Oil refining in Wyoming began in 1895. By the 1920s the state boasted 16 refineries, with Standard Oil’s plant at Casper by far the largest. Production tracked oil booms and busts throughout the 20th century, culminating in the 1991 shutdown of Casper’s Amoco (formerly Standard) Refinery. Six refineries remain in production today.
If wells are the hearts, pipelines are the arteries of the oil business. Since the first line was laid 45 miles from the Salt Creek Field to Casper refineries in 1911, the pipeline business has grown steadily in Wyoming, transporting our hydrocarbons to local and world markets.
Natrona County’s Salt Creek Field is best known of Wyoming’s early oil fields, but five others—two in Park County and one each in Hot Springs, Niobrara and Converse counties—played important roles in the state’s 20th century transformation from an agricultural to an industrial economy.
Prospectors first struck oil in the Salt Creek Oil Field in northern Natrona County, Wyo. late in the 1880s. The first gusher came in in 1908. The subsequent boom lasted until the late 1920s, peaking in 1923, when the field produced more than 35 million barrels of oil. Tom Wall, who went to work in the field in 1917, stayed for decades and in the 1970s wrote out his memories of life in the oil patch through boom and bust. After 125 years and thanks to new technologies, the Salt Creek Field continues to produce today.
Oil seeps were reported often in the early 19th century in what later became Wyoming; it was sold, for example to Oregon Trail travelers for wagon lubricant. The first producing well in Wyoming Territory was drilled in 1883 at Dallas Dome southeast Lander. Perhaps the state’s best-known historic oil producing region is the Salt Creek Field, north of Casper, which was one of the world’s largest-producing fields in the 1920s. Oil remains an important part of Wyoming’s economy and culture today, and the state is ranked high among the top national producers.
