Everette Lee DeGolyer
American geophysicist and philanthropist (1886–1956)
Everette Lee DeGolyer (October 9, 1886 – December 14, 1956), was a prominent oil company executive, petroleum exploration geophysicist and philanthropist in Dallas. He was known as "the founder of applied geophysics in the petroleum industry", and as "the father of American geophysics," and was a legendary collector of rare and often early edition books primarily in the fields of Southwestern history, railroads, law, geology, science and physics, and both English and American literature.
Early life
DeGolyer was born in a sod house on October 9, 1886, the son of John and Narcissa Kagy Huddle DeGolyer of Greensburg, Kansas. He was the eldest of three children. The family moved to Joplin, Missouri, where Everette attended school while his father worked in lead and zinc mining. In 1901 the family moved to Norman, Oklahoma, where Everette attended the University of Oklahoma preparatory school. He became a degree student at the University of Oklahoma beginning in the fall of 1905.
During the summers of 1906 through 1909, he worked for the United States Geological Survey (USGS) starting as a cook and working up to field assistant. A major responsibility of the USGS was making topographical maps and identifying the location of coal and lignite deposits in Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. While working for the USGS, he reported to Willard Hayes, a Ph.D. in geology, who was instrumental in hiring DeGolyer as a field geologist for Mexican Eagle Oil in 1909.
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This entry incorporates text from “Everette Lee DeGolyer” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.