The enormous wastage of a world's war, resulting in a cry for more production, a new level of high prices for crude, rumors of an alarming shortage of supply, the success of independent producers, large and small--all these, and other reasons, too, caused many people hitherto uninterested to turn their serious attention to petroleum.

The country was prosperous, banks were bulging with money, pockets were stuffed with profits; poor men had the means with which to gamble and rich men were looking for quicker gains.
Inasmuch as the world had lived for four years upon a steady diet of excitement, it was indeed the psychological moment for a spectacular boom.
The strike at Ranger lit the fuse, the explosion came with the first gush of inflammable liquid from the Fowler farm at Burkburnett.

Then, indeed, a conflagration occurred, the comprehensive story of which can never be written, owing to the fact that no human mind could follow the swift events of the next few tumultuous months, no brain could record it.

Chaos came.

Life in the oil fields became a phantasmagoria of ceaseless action and excitement--a fantastic stereopticon that changed hourly.
"Burk" was a sleepy little town, dozing amid parched wheat fields.