DeGolyer Library: Photographs, Manuscripts, and Imprints

Chihuahua Oil Lands.,
ca. 1910-1929

R. M. B. (Richmond, Va.) to
Elizabeth H. Mosby, 1837

Rancho Encinal, [page 41], 1939

[Edwin B. Hopkins], ca. 1910

[Gold Star Mothers and Widows
Pilgrimage Badges with Cords],
ca. 1930

[Potrero del Llano], 1910

Holding library: DeGolyer Library

View more collections held by DeGolyer Library

Overview

DeGolyer Library: Photographs, Manuscripts, and Imprints provides a sample of the photographs, images, albums, and more held by SMU's DeGolyer Library. Please note that many other DeGolyer Library digital collections exist that fall into thematic or geographical categories.

Collection Materials

SMU’s DeGolyer Library holds 110,000 rare books, over 2,500 separate manuscript collections, more than 1 million photographs, approximately 3,000 early maps, over 2,000 periodical and newspaper titles, and a sizable collection of printed ephemera. The great strengths of the DeGolyer Library include early travel and exploration accounts, especially those related to the European discovery and exploration of the New World. The Texas, Mexican, and Western Americana materials are among the finest in the country. Geology and the history of the oil business are also well represented in the book and manuscript collections. The DeGolyer Library digital collection contains items from many accessions and collections held by the DeGolyer Library.

Everette Lee DeGolyer, Sr. papers

Everette Lee DeGolyer, Sr., a major figure in the twentieth-century oil business, was known for his pioneering work in petroleum geology and geophysics. Throughout his career, DeGolyer founded several major corporations including the Amerada Petroleum Corporation, the Geophysical Research Corporation and DeGolyer and MacNaughton. Mr. DeGolyer was also an extraordinary book collector and philanthropist. During his lifetime, he gave his collection of American and English literature to the University of Texas and his history of science collection to the University of Oklahoma. After Mr. DeGolyer's death in 1956, the family library was maintained by the newly-incorporated DeGolyer Foundation and was aggressively expanded by the son of the founder, Everett L. DeGolyer, Jr. In 1974 the DeGolyer Foundation gave the library to SMU, where it is now housed in the original Fondren Library building.

Even in its early days the DeGolyer Library played a significant role on the cultural scene in Dallas. It was housed in its own splendid library room at “Rancho Encinal,” the DeGolyer estate overlooking White Rock Lake. The City of Dallas purchased the DeGolyer estate in 1982 and opened an arboretum and botanical garden in 1984.

This digital collection contains a growing number of documents and photographs from Everette Lee DeGolyer, Sr. (1886-1956) Papers. A finding aid to the collection is also available in TARO.

Everette Lee DeGolyer, Sr. papers on Mexico Oil

The Everette Lee DeGolyer, Sr. papers available online provide a rich sample of the photographs, maps, albums, and more, relating to Mexican oil. For example, dozens of maps of Mexican oil fields and related documents on oil exploration and development in Mexico in the early 20th century are now online. Many of these maps represent oil fields from each of the three most important areas of exploration in Mexico at that time: the Ebano-Panuco area in Veracruz, the "Golden Lane" in Veracruz, and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Together these geologic and topographic maps shed light on the work being conducted in Mexico by noted oil exploration companies, like the Mexican Eagle Oil Company, for whom Mr. DeGolyer worked from 1909-1919. You may also view hundreds of additional items on petroleum development in Mexico in the DeGolyer Library's Mexico: Photographs, Manuscripts, and Imprints digital collection.

Below is a non-inclusive list of examples of the Everette Lee DeGolyer, Sr. papers relating to Mexican oil exploration and development in the early 1900s.

• Chihuahua Oil Lands (ca. 1910-1929)
• Theoretical Section Through Alazan Nos 2 & 3, Potrero del Llano No 31 & 5 and Tumbadero No 4 (1912)
• Section Tanhuijo Wells (ca. 1910-1913)
• Reconnaissance Geologic and Topographic Map of Hacienda Llano Grande (1910)
• Reconnaissance Geologic and Topographic Map of Hacienda Tierra Amarilla (1910)
• Potrero Oil Field Well Location Sheet (1910)
• General Plan of the Tampico Region, Mexico (1913)
• The Oil Fields of Mexico with particular reference to the fields of The Tampico-Tuxpam Region (1916).
• Facts Relative to the Existence of Oil in Mexico (1910)
• Pearson contra Pierce en la "Guerra Petrolifera Mexicana." (ca. 1910)
• La Cuestion Petrolera ante la Camara de Diputados (1914)
• Test for Oil in Rocks (1915), The Geology of Cape Colony, Excerpt] (1909)
• The History of Mining in Mexico and Its Economic Development (1916).
• Federal Leasing of Oil Lands (1913)
• The Derivation of Oil-Well Logs (1913)
• Bitumen and Oil Rocks (1904)
• Geological Notes on West Coast of Mexico (1910)
• [Noticia historica de la Riqueza minera de Mexico y de su actual Estado de Explotacion] (1884).

Holdings and Highlights

Listed here are some of the accessions held by the DeGolyer Library that are represented in this digital collection:

• An Epitome of Phrenology and Temperamental Physiology...,1861
• Blackie Sherrod Papers
• Calvin Clyde, Jr. collection of Postcards
• Collection of photographs of people reading or with books
• Eighteen Years Behind the Bars: An Outline Sketch of the Prison Life of the once Famous Outlaw, C.D. Hildebrand, 1840
• Everette Lee DeGolyer, Sr. Papers
• Horn Family Papers: a collection of the family papers of Thomas Lora Horn, his wife Blanche, and their two sons in St. Louis, Missouri. Their son Leslie, a second lieutenant in the 110th infantry, 28th division, lost his life on October 1, 1918 at the Battle of Argonne during World War I. This collection includes materials regarding Leslie's death and Blanche's visit to his grave at Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in 1930 as part of the Gold Star Mothers and Widows Pilgrimage funded by the U.S. Government.
• Kelley Oliphint Collection of Mosby Family Letters, containing 113 letters, documents, and recipes. The majority of the letters were written by or to Elizabeth Hull Mosby, primarily during the Civil War.
• Presidential Campaign Posters, ca. 1920s-1990s.
• Roxana and Roxoleum, 1918-1920, company magazines for the Roxoleum company