The Jerome T. Bishop papers contain information about oil and gas leases on properties in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming that were recommended to Skelly Oil Company’s Rocky Mountain Division for leasing. The oldest actual document is dated 1923. Documents listing dates prior to 1923 are copies of old surveys. Series I, Properties, is arranged by state, county, and then by specific property within each county. The files include acreage checks, lease submittals, applications, plats of lease blocks with lease and lessor information, unit agreements, and geologic reports and studies.

Series II contains Skelly Oil Company reports. Yearly operations reviews and exploration program reports describe seismic, gravity, magnetometer, surface, and photo-geologic work, as well as core drilling. Exploitation reports describe wildcat and field extension wells, and field drilling. There is also information on personnel and budgets. Seismic results reports describe reasons for shooting an area, results obtained, how the data would be useful in guiding future seismic work, and recommendations for holding or releasing company leases on or near seismic properties. The remedial and drilling work reports describe proposed “Work Over” and “Plug and Abandon” jobs to have been performed, by well and nature of work. There are also drilling obligation reports and annual reports of the geological and land departments summarizing the activities and expenditures of those departments.

The administrative and miscellany files in Series III contain a notebook of lease summary sheets detailing a property’s description, lease data, title information, etc., by lease number. This series also includes information on oil and gas filings in Wyoming and Colorado, various state and federal regulations, a small amount of general correspondence, meeting materials, and a transcript of a speech given by Lester C. Hunt to the U.S. Senate in 1950 on a bill to amend the Natural Gas Act. Series IV contains member directories of the Casper Petroleum Club, Wyoming Association of Petroleum Landmen, and Wyoming Geological Association, as well as a Rocky Mountain Sales and Service Directory, and Hank Seale Oil Directories of the Rocky Mountain and Central United States.

Series V contains files about the formation of the American Association of Petroleum Landmen, which Bishop helped organize. The final two series both contain maps that primarily document lease ownership. (The dates listed for some of these specific maps are federal, county, and state record take-off dates, not base map construction.) Series VI contains flat and/or folded maps, foldered by state. There is an interesting Wyoming map of Oil and Gas Fields with historical facts. It shows Air Mail plane routes, overland trails and cutoffs, stage stops and Pony Express roads, and military forts and camps. Series VII contains oversized maps. Box 33 contains flat and/or folded maps, foldered by state. The remaining boxes contain rolled maps, grouped by state.