With a nod to Energy Transfer’s triumph today, Reese Energy Consulting is reminded of the tenacity and perseverance that’s colored our oil and gas industry starting in 1859. Titusville, Pa. History shares its lessons with stories of early-day wildcatters hitting gushers while others go bust and belly up. Sometimes luck is on your side. Sometimes it’s not. Then sometimes you stick it out, go for broke, and maybe, just maybe, good fortune finds you.

Such is the story of Thomas “Dry Hole” Slick in 1912.

Known for his gift to win over the trust of landowners and lock down oil leases, the 21-year-old Tom Slick who also hailed from Pa., eventually found his way to Okla. With a newfound passion to find oil, Slick found a reputation instead for drilling dry holes—at least 10 of them in short order—earning him the moniker, “Dry Hole Slick”. Local media wasn’t kind, with one outlet reporting, “Few men have stuck to the wildcatting longer and harder than Slick… It is said he has spent $150,000 mostly on dry holes”. Undeterred, Slick continued his pursuits next snapping up oil leases near Cushing, Okla., from landowners who were happy to take his money given Slick’s reputation and wished him well in an area where oil discoveries were considered unlikely.

But Cushing is exactly where Slick struck pay dirt, producing 400 BPD in 1913 with the first oil well in the Cushing-Drumright field and ushering in an extraordinary wave of Okla., oil and gas production. Because of Tom Slick’s tenacity and perseverance, his nickname would later be replaced with Oklahoma’s King of the Wildcatters. His legacy leaves us lessons from which we can all still learn.