

Oklahoma: The Land and Its People

Arts & Photography

Franks, Kenny A.

Lambert, Paul F.

Photography & Video

University of Oklahoma Press

The oil and gas industry in Louisiana and Arkansas has played as great a role in the shaping of the destinies of those two states as any other factor. Here, in 325 contemporary photographs, many of them never before published, is an eyewitness record of the early years of that industry. The rich oil legacy of the region had been noticed centuries ago when the area's Indians used natural soil seeps as sources of medicinal oil for themselves and their animals. Non-Indians became aware of the presence of crude in the early 1800's and by 1860 several petroleum-rich sites had been located in Louisiana. In 1901, W. Scott Heywood's discovery of the huge Jennings Oil Field thrust Louisiana to the forefront in American oil production. Other discoveries in Louisiana followed rapidly: Caddo Lake, Homer, Cotton Valley, the tremendous Monroe Gas field, and many smaller pools contributed their share to the great flood of oil and gas from the state. Eventually the search for crude crossed the state boundary into southern Arkansas, and a new boom began there in the 1920's. Though a small portion of that state was involved with the industry, the volume of oil from El Dorado, Smackover, and other fields in the surrounding southwestern counties brought Arkansas, too into the upper ranks of oil producers. The giant trim-state Rodessa Field shared by Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas, continued the initial boom, but just as production began to slow, technological innovations opened entirely new horizons among the coastal salt domes and offshore, and the rush for black gold began anew.

Early Louisiana and Arkansas Oil: A Photographic History, 1901-1946 (MONTAGUE HISTORY OF OIL SERIES)

Business & Money

Franks, Kenny Arthur

Industries

Texas A & M Univ Pr

Book by Franks, Kenny Arthur, Lambert, Paul F.

Early California Oil: A Photographic History, 1865-1940 (Montague History of Oil Series, Number Four)

History

Americas

Texas A&M University Press

In light of the importance of oil and gas in California, perhaps the discovery of gold there should be viewed as just a flash in the pan. By 1938, the cumulative value of all the gold found in the state stood at something more than two billion dollars, while the cumulative value of the oil and gas produced was more than double that sum—well over five billion dollars. The story of California oil deserves to be told, and pictures tell it best. The more than three hundred photographs in this book vividly portray the development of California’s rich and colorful petroleum industry from the early exploration of the mid-nineteenth century through the boom years of the first four decades of the twentieth. Although Indians and Spanish explorers had known of and used local oil seepages for centuries and the search for commercial production had begun on several fronts in the 1850s, the actual birth date of California’s oil industry may be set as 1865, with the first commercial sale of oil refined in the state (by the Stanford brothers) from a well drilled in the state (on the Matthole River in Humboldt County). The fascinating text and the impressive array of photographs here assembled reveal the variety and vigor of the development that ensued: from the “world’s smallest producing lease,” on Signal Hill, to the derricks sharing Huntington Beach with the bathers, to the millions of mice infesting the Taft oil field in 1926–27; from the mounted patrols keeping livestock out of the Coalinga fields to the blinking light on a fence warning motorists of a well in the middle of a Los Angeles street. First among the states in oil production in eighteen of the first thirty years of the twentieth century, California experienced a boom of immense proportions and extraordinary diversity. These illustrations, along with contemporary descriptions by many of those who worked the fields and a wealth of detail provided by the authors, graphically portray the scenes and characters of California’s second great mineral rush. An epilogue takes the boom up to the present, highlighting the shift in production to the offshore leases and the controversy surrounding them.

Early California Oil: A Photographic History, 1865-1940 (Kenneth E. Montague Series in Oil and Business History (Paperback))

Paul F. Lambert recounts the remarkable life of Pearl Carter Scott, child aviator, single mother, and revered Chickasaw elder. Born in 1915 and raised in Marlow, Oklahoma, Pearl Carter enjoyed a privileged childhood. Her white father was a gifted businessman who happened to be blind. Her mother was half Chickasaw and half Choctaw. When Pearl was twelve, she met Wiley Post, who was just beginning his aviation career, and he taught the adventurous young girl how to fly.
In this book, Paul F. Lambert recounts the remarkable life of Pearl Carter Scott, child aviator, single mother, and revered Chickasaw elder.
Born in 1915 and raised in Marlow, Oklahoma, Pearl Carter enjoyed a privileged childhood. Her white father was a gifted businessman who happened to be blind. Her mother was half Chickasaw and half Choctaw. When Pearl was twelve, she met Wiley Post, who was just beginning his aviation career, and he taught the adventurous young girl how to fly. After she turned thirteen, her father bought her an airplane and converted a pasture into an airstrip. She married at age sixteen, and by the age of eighteen, with one child and another on the way, she retired from flying—even though it had made her a celebrity.
Pearl and her husband raised three children, but the Great Depression and other circumstances dissolved the family’s fortune. Then a fire destroyed most of her and her husband’s belongings, and a few years later, she found herself divorced and poor. Yet Pearl maintained her positive outlook even during these difficult times. She turned to a life of service to the Chickasaw people and became a revered tribal elder who was inducted into the Oklahoma Aviation and Space Hall of Fame and the Chickasaw Nation Hall of Fame.

Never Give Up!: The Life of Pearl Carter Scott

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Chickasaw Press

Unique in both geology and geography, Washington County was one of Oklahoma's first oil-producing areas. The area was home to pre-historic Native Americans, some of whom, like the Missippian Mound Builders, left tangible evidence of their presence. Modern Washington County is unique-a thriving county built around Bartlesville features major tourist and cultural attractions-Copan Lake, the Frank Phillips Home, and the OK Mozart Music Festival.

Washington County: A Centennial History

Campbell, Gini Moore

Paul Lambert

Kenny Arthur Franks

Teague, Margaret W.

Oklahoma Heritage Association

Capital City: History of Tishomingo

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lambert, Paul F.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Lambert, Paul F.