<P> This period had a transformative effect on Texas . At the turn of the century, the state was predominantly rural with no large cities . By the end of World War II, the state was heavily industrialized, and the populations of Texas cities had broken into the top 20 nationally . The city of Houston was among the greatest beneficiaries of the boom, and the Houston area became home to the largest concentration of refineries and petrochemical plants in the world . The city grew from a small commercial center in 1900 to one of the largest cities in the United States during the decades following the era . This period, however, changed all of Texas' commercial centers (and developed the Beaumont / Port Arthur area, where the boom began). </P> <P> H. Roy Cullen, H.L. Hunt, Sid W. Richardson, and Clint Murchison were the four most influential businessmen during this era . These men became among the wealthiest and most politically powerful in the state and the nation . </P> <P> Several events in the 19th century have been regarded as a beginning of oil - related growth in Texas, one of the earliest being the opening of the Corsicana oil field in 1894 . Nevertheless, most historians consider the Spindletop strike of 1901, at the time the world's most productive petroleum well ever found, to be the beginning point . This single discovery began a rapid pattern of change in Texas and brought worldwide attention to the state . </P> <P> By the 1940s, the Texas Railroad Commission, which had been given regulatory control of the Texas oil industry, managed to stabilize American oil production and eliminate most of the wild price swings that were common during the earlier years of the boom . Many small towns, such as Wortham, which had become boomtowns during the 1920s saw their booms end in the late 1920s and early 1930s as their local economies collapsed, resulting from their dependence on relatively limited petroleum reservoirs . As production peaked in some of these smaller fields and the Great Depression lowered demand, investors fled . In the major refining and manufacturing centers such as Beaumont, Houston, and Dallas, the boom continued to varying degrees until the end of World War II . By the end of the war, the economies of the major urban areas of the state had matured . Though Texas continued to prosper and grow, the extreme growth patterns and dramatic socioeconomic changes of the earlier years largely subsided as the cities settled into more sustainable patterns of growth . Localized booms in West Texas and other areas, however, continued to transform some small communities during the post-war period . </P>

Where did the oil industry begin in the south in 1901