In his early career, Lloyd taught chemistry at the Eclectic College in Philadelphia and studied and practiced medicine throughout the mid and upper northwestern states. He served as a town doctor in a mining town in Idaho. It was while there that his wife became critically ill with the consumption and the doctor was not able to save her life.
At this juncture in his life, he left medicine to pursue a self-taught career in geology and developed over the years a penchant for finding hydrocarbons by analyzing surface geology, mapping strata, and outcroppings, and looking for oil seeps in nearby creeks.
Lloyd became friends with "Dad" Joiner in the early 1900s and they drilled wells in the state of Oklahoma at Cement, Seminole, Healdton, and near Oklahoma City. Lloyd formed the Lloyd Oil Corporation in Fort Worth, after having conducted a geological study for the Mexican government of President Carranza in about 1914-1915. Lloyd would later wildcat for oil in the provinces of Alaska, which is documented by photographs.
Contents of this case include his working tools, his medical satchel, transit, maps, letters and documents, and a six-cylinder pistol that he carried with him at almost all times.
Lloyd wrote Joiner a letter in 1929 predicting that he would find the Woodbine Sandstone in western Rusk County at a depth of 3650 feet and that the formation would yield millions of barrels of crude oil.
The legendary independent oilman, H. L. Hunt said that "Doc" Lloyd was the greatest geologist that ever lived.
As a footnote, Lloyd's great-grandson, Ross Lloyd Martella, using Lloyd's maps of Washington County, Texas has successfully found oil on a lease that Lloyd had mapped over 75 years before.
Now head towards the lobby and click "Next" when you are at the geological oil traps on the wall.
