| |
The use of plats and maps is a daily necessity for most geologists and landmen, and an accurate map is a coveted tool. Many times maps are taken for granted, yet anyone who has worked without benefit of a reliable map knows the headaches, confusion and delays it will cause.
Geologists and landmen associate one name more readily with maps than any other, TOBIN. Tobin Surveys Inc., of San Antonio, Texas, concentrated on providing the oil and gas industry with reliable maps covering the Gulf Coast for over 65 years. Geologists and landmen commonly use the word "TOBIN" as a generic term in place of map. More reserves have been found and more acreage has been leased using TOBIN maps than any other maps. While these maps are commonly used and greatly relied upon, few geologists or landmen know when, how or why TOBIN began producing the maps. Strangely enough, it was due to a plane crash in San Antonio in 1928.
The Texas Tobins were a prominent San Antonio family at the time of Edgar G. Tobin's birth in 1896. An uncle had served as Mayor of San Antonio for a number of years while other relations were involved with the lumber industry and ranching.
Edgar graduated from West Texas Military Academy in 1914 and later became the first pilot from Texas to attain the title of Ace and was awarded the Croix de Guerre, the American and French decoration for valor and the Distinguished Service Cross. By age 22 he attained the rank of Major, very likely the youngest Major in the United States Army at that time.
|
 |
| Captain Edgar Tobin |
|
Gilard Kargl was an Austrian born engineer/scientist and became one of the first men to use aerial photography to construct maps. He approached various oil companies and engineering firms convincing them that he could generate the most accurate maps possible by applying photogrammetry, that is, the science of making accurate measurements from photographs.
Contracts in hand, he purchased a WWI military surplus DeHaviland airplane. Unfortunately, the aircraft crashed on its test flight leaving Kargl with valuable contracts, but no money or aircraft to acquire the photography.
Kargl then approached Edgar G. Tobin who was, at the time, the Pierce-Arrow auto dealer and also the agent for the American Eagle, a commercial aircraft suitable for acquiring aerial photography. Although Tobin had no background in photogrammetry, he was a shrewd businessman who realized the potential of the opportunity being offered him and agreed to lease an aircraft for a percentage of the contract. Thus Edgar Tobin Aerial Surveys was born in 1928. Tobin went on to build the company into one of the most successful mapping companies in the world.
|
 |
| Tobin's first office in 1928 |
|
Edgar Tobin Aerial Surveys came into being at an extremely opportune time, with the advent of the rapidly growing oil industry in Texas. The developing oil fields all required new maps for use in the exploration, production and transportation of oil. Geologists required base maps to record their subsurface interpretations while engineers were trying to pick pipeline routes from the field to the market. Then, as now, landmen needed to know who owned the surface in order to obtain right-of-way and/or who owned the mineral rights so they could acquire oil and gas leases.
|
 |
| Tobin aerial photographers perpare to board their Wacco |
|
By 1930 the company had already mapped over 3,000 miles of pipelines and numerous fields including projects in Mexico and Venezuela.
Edgar Tobin introduced a method of operation that became the standard practice for his company. An oil company would describe an area of interest and provide the working capital to have the area mapped. As an inducement to extend this program, the sponsoring oil company would recover its initial cost from additional sales of the maps, while Tobin retained ownership of the maps and subsequent revenue.
These types of arrangements with oil companies ultimately enabled Tobin to generate photo mosaic map sheets and surface ownership maps covering the entire Gulf Coast region of the United States.
In addition to the need for accurate geologic base maps, it was conceived that real savings would be effected for the oil companies through photographically-controlled ownership maps. Prior to their introduction by Edgar Tobin Aerial Surveys, oil companies maintained in-house ownership mapping operations, thus largely duplicating their efforts in both time and money, and at excessive costs.
The ownership mapping procedures established by Tobin made it impossible for any tract to be omitted, for, having a picture of the entire county or parish, it follows that all of the land had to be accounted for.
