Gilbert “Gib” Morgan was an oil well driller who attained mythical status in American folklore. Stories about Morgan include how he built a vast hotel marvelously adapted to the southwestern climate, how he brought in a difficult well using a needle and thread for a cable and drill stem and how he had to shoot a bouncing tool dresser to keep him from starving to death.
The real Gib Morgan was born in 1842 and grew up in the frontier of Western Pennsylvania. He fought in the Union Army and with the end of the Civil War returned home to an oil boom in Pennsylvania. He married and had three children. After the death of his wife, Morgan became a roving driller, spreading tall tales about himself across the northern oil industry for two decades before retiring in the 1890s. Morgan died February 19, 1909.
Source: Boatright, Mody Coggin. 2000. Gib Morgan, minstrel of the oil fields. Denton, TX: University of North Texas Press.
From the guide to the Gilbert “Gib” Morgan Papers 68-179., 1887-1909, 1944, (Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin)
