Numerous oil companies were formed in the months after the Spindletop oil discovery of early 1901. One of these was the Lucky Dime Oil Company.  This stock certificate, signed July 10, 1901, is for 200 shares at 10 cents/share.  By September 28, 1901, the stock was being advertised at 25 cents per share (New York Dramatic Mirror).

The newspaper advertisement header is from May 27, 1901 edition of The Daily Ardmoreite, Indian Territory (Oklahoma).  The advertisement included the map showing the company’s acreage in the Beaumont area.  The stippled “oil strata” running northwest to southeast is from “Professor” or Major John W. Otley’s interpretation of an extensive oil trend that he apparently identified and reported on several years before the Spindletop discovery.  This same map had been used by the Gladys Oil Company in an advertisement ~two weeks earlier.  A February 3, 1904 Houston Post article even mentions Otley as “the discoverer of the Spindle Top, Sour Lake, and Saratoga oil fields.”

From my quick perusal of material on Otley, it appears that he was an interesting individual/promoter and I plan on learning more about him.

An extensive “list of domestic corporations whose rights to do business were forfeited July 2, 1906” included the Lucky Dime Oil Co., Galveston.