William M. Mills, boring for gas in 1892 near the east side of Neodesha, Wilson county, Kansas, found sand with oil in two wells and plugged the holes. John H. Galey, ever awake to the importance of prospective territory, heard the news and proceeded to investigate. He examined the sand and the oil—almost black in color and of heavy gravity—thought favorably of the country, enlisted Mills for the campaign, leased sixty-thousand acres for himself and James M. Guffey, located a number of wells and prepared for extensive developments. Guffey & Galey’s first well was rather slim. Their second, at Thayer, fourteen miles north-east, was also small. Their third, twenty-five miles farther north-east, at Humbolt, Allen county, had sand and gas and a feeble show of oil. Similar results forty miles south-west of Neodesha confirmed their opinion of plenty spotted territory to be worth testing to a finish. They drilled twenty wells in the vicinity of Neodesha, the majority of them fair. Several out of eighteen put down around Thayer, in the winter of 1893-4, rated in the medium class. The principal production of the Kansas field to-day—about five-hundred barrels derived from a hundred or more wells—is at these two points. In all Guffey & Galey drilled one-hundred-and-forty wells, averaging eight-hundred feet deep and half of them dry, and sold to the Forest Oil-Company in 1895.
WHERE OIL IS SOUGHT IN KANSAS.
E. E. Crocker, son of the Bradford pioneer, superintended the drilling of numerous wells for the Forest in 1896-7. Scattered over Bourbon, Crawford, Allen, Neosho, Woodson, Elk, Wilson and Montgomery counties, two-thirds of these ventures were dusters. Three at Humboldt are the farthest north that produce any oil. The farthest south are near Sedan and Peru, Chautauqua county. This embraces about seventy-five miles north-east and south-west. The whole district is as uncertain as the age of the oldest Betsey Bobbet in the pack. Dry-holes may surround a fair strike. The sand runs from eight to twenty feet. The oil is extremely dark, twenty to thirty-five gravity, with asphalt base, no paraffine and no sulphur. From the company’s refinery at Neodesha, which has a capacity of one-thousand barrels, the first shipment of kerosene was made last June. The refinery is designed to supply Kansas and portions of Nebraska and Missouri. Most of the crude is produced so near the refinery that pipe-lines have not been laid to transport it.
Gas is struck ninety to a hundred feet below the oil-sand, sometimes in large quantity and occasionally at about four-hundred feet from the surface. Low pressure and water prevent piping gas in the shallow wells long distances. It was a Fourth of July when the vapor illuminant was first lighted at Neodesha. Enthusiasm and patriotism drew thousands to the celebration. Jerry Simpson’s candidacy and Peffer’s whiskers were side-tracked and forgotten. Darkness gathered and the impatient throng waited for the torch to be applied to the tall stand-pipes. Their cheers might be heard in Oklahoma when masses of flame lit up the sky and bathed the town in a lurid glare.
The Guiper Oil-Company, managed by William Guiper of Oil City, the Palmer Oil-Company and James Amm & Co. have drilled many wells that did not bear the market a little bit. Across the Kansas border, at Eufala, Indian Territory, the Enterprise Oil-Company bored twenty-eight-hundred feet without finding the stuff. Two wells in Creek county had white-sand and a trifle of amber-oil at seven-hundred and a thousand feet. The Cherokee Oil-Company drilled ten wells that produced a moderate amount of heavy-oil from two slates. Wisconsin parties, making deep tests on the Cherokee border, indulge in fond hopes that “Bleeding Kansas” and the country south may shortly bleed petroleum from a half-score rich arteries.
Five wells near Litchfield, Illinois, pump fifty gallons of lubricating-oil a day. Two in Bates county, Missouri, dribble enough to grease wagon-axles and farm-implements. A New-York syndicate has obtained large concessions of land from the government and is drilling at Jalapa, Mexico, where oil was found in shallow wells a few years ago. In Kentucky a host of small or dry wells have gone down since 1894. The Bobs-Bar well, the only one producing in Tennessee, drilled in 1896, flowed fifty barrels an hour, caught fire the first night and afterwards pumped sixty barrels a day for a season.
