The Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum is located in Beaumont, Texas, to commemorate the discovery of oil at the Spindletop Hill salt dome in Beaumont on Jan. 10, 1901. The discovery sparked an oil boom in Texas that continues today. Along with a gift shop with commemorative gifts, the museum features historical, period reenactments by area performers. A replica of the wooden oil derricks that once dotted the landscape of Spindletop Hill in the early 1900s has been erected near the museum. For special occasions and anniversaries, the museum staff “blows the gusher” with a plume of water and provides a historical narrative and sound effects to simulate the discovery of oil at Spindletop. The museum is on the campus of Lamar University, which owns and operates the museum. Spindletop oil boom The name “Spindletop” dates from before the Civil War when a slight rise of the ground just south of Beaumont, Texas, became known as Spindletop Hill. One theory about the origin of its name is that the heat waves, rising from the surrounding prairie, gave a grove of trees on the hill the appearance of a spinning top. Many ghost stories were associated with Spindletop Hill. St. Elmo's fire, actually static electricity, was often seen dancing there in the moonlight. The Spindletop salt dome was derived from the Louann Salt evaporite layer of Jurassic age. In 1889, Pattillo Higgins, a young Beaumont man, became interested in the possibility that Spindletop Hill covered a vast pool of oil. Higgins was a self-taught geologist and from his extensive studies and observation of surface indications, he concluded that an abundance of cheap fuel was available at Spindletop. Capt. George Washington O’Brien had known of the possibility of producing oil from Spindletop Hill as early as 1865 and had acquired more than 1,000 acres of the John Allen Veatch survey in 1888. Higgins interested his friend George W. Carroll in purchasing the other major portion of the Veatch survey. In 1892, the men decided to pool their interests and formed the Gladys City Oil, Gas and Manufacturing Company. It was one of the earliest oil companies incorporated in Texas. Their plan was to find oil and use it to develop a model industrial city called Gladys City. Higgins named the town and the company for his Sunday school pupil, Gladys Bingham. The Gladys City Company was the first oil company to drill on