TABLE OF CONTENTS A Guide to the William Kennedy Papers, ca.
1889-1894, 1902 William Kennedy was a self-taught geologist who
worked in the early development of the Texas oil industry.
Kennedy was born in Scotland. He attended the University of
Edinburgh for some period of time but did not receive a degree.
While working in Nova Scotia as a banker he began a self-
education in geology and published his first academic paper in
1884. A few years later he abandoned finance to pursue geology
as his life’s work. He worked with the Arkansas Geological
Survey before transferring to the Texas Geological Survey in
1890. Kennedy was reassigned from work with the Southern Pacific
Railroad in Houston to watch the development of the Spindletop
oil field in 1901 due to his expertise in Gulf Coast salt domes.
Thereafter, his work and study was devoted to primarily to
problems of petroleum geology. In 1915 he began private
consulting work in Fort Worth and Houston. In 1917 accepted the
position of chief geologist of the Lone S