This is a brief, fascinating story about Louisiana’s first oil well that started Louisiana’s oil industry. In early 1901, Jules Clement, a farmer in Evangeline, LA (a small town between Lake Charles and Lafayette) noticed some bubbles coming up in his rice field. He then set a stove pipe over the bubbles, dropped a lit match, and watched it catch fire. Word of this news quickly reached the nearby town of Jennings. Five business men there formed a company and sent representatives to Spindletop, TX (one of Texas’s first oil fields) to find someone who has drilled a well to come check out these bubbles in the rice field. When the representatives get to Spindletop they meet Scott Heywood. He is a former musician from Ohio, who had previously drilled wells in California and chased the gold rush in Klondike, before coming to Texas to get in the newly discovered oil rush there. Heywood, who seems always up for a new challenge, gladly accepted the offer. Heywood travels to Evangeline and lights the bubbles himself, and confirms that it is indeed oily gas coming up in the rice field. He then signs a contract with the Jennings business men, to drill two wells to a depth of 1,000 ft in the hopes of finding oil. The land lease with the farmer, Clement, was reportedly only 1/32 an acre. This is roughly a 35 ft x 40 ft area. Clement then had second thoughts about the deal and padlocked his gate, as he was worried that his cows might step in the holes and break their legs. Heywood paid him a small fee in advance, which helped convince Clement to let him drill on his land. Some reports suggest this fee was $10 (a lot of money back then). When Heywood drilled to the contracted depth of 1,000 feet there was no oil. Not wanting to give up, Heywood revised his contract to only drill one well instead of two. In exchange, the Jennings business men allowed Heywood to drill this well deeper to 1,500 feet. When he got to 1,500 feet there was still no oil. Some of the investors sold their shares and walked away. The determined Heywood kept going anyway, and finally hit oil at about 1,700 feet. The well gushed oil for 7 hours before sanding up and becoming plugged. The oil covered Clement’s rice field. Crews bailed sand for 30 days trying to re-open the well. They briefly succeeded, but then it sanded up again, and they gave up on the well. The fate of the Jules Clement No. 1 well was sealed, but oil was discovered, and so was the Louisiana oil industry. Over the next 5 years, 100’s of wells were drilled in this little town of Evangeline. This became known as the Jennings Oil Field, and has produced over 100 million barrels of oil. And is still producing today. Go check it out next time you are passing through. It’s only minutes off of I-10 between Lake Charles and Lafayette. If you are heading to the future Starbase from Texas, it’s an easy hop off on the way there. There is a historic marker right off the road and you can still see many wells right in people’s yards.