Weekend With Shades - Saturday - July 11

THE YEAR WAS
BY SHERI FENLEY
A Monthly - Weekend With Shades - Column






"Black Gold, Texas Tea" - On January 10, 1901 oil is discovered at Spindletop near Beaumont, Texas marking the birth of the modern petroleum industry. Once refined into cheap fuel, it revolutionized transportation and changed America forever. All of the following took place in the same year:

-- The Automobile Club of America installed signs on major highways on January 10th
-- Cadillac Motor Company founded
-- New York becomes the first U.S. state to require automobile license plates.
-- The Indian Motorcycle Manufacturing Co. of Springfield, Mass., produced the first commercially marketed gasoline-powered bike in the US.