From 1933 to 1971 nearly 500 counties and parishes, including over one million parcels of land, were mapped from Florida to New Mexico. The maps were constructed at a scale of 1"=3000' primarily because at that scale, most county maps would conveniently fit on two pieces of 40" wide paper. Most were constructed in the 30's and updated in the 50's and 60's. The company still fulfills thousands of orders for these maps annually. It would cost over $200 million to recreate the maps.
There is quite a bit of lore about Edgar Tobin and his understandable concern about protecting the copyright of his maps. In an effort to track any misuse or violation of licensing and distribution of the maps, incorrect information was purposely added to certain maps. In some cases abstract numbers or original grantee names were changed or misspelled. The location of these intentional errors and other unique 'markers' remain a guarded secret of the company although it is not uncommon for someone to call and kindly inform Tobin their map has a mistake on it. The call is appreciated, the map stays the same.
The TOBIN Grid was developed at the outset as a reference grid to quickly locate abstracts in Texas. All other Gulf Coast states have a Jeffersonian Township/Range system for reference, but Texas inherited the Spanish system of porcions and land grants. The TOBIN Grid starts at Latitude 30 and Longitude 100 (Edwards Co.) and proceeds covering 7.5 minutes of latitude by 7.5 minutes of longitude in each direction. Each grid was originally set up to cover 50 square miles but was reestablished at the request of Humble Oil & Refining. The pseudo grid was immediately accepted and widely used by the oil industry.
During World War II, Edgar Tobin served as a civilian aide to General 'Hap' Arnold of the Army Air Corp while the company dedicated its resources to the U.S. Army Map Service as it turned out maps for the invasion of North Africa and Normandy, among others, and the never used maps for the invasion of Japan.
Flying during the war was hampered by various requirements including permits to fly, maintaining constant radio contact and having to land every two hours to report in by phone. It was nearly impossible to obtain film and fuel. While ownership mapping continued, Tobin suspended all flying operations and turned all aircraft and cameras over to the Army for the duration of the war.
In 1953, at a meeting of geoscientists being held in Houston, Edgar Tobin unveiled a photo mosaic of the southeastern U.S. that measured 109 feet in length and 43 feet in height. The photo was the culmination of everything the company had photographed since its beginning, incorporating over 600,000 photos.
|
 |
| Piecing together photo mosaic |
|
The mosaic was returned to San Antonio, where it was reassembled on the third floor of Tobin's plant which was used for conferences, large meetings and entertaining. The enormous mosaic was eventually donated to the University of Texas and replaced by a half-scale replica of the original. On one occasion Mrs. Tobin was asked for an explanation of the void in the photo in the region of northern Alabama and Georgia to which she simply replied "They never found any oil there." Tobin has accumulated over 2 million aerial photographs dating back to 1928. The company began taking aerial photos prior to any governmental agency and generally has the earliest photographs of the Gulf Coast available. Today, the older photography is commonly used for land use studies, environmental assessments, and archeological site analysis.
As a service to oil and gas landmen, Tobin began offering Lease Map Service in 1954 . The service provides a monthly posting of new well locations and oil and gas leases on the ownership maps. The maps continue to be updated on a regular basis by Tobin field personnel who visit over 200 courthouses each month.
|
 |
| Hardcopy research and editing |
|
In 1991 Tobin began recording additional information about each lease and offers the resulting database as the Tobin Lease Record Service. It provides more in-depth information pertaining to the leases shown on the map, including volume and page number where each instrument is recorded.
Ironically, Edgar G. Tobin died in a non-Tobin plane crash in 1954 while returning from a duck hunting trip in Louisiana. The amphibious aircraft belonged to United Gas and lost altitude when the wings accumulated ice and snow during a blinding snowstorm.
Tobin was one of 12 prominent Texas and Louisiana business executives, including Tom Braniff, founder of Braniff Airlines, and R.H. Hargrove, President of Texas Eastern Gas Transmission, who perished in the accident. At the time of his death, Edgar Tobin Aerial Surveys was the largest aerial map making company in the world.
