THE EVENING TRIBUNE, San Diego, Aug. 27, 1901

• re. the discovery of oil in Beaumont, Texas
• Beginning of the Great Spindletop oil well era

The front page has a small one column heading: "A Wild Oil Gusher Is Alarming Texas". The great Spindletop oil gusher was discovered earlier in the same year. Surprisingly, this issue is in good condition being from the "wood pulp" era. Very hard to find issues that are not totally fragile from this era in paper.
Eight pages, small library stamps within the masthead, a few small binding holes along the spine, a little light staining, generally very nice.

Background: The front page of the August 27, 1901 issue of The Evening Tribune from San Diego features a modest, single-column headline reading "A Wild Oil Gusher Is Alarming Texas," which offers a fascinating contemporary window into the ongoing fallout of the legendary Spindletop oil boom. What makes this item particularly notable is its capture of early, real-time national anxiety surrounding the technological chaotic shift of the Texas oil field, months after the initial Lucas Gusher erupted on January 10, 1901—an event that launched the modern petroleum era and transformed the global economy. While modern retrospective accounts focus on the industrial triumphs of Spindletop, period coverage from distant markets like California reflects the terrifying realities of the boomtown era, including volatile blowouts, massive environmental hazards, and severe fire threats that constantly imperiled Beaumont. From a collector's and archival standpoint, surviving period newspapers covering the 1901 Spindletop phenomenon are uncommon and highly desirable, but front-page reports—even modest single-column accounts—from far-flung West Coast daily press carry distinct historical appeal due to how starkly they demonstrate the coast-to-coast news velocity and societal ripple effects of the nascent American oil age.