International Petroleum Exposition

The International Petroleum Exposition was founded at Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1923 providing a display to the world of the latest in equipment, operational ideas and practices used in the petroleum and related industries.

When the first exposition was held it was a street bazaar type of show with equipment displays valued at $100,000. By the time of the sixteenth exhibition in 1971 it had grown to include more than five hundred of the world's leading manufacturers, services and supply companies. The exhibits were valued at more than one billion dollars.

The International Petroleum Exposition introduced many innovations in equipment such as the steel derrick and fostered foreign trade by promoting exports of oil equipment, thus influencing other countries in developing their own petroleum resources.

L. B. Jackson, an independent oilman, was the first president of the Exposition. The second was W. G. Skelly, founder of Skelly Oil Company, who presided over the International Petroleum Exposition for thirty-two years. W. K. Warren, founder of Warren Petroleum Corporation, served as president for ten years.

Others who have served as president of the Exposition are R. L. Kidd, one-time chairman of Cities Service Oil Company, and Randolph Yost, president of Amoco Production Company.