The Boom: Oil, Popular Culture, and Politics in Alberta, 1912-1924

The story of the first Turner Valley boom and the charlatans, frauds, and evangelists who made and lost fortunes in the early days of Alberta oil.

When the Calgary Petroleum Product Dingman No. 1 Well began operation in Turner Valley on May 14, 1914, it unleashed a spectacular frenzy of greed and excess. In a fever of free-market capitalism over 500 oil companies were created, selling fortunes on paper to eager investors. But fewer than fifty ever drilled for oil, and the Alberta oil industry suddenly began to look like one big swindle.

The public, and investors, demanded answers. Enter George Edward Buck, a charismatic revival preacher and self-proclaimed oil tycoon who made himself and his company the centre of every conversation while he salted his wells and misled investors. Far from the only person to profit from the sensational publicity of the Turner Valley Boom, Buck became the public face of all unscrupulous businessmen and an international scapegoat to preserve the integrity of Alberta oil.

The Boom is a history of the Turner Valley era that rescues the miscreants and charlatans from obscurity. Industry historian Paul Chastko returns the larger-than-life promoters, wildcatters and oil evangelists to the story. He shows the ways that Albertans, determined to overcome the obstacles of economics, geography, geology, and the market, made a conscious choice to pursue petroleum development and created an oil culture that continues to this day.

Paul Chastko is an associate professor of History at the University of Calgary. He is a recognized expert in the history of the North American petroleum industry, with a focus on political, social, economic, and environmental challenges. Paul is the author of Developing Alberta’s Oil Sands: From Karl Clark to Kyoto.

Introduction: The Wildest Boom That Ever Hit the West
Chapter 1: Scientific Oil Finding: Turner Valley’s Anticline
Chapter 2: The Formation of These Companies . . . Should be Stopped: Speculation and the Newspaper Feud
Chapter 3: The Difference Between Poverty and Riches is Action!: Dreams and Reality of an Independent Oil Boom
Chapter 4: I’m Going to Go Through With It, Even if it Leads to Jail: George E. Buck of Black Diamond Oils
Chapter 5: A City So Blessed it Cannot be Checked: Oil . . . Sort Of
Chapter 6: Reign of the Charlatans
Chapter 7: Boycotts, Consumer Protections, and Private Detectives: Responses to the Boom from Voluntary Associations to the Pinkertons
Chapter 8: Reforming Self-Regulation: Taming the Brokers and the Calgary Stock Exchange
Chapter 9: Public Interest vs. Private Rights: Judge Alexander A. Carpenter’s Commission and the Big Boom’s Hangover
Chapter 10: I Am Not Going Back to Canada: The Law Comes for Buck
Chapter 11: A Matter of Public Concern: The Lees Commission and Monarch Oil
Chapter 12: The Most Important that has Ever Been Tried in the Province: The Trial of George Buck
Chapter 13: . . . It is to be Regretted that Such a Scoundrel Should Escape Punishment: Buck’s Appeals
Chapter 14: Conclusion: Buck and the Boom
Bibliography
Endnotes