Anthony (Luchich) Lucas

Anthony Lucas was born on the Island of Hvar in Dalmatia and graduated from the mining and engineering school in Gratz, Austria, before being commissioned in the Austrian Navy. After visiting an uncle who had emigrated to Michigan, Lucas decided to leave the Navy, stay in America, and become a citizen. He changed his name from Luchichs to Lucas and married Caroline Fitzgerald, the daughter of a prominent doctor in Macon, Georgia. He began searching the Gulf Coast for sulphur deposits. A healthy industry was developing in the early 1890s after Dr. Herman Frasch developed a process for extracting sulphur by drilling as one would for oil and by introducing steam into the deposits to melt the sulphur and force it to the surface with air pressure. When it became commercially feasible to mine, many people, including Lucas, began the search for deposits. He explored the salt dome structures in the South, and by the time he arrived in Beaumont, Lucas probably knew more about salt domes and sulphur deposits than any other engineer in the world.

Pattillo Higgins was the person who attracted Lucas to Beaumont. Higgins never lost faith in the potential of the Big Hill area. He continued to look for someone to drill on it, even after he severed his connection with the Gladys City Company, and the story is often told that he advertised in a professional journal for a driller. That advertisement has never surfaced, and in the new book Pattillo Higgins and the Search for Texas Oil by Robert McDaniel and Henry Dethloff, the authors infer that Lucas may have arrived here another way. However, he came to see Pattillo Higgins and the salt dome about which Higgins was so enthusiastic. The Spindletop mound intrigued Lucas. He was searching primarily for sulphur, but he also acknowledged that oil might very likely be found. He recognized that the Spindletop mound was a piercement-type salt dome similar to those on the Louisiana coastal region. At that stage, the dome theory was a new one to Higgins, but as McDaniel and Dethloff state, the important thing was that Lucas was both interested and willing to prospect on the mound. Most significantly, Lucas had the financing to support his own drilling operation.

Lucas and Higgins got a lease-purchase agreement fromt he Gladys City Company for a 663 acre tract on top of the hill. In a separate agreement, Lucas retained a 90% interest for funding the search, and Higgins was given a 10% interest. When their first attempts were unsuccessful and their money was gone, Lucas carried the search for funding to John Galey and James Guffey from Pittsburgh. Galey and Guffey took Lucas to the Mellon banking house, and an agreement was worked out for financing. Higgins was totally excluded from this agreement, which led to the discovery of the Spindletop gusher. Higgins later sued and a settlement was reached with him that left him comfortably well off. Lucas was present for the real beginning of the Texas oil industry, but he stayed in the Spindletop field for only a few months. He left in September 1901 to wildcat in other fields. For more information, see the McDaniel and Dethloff book.