Identity elements
Name and location of repository
Level of description
Item
Title
Album with circa 320 original gelatin photographic prints documenting oil exploration and drilling
Date(s)
- circa 1925-1929 (Creation)
Extent
Content and structure elements
Scope and content
"Historically significant extensive collection of early original photos, dedicated to oil drilling in Colombia, Texas, and Louisiana in the 1920s. The album documents the activities of a noted Texan oilman James Smither Abercrombie and was apparently compiled by his business partner, or a family member, possibly his younger brother Robert Haden Abercrombie. James Abercrombie started working in the Texan oil industry in 1909 and by 1918, had enough money to drill for oil in South Texas and the Gulf Coast on his own. The images show workers unloading drilling machinery at Puerto Escondido, ferrying it across the Sinu River to Monteria, Abercrombie and his partners in the camps at Tubara and Lorencita, drilling rigs under construction, oil holding tanks, the Sinu River, a 'mud volcano' in Lorencita, and many images of local villages and their inhabitants, etc. A smaller group of photos at the rear illustrate Abercrombies later drilling operations at Lake Pelto and Lake Barre (Louisiana), and Dog Lake and Taylor Bayou (Texas), showing piled up pipes, equipment, drills, construction workers, etc." --description from the The Wayfarer's Bookshop