Believing an artesian-well would supply the community with abundant pure water, a local company at Corsicana, Navarro county, Texas, three years ago started the tools to pierce the “joint clay” in the south-west end of town. Sixteen years before a well drilled nine-hundred feet failed to accomplish this purpose and was filled up. Geologists gravely announced that water—unfit to use at that—could not be had within thirty-five-hundred feet. The company kept right along. At ten-hundred feet the clay ceased and twenty feet of sandy shale, soft and bluish, followed. Oil, real petroleum, hardly inferior to the best in Pennsylvania, flowed strongly. Doubting Thomases felt sure this unexpected glut of oil settled the water-question in the negative and advised tubing the well. The company cased off the oil, resumed drilling, pierced five-hundred feet more of “joint clay,” four-hundred feet of “Dallas chalk” and another immense layer of clay. At twenty-five hundred feet a crystal current of water gushed forth to the rhythm of fifteen-thousand gallons an hour. The water-problem was solved happily, the company was amply vindicated and the Corsicanans were correspondingly jubilant. The geological freaks were confounded. Of course, they knew more about the creation than Moses and could upset Genesis in one round, but a six-inch hole on their own ground put them floundering in the soup.
John H. Galey read a brief report of the water-well and visited Corsicana “on the quiet.” He had cart-loads of experience in oil-matters and a faculty for opening new fields. He drilled on Oil Creek in the sixties, had a hand in the Pithole pie, broadened the Pleasantville limit, set the Parker district going, went to the front in Butler and let no patch of creamy territory escape his vigilant eye. In Kansas he had located and drilled the first wells—at Neodesha and Thayer—that brought into play the only pools that have paid their way. He spent a year in Texas picking up lands and putting down wells. As in Kansas, his first and second wells were ten or twelve miles apart and both touched the jugular. He sold his entire interest, four companies entered the field and thirty wells are doing a thousand barrels a day. The first car of Corsicana oil was shipped last July, amid the huzzas of a crowd of cheering citizens. Senator Roger Q. Mills, the Democratic statesman, is the lucky owner of a thousand acres of land on the outskirts of town. The property has been leased and it bids fair to make the Senator a millionaire. Petroleum may yet be the brightest star in the constellation of the Lone-Star State.
California is not content to have gold-mines, overgrown trees and tropical fruits and leave petroleum out in the cold. For years developments have been carried on, centering finally at Los Angeles. City-lots are punctured with holes and three-hundred wells have been drilled on two-hundred acres. Samuel M. Jones, formerly of the Pennsylvania oil-region and now president of the Acme Sucker-Rod-Company of Toledo, leveled his kodak at the Los-Angeles wells in 1895, securing the view printed in the cut. Hon. W. L. Hardison, who operated in the Clarion and Bradford fields and served a couple of terms in the Legislature, and Lyman Stewart, of Titusville, have been largely interested in the California field for ten years. Los-Angeles wells are seven to nine-hundred feet deep, yield six barrels to seventy-five at the start and employ six-hundred men. The oil is used for fuel and lubrication, produces superior asphaltum and a distillate for stove-burners and gasoline-engines. It cannot be refined profitably for illuminating. The Los-Angeles field, about one mile long and six-hundred feet wide, had a small beginning. The first wells, near the Second-Street Park, were small, only to the first sand—four-hundred feet—and yielded poorly. The operators lacked knowledge and bunched the holes as closely as sardines in a box. Deeper drilling revealed richer strata, from which four-hundred wells are producing eighteen-hundred barrels a day. Railways, electric lines and manufacturing establishments consume the bulk of the output—equivalent to seven-hundred tons of coal daily—for fuel. The best wells have been pumping twenty months to two years, a few starting at three-hundred barrels for a week. Twenty-five-hundred dollars is the average cost of a California well and the total yield of the district approximates two-million barrels up to date.