Minatitlán is a city in the eastern part of the Mexican state of Chiapas, at the northern end of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Oil was discovered there early in 1880 by prospectors working for Petroleum of Mexico, and the petroleum industry became the center of the city's economy. The sale of drilling rights in Minatitlán made many of the poor Mexicano peasants in the area wealthy.
Sobel erroneously calls the city Minatitión. Minatitlán does not have an entry in Sobel's index. The city is mentioned on page 175 of For Want of a Nail ....
Sobel's source for the discovery of oil in Minatitlán is Charles Winslow's Peasants in Brocade: The Oil Millionaires of Chiapas and Durango (New York, 1962).
IOW oil was not discovered in Minatitlán until the 1940s.