Petroleum has brought its share of problems – economic, environmental, and more. It’s also a finite resource that we will use up one day, if not in our lifetimes. But the simple fact is that our modern world, with all the comforts and conveniences we enjoy, was built on oil. And no moment might have ushered in our age of oil more dramatically than the gusher that exploded from a derrick at the Spindletop oil field in Beaumont, Texas, 114 years ago on January 10, 1901.

The air over Spindletop was filled with gushing crude oil, and it took nine days to get the flow under control. Spindletop produced 100,000 barrels of oil a day, and it changed the face of Texas, not to mention the United States, forever. What had been a sprawling and mostly empty state became the center of a booming American oil industry. Houston exploded into a major city, with the largest collection of oil refineries in the world. Beaumont became a boomtown, with its population tripling almost overnight. The discovery of more oil deposits around the Gulf Coast of Texas and in other parts of the state would make the United States the world’s largest oil producer. Oil barons in Texas quickly became some of the richest and most influential men in the state and the country. (There’s a reason for the nickname “Texas tea,” after all.)

The post-World War II economic boom in this country is a celebrated part of our history. What’s not often mentioned is that the boom was powered by the increased use of petroleum. The good times couldn’t last forever, of course. By the middle of the 20th century, production had leveled off in Texas. A tightening of the world’s oil supply caused an energy crisis that hit the U.S. hard in the 1970s. But rising oil prices allowed Texas to ride out the crisis and benefit with another, smaller boom.

We will stop powering our world with oil one day…and it’s quite possible that the oil orgy of the last 100 years or so will leave our grandkids facing major environmental challenges we’ll never have to worry about. But if the age of oil has been a shortsighted one, it’s also unquestionably made much of the world a better place to live. In addition to material comforts, we’ve made strides in science, technology, and medicine that might have never occurred without our interconnected, oil-powered society. If we’ve left a heap of problems for future generations to untangle, we can hope that we’ve also left them with many of the tools they’ll need for the job.

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