Images from Alberta's Inventors and Inventions

Leduc was named by the Lieutenant Governor Edgar Dewdney after the established a telegraph station there in 1890. He named the post after Father Hippolyte Leduc, of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

While today Leduc is synonymous with oil in Alberta, as historian David Finch explains, it almost didn’t enter the oil age at all.

Well Turner Valley found oil in 1936 and so the thought well there’s going to be lots of oil in Alberta. So they sent out geologists and others to look for oil and guess what? They found it nowhere else.

They looked all the way up and down the foothills, they looked out in to the plains, they looked in to Saskatchewan. And you could drill and find natural gas anywhere, but there were not markets for it. And it wasn’t oil you couldn’t put natural gas in a car, like you do these days. You know,

So, um, they were looking for oil throughout the prairies. They were looking for it… there was some geological theory that said, well maybe if tis not in the foothills, maybe its somewhere else. And there might be something out in the Leduc area.

But finally on the afternoon of the 13th of February, 1947, the drillers working on a big steel rig at Leduc, near Leduc actually found that wonderful crude oil that they were looking for.

And a little town nearby , that was just a sleepy little farm town, became synonymous with oil, the town of Leduc.

Imperial Oil was drilling Leduc Number One when the well blew tapping a large oil reservoir deep below the prairie surface.

By the end of the year, there were 30 wells producing 3500 barrels of oil a day.

As a result of this find, Alberta started building huge pipelines. There was Leduc, and then Redwater, and many other oilfields that came afterwards. Tapped into huge, huge, what are called Elephants, just enormous oilfields in the Canadian prairies, unfortunately all those elephants are gone, now we’re looking for little stuff. But Leduc was the first of big elephants that allowed for the transcontinental pipelines.

These are pipelines that were built that moved oil and gas all the way into Ontario. And later all the way down into California. So huge amounts had to be found in order to justify those kinds of construction projects. But that’s what came of Leduc.

Oil revenues filled provincial coffers greatly improving the Alberta economy after the Depression and World War Two.



	Leduc Oil Discovery Leduc was named by the Lieutenant Governor Edgar Dewdney after the established a telegraph station there in 1890. He named the post after Father Hippolyte Leduc, of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. While today Leduc is synonymous with oil in Alberta, as historian David Finch explains, it almost didn’t enter the oil age at all. Well Turner Valley found oil in 1936 and so the thought well there’s going to be lots of oil in Alberta. So they sent out geologists and others to look for oil and guess what? They found it nowhere else. They looked all the way up and down the foothills, they looked out in to the plains, they looked in to Saskatchewan. And you could drill and find natural gas anywhere, but there were not markets for it. And it wasn’t oil you couldn’t put natural gas in a car, like you do these days. You know, So, um, they were looking for oil throughout the prairies. They were looking for it… there was some geological theory that said, well maybe if tis not in the foothills, maybe its somewhere else. And there might be something out in the Leduc area. But finally on the afternoon of the 13th of February, 1947, the drillers working on a big steel rig at Leduc, near Leduc actually found that wonderful crude oil that they were looking for. And a little town nearby , that was just a sleepy little farm town, became synonymous with oil, the town of Leduc. Imperial Oil was drilling Leduc Number One when the well blew tapping a large oil reservoir deep below the prairie surface. By the end of the year, there were 30 wells producing 3500 barrels of oil a day. As a result of this find, Alberta started building huge pipelines. There was Leduc, and then Redwater, and many other oilfields that came afterwards. Tapped into huge, huge, what are called Elephants, just enormous oilfields in the Canadian prairies, unfortunately all those elephants are gone, now we’re looking for little stuff. But Leduc was the first of big elephants that allowed for the transcontinental pipelines. These are pipelines that were built that moved oil and gas all the way into Ontario. And later all the way down into California. So huge amounts had to be found in order to justify those kinds of construction projects. But that’s what came of Leduc. Oil revenues filled provincial coffers greatly improving the Alberta economy after the Depression and World War Two.

Leduc Oil Discovery