Anthony Francis Lucas (born Antun Lučić; September 9, 1855 – September 2, 1921) was a Croatian-born American oil explorer. With Pattillo Higgins he organized the drilling of an oil well near Beaumont, Texas, that became known as Spindletop. This led to the widespread exploitation of oil and the start of the petroleum age. Early life Christened Antonio Francesco Luchich, he was the son of Captain Francis Stephen Luchich, a prosperous Montenegrin shipbuilder and shipowner from the Croatian island of Lesina, and his wife Giovanna Giovanizio. According to Lucas himself, who was proud of his heritage, the Luchich family was pure Montenegrin by blood, descended from ancient Illyrian (Dalmatian) nobility, and he sometimes called himself in society events "Count Anthony [François Maria Vincent] Giovanizio de Bertuchevich Lucas". Born in the Austrian Empire city of Split, his family moved to Trieste, where his father served in the Austro-Hungarian navy. At the age of 20, Lucas completed studies at the Polytechnical Institute (Technische Hochschule) in Graz, Austria, and became an engineer. After graduating from the Austrian Naval Academy of Pula and Rijeka, Lucas was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1878. Move to the United States In 1879, Lucas visited his uncle in Saginaw, Michigan, and started work in a sawmill, improving the design of a gang saw then in use. In 1883, he started working in the Colorado, California and North Carolina gold, copper, silver and iron mining industries. He changed his name to Anthony Francis Lucas, receiving his naturalization papers on May 9, 1885, at Norfolk, Virginia. He married Caroline Weed Fitzgerald in 1887. They moved to Washington, D.C. in 1888, where Lucas worked as a mechanical and mining engineer, except for a two year break prospecting for gold in Colorado. Their son Anthony FitzGerald was born on 21 July 1889. Career In 1893, Lucas started to work as a salt mine superintendent for Myles and Company of New Orleans. The damaged mine was located at Petite Anse (Avery Island), and over the next three years, Lucas restored operations. Lucas drilled and explored for salt on Jefferson Island for Joseph Jefferson, and Belle Isle, where he discovered the relationship between salt deposits, sulfur, natural gas, and oil deposits. In Lucas' words, "This led me to study the accumulation of oil around salt masses, and I formed additional plans for prospecting other localities. Thus I began my investigations into the occurrence of oil