Oil Baron of the Southwest

Martin R. Ansell provides the first comprehensive analysis of the business career of oilman Edward Laurence Doheny, one of the most successful and colorful entrepreneurs of the early twentieth century. Doheny's story begins in the mining camps of the Old West during the 1870s. Ansell shows how Doheny's rough beginning contributed to his later success and demonstrates that the fabled "Doheny luck" was actually a combination of practical knowledge, visionary ideas, and executive skill. Doheny was famous as the best oilman of his generation. In 1893 he became the first person to successfully drill for oil in Los Angeles, and he led the development of Southern California's major oil fields. He went to Mexico in 1900 and carved out an empire that over the next twenty years produced more oil than any other company in the world. Doheny aggressively promoted his fuel oil to major industries-especially the railroad and shipping industries. Eventually, his political ambitions led to his downfall in the wake of the Teapot Dome scandal. Because Doheny's personal papers were destroyed after his death in 1935, there has been no previous systematic attempt to reconstruct his life. As a reappraisal of Doheny's experience, this book adds significant new information about the early years of the oil industry and should interest scholars of business history, the history of the American West, and the history of California and Mexico. Martin R. Ansell has a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin and teaches history at Brookhaven College in Dallas, Texas.