18 Jul 2019 Houston is known as the “Energy Capital of the World. Home to 40 publicly traded oil and gas exploration and production firms of the nation's Tulsa continued to be known and promote itself as the "oil capital of the world" into the 1950s and 1960s. The IPE grew and reached its peak attendance in 1966, when the Golden Driller, a large statue symbolic of Tulsa's historical importance in the oil industry, was erected in front of the new IPE Building, Tulsa, Oklahoma – Oil Capital of the World Route 66 in Tulsa, Oklahoma by Kathy Weiser-Alexander. Trail of Tears painting by Robert Lindneux Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the midst of Indian Territory, was first settled by Native Americans in 1836 when they were forcibly made to relocate along the infamous Trail of Tears.