The growth of the oil industry let to increased employment opportunities, over 500 companies, and this shows most geographic areas of Texas have oil and gas deposits. Major metropolitan areas in the 1900s Texas. The smallest percentage of growth between 1900 and 1930 occurred in this area of Texas. Seawall. In 1913, construction began On January 10, 1901, an enormous geyser of oil exploded from a drilling site at Spindletop Hill, a mound created by an underground salt deposit located near Beaumont in Jefferson County, southeastern Texas. Reaching a height of more than 150 feet and producing close to 100,000 barrels a day, the “gusher” was more powerful As the 1980s got underway, Houston's oil industry was in the midst of nearly a decade of opulence, supported by record crude prices that followed the Arab oil embargo of 1973 and the Iranian Revolution of 1979.