Robert G. Taylor papers, 1913-1930

Robert G. Taylor (b. 1883) was a civil engineer and oil industry executive. He was born in Denver, Colorado, and came to the University of Wyoming to earn his degree in civil engineering in 1900. He became president of the Glenrock Oil Company, which was incorporated in Virginia in 1917. It was organized with the merger of Glenrock, Hall, Superior, Pilot Butte, Norbeck and Nicholoson with a capitalized value of $10,000,000. The company owned or controlled large acreages of oil producing properties in the Big Muddy, Elk Basin and Pilot Butte Fields in Wyoming. In September 1917, Glenrock Oil Company brought in the largest well to date in the Big Muddy Field. Drilling was done by the Ohio Oil Company, which had a contract for drilling the oil properties in that field. By 1918, the company was marketing 1,400 barrels a day from the Pilot Butte Field alone. Taylor was also associated with Denver-based Plateau Oil Corporation established by former Oklahoma governor Frank Frantz in 1921. The Plateau Oil Corporation had big acreage in Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, and Kansas. During the 1920s, Taylor and his associates were involved in a dispute with Harry Sinclair’s Mammoth Oil Company over oil leases in the Teapot Dome naval oil reserve in central Wyoming.