The Railroad Commission, through its Oil and Gas Division, regulates the exploration, production, and transportation of oil and natural gas in Texas. This series contains correspondence and reports of the Oil and Gas Division, covering the years 1890-1943, bulk 1919-1938. A small amount of materials from the Motor Transportation Division and the Gas Utilities Division of the Railroad Commission is present as well as correspondence and photos re: railroads. Incoming letters are from a variety of sources including the general public, oil and gas companies, pipeline carriers, other private businesses, as well as internal correspondence from the Division's Conservation Agents in the field. Outgoing letters from the Division headquarters in Austin are generally brief acknowledgments on the arrival of forms and responses to requests for information. Telegrams, maps, contracts, photos, and reports on standardized forms are also present. Reports and correspondence from the Division's field conservation agents date from 1919 when the Oil and Gas Division was formed and record the first attempts at on-site supervision. The field conservation agents were responsible for inspecting wells, preventing fires, stopping waste, and otherwise enforcing the State's conservation laws. Agents filed "Daily reports" for each of the wells they visited. These listed place, date, operator, address, well number, miles from the nearest town, miles traveled that day, and remarks about wells. Such remarks could include the depth of the well and any problems such as salt water in the well and whether or not it was dry. There is also routine internal correspondence between the field agents and the Division headquarters in Austin dealing with requests for forms, stamps, repairs of old cars, purchase of new cars, invoices of supplies, inventory of office equipment, and newspaper subscriptions. Other correspondence of a more personal nature for the agents included living expenses in boom towns, their salary, and the hiring and firing of the agents. These files give great insight into the everyday work, the working conditions, the policy making, and the environment around the field agent. Much of the personality of each agent is revealed as they struggle to enforce the conservation laws in the early oil fields. Such boom towns as Desdemona, Burkburnett, and Ranger were the initial assignments for the agents. Later, new fields in the Panhandle and East Texas required more agents. The bulk of the agent correspondence runs from 1919 to 1933. Letters from oil and gas companies and pipeline carriers are either routine requests for information and forms from the Railroad Commission or cover letters sending the completed forms back to the Commission. Reports that the Commission required on each well included notifications of intention to drill, deepen, plug, or shoot a well; statements of condition before and after; the drilling record on each well; certificate showing compliance with conservation laws and rules; and application for pipeline severance or connection. Rarely, however, are the actual forms found in these records. Only the correspondence is present in the Archives and not the actual reports. Much of this series is routine requests from the general public for brochures, forms, and general information from the Division on its procedures and the conservation laws it was empowered to regulate. The public concern over the implementation of the new conservation laws generated much of this correspondence. The Division's primary legislative mandate was for the conservation of natural resources and the prevention of waste. Public requests for contract analysis, dispute settlement of oil and gas leases, or lengthy research projects were considered to be outside its responsibility. Consequently, much of the outgoing correspondence to the public is either replies to the routine requests for information or refusals on subjects beyond the Division's parameters. Other public correspondence includes files on job seekers who submitted references and letters of recommendation in addition to the application form. An inventory of the records was conducted to provide a brief description of the contents of each box including the dates and types of materials and a notation of any filing arrangement that may be present. This finding aid describes one series of the Railroad Commission of Texas records. See Railroad Commission of Texas: An Overview of Records (http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/tslac/20078/tsl-20078.html) for more records series.
