The Oil Business in Wyoming The oil industry has been a part of
the Wyoming economy since the beginning days of statehood. As
far back as the early 19th century explorers in what is now
Wyoming reported evidence of oil. In 1832, when fur trader Capt.
B. L. E. Bonneville traveled to the Wind River Valley, he found
oil springs southeast of present Lander near Dallas Dome, where
the state’s first oil well would be drilled five decades later.
During the fur trade and Overland trails periods, travelers
commented on “oil springs” where oil bubbled to the surface of
water pools. For centuries, native people seined off the oil,
using the greasy residues for war paint, decoration on hides and
teepees, horse and human liniments and other medications. An oil
spring near Hilliard in present Uinta County was well known when
Fort Bridger was established nearby in 1842. The first recorded
oil sale in Wyoming occurred along the Oregon Trail when, in
1863, enterprising entrepreneurs sold oil as a lubricant to
wagon-train trav