[Temporary notes: This article to cover both Oil Spring site and Donald H. Kupfer (and maybe Four Mile Creek. When article moved to mainspace:

• create redirect from Donald H. Kupfer to Oil Spring#Donald H. Kupfer
  • and attach Category:Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and perhaps other categories there
• Add wikilink to Oil Spring#Four Mile Creek? Is it "Four Mile Creek" in usage (maybe not "Fourmile" at all?) to the Four Mile Creek disambig page, which has " Fourmile Canyon (Fremont County, Colorado) and the associated Fourmile Creek", and maybe add "about 6 miles north of Canon city". It was formerly Oil Creek

Oil Spring is a historic site near Cañon City, Colorado. It is alternatively known as Oil Spring Claim on Four Mile Creek. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. ^[1]

A 160 acres (0.65 km²) property including Oil Spring was claimed by Gabriel Bowen on September 3, 1860. He intended to exploit the oil; this was forming Colorado's first oil company. This was only one year after the first commercial oil well in the United States, the Drake Well in Pennsylvania, was drilled. ^[2]

The NRHP-listed property is just a 2.6 acres (1.1 ha) portion of Bowen's original 160 acre claim. ^[1]

1862 date that NRIS generator puts into "built=" field maybe is date of oil well drilling, and/or establishment of oil company. 1862 is some date of significance, anyhow.

There were one or multiple oil seeps? Oil seeping into "Oil Creek"?

Other names: 5FN118;Oil Spring Claim on Four Mile Creek Historic function: Industry/processing/extraction Historic subfunction: Extractive Facility Criteria: event Number of acres: 2.6 Number of contributing sites: 1

NRHP doc not available easily online, presumably relating to site being address restricted. But a redacted version? ^[3]

NARA has some info about contacting to get access? Tried that, they just said "no".

Colorado Encyclopedia entry: ^[4]

Colorado Encyclopedia cites a "Rocktalk" from 2004, "Colorado Geological Survey, “Birth of an Industry—Florence and Boulder Oil Fields,” ROCKTALK 7, no. 2 (April 2004)" from Colorado Geological Survey, giving a bad url including "2013" ( gives "404" error). Looking at Rocktalk archives, there is no 2004, nor is it in the 2013 item, i am not finding it. :( Putting in a request webpage form now, will try to save a copy. -- Doncram ( talk) 19:41, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

The main published account seems to be Kupfer (2000), which appears to be the final published work after earlier partial works. Kupfer's work seems meticulous, while other authors got at least some stuff wrong, e.g. Higley & Cox did. Kupfer's research led to the listing of Oil Spring on the National Register of Historic Places.

Kupfer noted that there were spurious, competitive claims about first discovery. ^[5]

Donald H. Kupfer (Oct. 4, 1918 -Nov. 20, 2010), died in Powell, Wyoming at age 92. He was a geology professor at Louisiana State University for 25 years. He was recipient of various honors for his accomplishments: among other honors he was a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science American Association for the Advancement of Science, the 1974 recipient of the Leverson Award of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and the 1997 Outstanding Educator Award of the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies. He was married to another geologist, Romaine (Littlefield) Kupfer, and, after his retirement in 1980, they moved together to Canon Springs in 1983. He was instrumental in seeing to the recognition of the Oil Spring site in the National Register of Historic Places (in 2002?). Kupfer died in 2010 and this is covered in his obituary. ^[6]

The Colorado Encyclopedia article cites "Debra K. Higley, “The History of Oil and Gas Development in the Denver Basin,” presentation at History of Petroleum Geology Forum, Denver, Colorado, May 31, 2015." with link to https://www.searchanddiscovery.com/pdfz/documents/2015/70187higley/ndx_higley.pdf.html The presentation includes first 2 pages of a published article: ???

Maybe that is substantially the same, though, as the available PDF for: Chapter 2 Oil and Gas Exploration and Development along the Front Range in the Denver Basin of Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming By Debra K. Higley and Dave O. Cox (Chapter 2 of Petroleum Systems and Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas in the Denver Basin Province, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wyoming—USGS Province 39 Compiled by Debra K. Higley U.S. Geological Survey Digital Data Series DDS–69–P )

^[7]

Higley & Cox seem to get the location wrong, however. They state:

The year 1862 marked the birth of oil discoveries in the Denver Basin, when oil was found in a water well that was drilled near the town of Wetmore in south-central Fremont County, south of the present-day Florence field (fig. 16) (Carpenter, 1961). The Oil Spring discovery well encountered oil at a reported depth that ranged from 1,160 to 1,448 ft (354 to 441 m); the purpose was to find water for coal-mine holdings in the area, but what resulted was “a good show of oil” (Kupfer, 1999a). However, only a few barrels of oil were produced from the well. Efforts were made to deepen the well, but the 1881 shut-in date was due to broken machinery, a lost tool, and litigation (Kupfer, 1999a).

In fact the Oil Spring was/is north of Canon City, which is well north of Wetmore, Colorado. They go on with interesting history, all cited to Kupfer 1999a and Kupfer 1999b, which are:

• Kupfer, D.H., 1999a, Colorado’s early oil happenings; Florence oil field: The Outcrop newsletter, Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists, v. 48, no. 6, June 1999, p. 7, 9.
• Kupfer, D.H., 1999b, Colorado’s early oil happenings; Alexander Morrison Cassiday (1827–1887), part II: The Outcrop newsletter, Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists, v. 48, no. 9, September 1999, p. 6, 20, 21.

Online archive of past Outcrop issues, here, go back only to 2012. Perhaps/probably those are subsumed by Kupfer's 2000 publication in Oil Industry?

Canon City Public Library: 516 Macon Ave Cañon City, CO 81212 Phone: 719-269-9020 FAX: 719-269-9031 E-Mail: sllasha@canoncity.org

It's not easy to find its location without some more info. Maybe there are no oil seeps, or any sign, nothing like that anywhere around, that is what a local bicyclist said. Maybe it's on private land, closed off? I looked along (Fremont County?) Route 9, along Four Mile Creek (but actually i was looking for scenery of the Youtube video, not aware that is about a different place in California). Hmm, Google Streetview covers rt 9, but doesn't seem to match the scenery in video, duh.

Notes?

References?

External links

• [https:// Oil seeps, video at Youtube, showing oil seeps, including entering into a creek in or near McKittrick, California, perhaps similar to how Oil Spring once appeared. McKittrick location given as response to a question below.

Category:Oil wells in the United States Category:National Register of Historic Places in Fremont County, Colorado Category:Buildings and structures completed in 1862

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