[1] Notable wildcatters include Glenn McCarthy, Thomas Baker Slick Sr., Mike Benedum, Joe Trees, Clem S. Clarke, and Columbus Marion Joiner; Joiner is responsible for finding the East Texas Oil Field in 1930.
[2][3] For instance, the Titusville Herald noted in 1880: "The discovery of the fluid in New York State was the signal for a general exodus of wildcatters from all parts of the oil country ..."[4] According to tradition, the origin of the term in the petroleum industry comes from Wildcat Hollow, now in Oil Creek State Park near Titusville, Pennsylvania.
An old story claims that a speculator who was drilling in this narrow valley shot a wildcat, had it stuffed, and set it atop his derrick, and that the mounted cat gave its name to the hollow.
Wildcat was American slang for any risky business venture by 1838, long before the rise of the petroleum industry.
Directors of wildcat banks in the Midwest were known as "wild-catters" before Edwin Drake's discovery of oil in Pennsylvania.