TEXT OF STORY

MARK AUSTIN THOMAS: This is a good time to open up the Marketplace vault and take a look at this week in the History of Business. And we find the first taste of Texas Tea.

[ Music: “Come and listen to a story ’bout a man named Jed . . .” ]

STACEY VANEK-SMITH:This week back in 1901, a prospector struck oil near the city of Beaumont, Texas.

The gusher produced about 100,000 barrels a day. It was the first major oil discovery in the U.S.

Beaumont became a black-gold boomtown as people flooded in, hoping to strike it rich.

[ Music: “Well the first thing you know, old Jed’s a millionaire . . .” ]

Oil soon became the main fuel source for new inventions like cars and cargo ships and crude became the world’s first trillion-dollar industry.

By 1902, hundreds of oil companies had set up shop near Beaumont, including the likes of Exxon and Texaco.

In Los Angeles. . .

[ Music: “swimming pools, movie stars . . . ” ]

I’m Stacey Vanek-Smith.