Then Governor of Texas, Allan Shivers, said of Tobin "He pioneered in the Southwest and in the nation in the field of aerial surveys. His company contributed much to the success of the armed forces of the U.S. in World War II through prior mapping of invasion routes." Control of the company then passed to Edgar's wife, Margaret Batts Tobin and his son Robert L. B. Tobin. Robert left his studies at the University of Texas and returned to San Antonio to play an active role in the continuing success of the company. Mrs. Tobin passed away in 1989.
As the oil companies began to move into the world of computers, so did Tobin. Starting in 1963, working in cooperation with the major oil companies, Tobin created the first database of well locations. Tobin determined lat/lon and X,Y coordinates and was responsible for assigning API numbers for all historical wells drilled in Texas RRC Districts 1- 6, Louisiana and offshore in the Gulf of Mexico.
|
 |
| Data collection in the field the industry's first computerized database |
|
Beginning in 1976, Tobin digitized all of its existing 1"=2000' scale regional base maps covering the Gulf Coast. This was the first digital map database used by the oil and gas industry. While geologists and geophysicists made great use of the digital base map, it offered little help to landmen as it did not show the ownership tracts or leasing information.
During the late 70s, technological advancements in the science of photogrammetry made it possible to generate more accurate maps by creating orthophotos. Orthophotos, simply put, are photographs which have been incrementally rectified by removing the distortion which is inherent in all photography. In 1980 a decision was made to remap the state of Texas and the southern half of Louisiana using orthophotography. Over the course of ten years, Tobin reflew the entire area. The final result was a more accurate base map with visually verified well locations. While footage calls from survey lines generally didn’t change, virtually every well location had a new X,Y coordinate.
|
 |
| Tobin's digital images and viewing software now dominate the field of geo-business |
|
In 1994, Tobin Data Graphics LLC was created by merging certain operations and products of Tobin Surveys, Inc. with Graphics Information Technologies, Inc. (GITI), who like Tobin, marketed shelf map data products.
GITI was founded in the late 1970s, and had its beginnings in the software business, developing geologic and land information systems specifically designed for the oil and gas industry. It soon became apparent that base map data was lacking, and GITI was soon asked by the oil and gas industry to build base map data covering primarily the western U.S., the Rockies and Midwest.
In response to the oil and gas industry's growing interest in international opportunities, Tobin Surveys, Inc. established Tobin International, Inc. to provide mapping services worldwide. Tobin International, Inc. has mapped regions of the former Soviet Union for various oil and gas projects including a photo survey of a proposed pipeline route from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea.
Foreign projects are not limited to oil and gas. Tobin International, Inc. assisted the Russian government as it moved forward with land reform. The Russian Federation wanted to establish an automated Land Information System (LIS) for the registration and taxation of private land. Ownership mapping prior to 1991 was no challenge in Russia as there was only one landowner, the Communist Party, and prior to that, the Czar.
In March, 1998, Tobin Surveys, Inc., and Tobin Data Graphics, LLC, along with GPS Technology Corp., of Houston and TruVue Corp., of Edwardsville, Illinois, merged to form Tobin International, Ltd. Established in 1986, Houston-based GPS Technology Corporation (GPSTC) was considered a leader in providing solutions for geographic information problems. Their commercial positioning products and services were based on patented methodology utilizing the NAVSTAR satellite Global Positioning system (GPS).
TruVue Corporation complimented GPSTC’s market position as a leading digital image map provider to the oil and gas industry. TruVue offered an ongoing pathway to the latest developments in digital image acquisition and processing for both satellite and aerial photography data. Combining these companies has expanded Tobin's ability to provide integrated, high-quality, cost-effective mapping, imagery and GIS solutions to the oil and gas industry as well as other markets such as pipelines, electric utilities, forestry, government and agriculture.
On December 15th, 1998, Tobin International, Ltd. acquired the land management software leader, Innovative Business Solutions. A company that itself had over 27 years of experience in land management software and services, IBS became the software arm of Tobin, giving it not only the materials, but also the tools to provide the world's first completely integrated land management system. For the first time, landmen can have all their needs seen to from a single source.
|
|
