States surpassing Russia as the world's leading producer. Anthony Francis Lucas is considered to be the founder of modern petroleum reservoir engineering. He later served as a consulting engineer in Romania, Russia, Mexico, Algeria, as well as in the United States. As a successful businessman and expert in mining, Lucas was the lifelong chairman of the American Committee for Oil and Gas. Inventions and applications A number of Lucas inventions and scientific or technical knowledge were used in early oil exploration and extraction, with most still being employed. Some are: overhead method of mining in salt mines surface exploration for underground mineral deposits application of steam-driven, hydraulic-rotary drilling rig and of mud in oil well drilling construction and application of back pressure valve construction of blowout preventers designing of well logs invention of the Christmas tree oil well Heritage Lucas died on September 2, 1921, in Washington, D.C. He was often mistakenly described as Austrian, sometimes even as a Trieste-born Italian. On his grave in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C., he is described as being of Illyric origin, which was the standard term for Croatian at the time. In 1936, the American Institute for Geological and Metallurgical Investigations founded the Anthony F. Lucas Gold Medal prize for development in the area of oil exploration. A museum with a granite obelisk was built to honor the explorer about which is inscribed: "On this spot on the tenth day of the twentieth century a new era in civilization began." A street and an elementary school in Beaumont, Texas, bear his name. Notes 1855 births 1921 deaths American petroleum geologists Texas Oil Boom people Wildcatters History of the petroleum industry in the United States Austro-Hungarian Navy officers Austro-Hungarian emigrants to the United States People from Beaumont, Texas Engineers from Trieste Burials at Rock Creek Cemetery 19th-century American geologists 20th-century American geologists