1957-69: The Early Years
Authors: Donnelly John 
Published: February 2015

Before there was SPE, there was AIME. The Society of Petroleum Engineers had its origins in the American Institute of Mining Engineers, an organization created by a small band of Pennsylvania miners in 1871 to help promote and develop their trade. Petroleum was not part of the institute's original charter, but after the historic Spindletop oil gusher blew in at Beaumont, Texas, in January 1901, oil gained new significance. SPE's history then followed the trajectory of the oil and gas industry—it began as a small AIME committee in the industry's infancy, grew in stature as the science and technique of applying engineering principles to oil production took root, and blossomed after World War II when it became apparent that the world was going to run on oil.

Captain Anthony Lucas, an Austrian native and the engineer behind the Spindletop discovery that ushered in the modern oil industry, was one of SPE's founders. Lucas was not your average saloon-and-boom-town wildcatter, but a pioneer petroleum engineer who studied and understood geology. Shortly after the Spindletop gusher, Lucas delivered a paper on the technical details of the discovery at an AIME gathering. He had used a relatively new technology, rotary drilling, to make his famous discovery. Three years later, Lucas would exemplify his understanding of the need for appropriate production methods and conservation, commenting that Spindletop's rapid decline came from being "punched too full of holes." He added: "The cow was milked too hard, and, moreover, she was not milked intelligently."

By 1913, oil had achieved enough prominence to deserve its own small committee in AIME, and Lucas became its first chairman. Petroleum engineering as a profession was growing, and some universities began teaching petroleum engineering courses. By 1922, the 11-member committee had evolved into the Petroleum Division of AIME, one of the institute's 10 professional divisions.

Other historic oilmen besides Lucas were instrumental in forming what eventually would become SPE, including Everette L. DeGolyer, often called the father of applied geophysics. In fact, pioneer petroleum geologist Wallace Pratt called DeGolyer—a founder of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)—the "true father" of the Petroleum Branch, which succeeded the Petroleum Division and eventually would become SPE.

"I think it is valid to declare that, but for De (DeGolyer), the Petroleum Branch would not have come into being when it did," Pratt wrote SPE Executive Secretary Joe B. Alford in 1957. "At the time the Petroleum Branch first began to take form, there was considerable opposition to it, among both geologists and engineers. Resentment and jealousy were rife. De lent his support and influence to the project of a Petroleum Division. Numbers of his friends opposed the new division. For one thing, they were hostile to AIME, and, for another, they planned to bring the petroleum engineers into AAPG. DeGolyer, with great energy and industry and no little courage, persisted in his efforts and finally put into execution the plans he himself had worked out for the new society."