The Mid-Continent Oil Field - Creek County, Oklahoma Submitted by: Carl D. Alexander, Jr. 21 Dec 2008 Return to Creek County Archives: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ok/creek/creek.htm ===================================================================== USGENWEB NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ===================================================================== The Mid-Continent Oil Field The discovery of the first 'gusher' in Oklahoma was the most exciting event since Statehood, in 1907. The development of the Mid-Continent Oil Field was a major happening for the state, which promised industry and employment for thousands. Many people went there to try and get rich quick, or to share in the 'last great frontier'. The oil field completely changed the state from a dependence on agriculture, to a wide and varied commercial and manufacturing future. Someone recently told me that there must not have been any poets in that huge oil field, because no one has ever written a story about it… perhaps that was because most of us were trying to rear our families, and when there are little mouths to feed, there is no time for poetry. It was always my intention to write for my family (and the grandchildren) about our life there. There are many stories I want them to know about the lives people spent as pioneers in our state. It seems to me, we decided to go to Cushing in 1914 in order to find work, although only Goodness Knows what kind of work a sick man and an untrained girl might do… but we were young, and hope was high that some bright new future might await us there. Many times I have thought how little fear young people had at that time. [Ruth Clarice and Samuel Wesley had been married on 21 September, 1913 - Editor] When we arrived in Cushing, we found a small town already established there. Except for the hotels, rooming houses, and eating-places for the oil field workers, there was not much there. We were in Cushing for about four weeks. My father left his law practice in Kiowa County, and took us to the town of Oilton, which had just started. [Ruth's father - John William Mansell - was an attorney, and the first County Judge of Kiowa County after statehood. He helped found the towns of Mountain View, Mountain Park, Cold Springs & Roosevelt. -Ed.] It was still being built, and the Santé Fe Railroad was not yet complete. We rode the train to the North Bank of the Cimmaron River, and had to be ferried across to the other side. From there, we rode a construction train the last two miles into town. Oilton was eight miles north of Drumright, in Creek County, and this was where all the excitement was. It was also where all the 'gushers' were - the whole eight miles from Oilton to Drumright was to be made into a mass of oil wells! There were only three women in town at that time, including myself. Several stores had been established, and I believe there were one or two rooming houses. Ned Reap had started a drugstore, and Jim Miller had a hardware store going. Mr. Eli Admire had started a newspaper, The Oliton Gusher, which he later sold to Lou Allard of Drumright (who changed the name to 'The Drumright Derrick'. That paper is still being published, I believe, and the editor is a member of the State Legislature.) My father helped to incorporate the town of Oilton into a city while he was there. It was customary to hold town meetings to settle any differences of opinion about any situation, during that period of time. When some dissension arose over the town's incorporation, some of the citizens held a public meeting to make known their objections. But when my father rose to speak, several unscrupulous people threatened him. At that time, a great many Syrian merchants had established businesses in town, and when my father was threatened, they joined hands in a circle around him with their faces toward the crowd, and said, "If you want to fight, fight now." The others just backed off, and from then on the meeting was conducted peacefully, and was eventually settled satisfactorily. Soon after we arrived in Oilton, my father and husband built a two- room house with a tin roof. Wesley and I slept in the back, and father put out a cot for himself in the front room. My father did not stay long, but went back to his law practice as soon as we had found employment. My husband went to work for the Santé Fe as their cashier [This would have been the Atcheson, Topeka & Santé Fe Railroad - Ed.] and I went to work for the telephone company, as an operator. This is how I got my first job in Oilton. Mr. Admire told me he thought a telephone operator was wanted. He directed me to what I supposed was an office near the railroad depot, but when I arrived, there was only a wooden box-like affair sitting in the center of an open space, just south of the station. This was where an old Kellogg switchboard was being housed temporarily, until other quarters could be finished. I approached the lady sitting in the booth, and asked very timidly where one might go to apply for a telephone-operator's job. She arose from her high stool, and said, "Well, here…' Then she put her headphone on my ear, and started to move away. I frantically called out and told her to come back, and tell me what it was all about, so she returned and explained the mechanics of the thing to me. They had one booth, and one line through to Jennings, OK. There was an endless line of lease-buyers over a block long always waiting to use the telephone. I started work without knowing what to do, or how much I was to get paid. But in about fifteen minutes, the fog had cleared from my head and that switchboard was running in full swing - although the line never seemed to become any longer. That was how I came to be hired. The next day, the telephone company moved into new quarters with a Chief Operator and a better switchboard. Several new girls were hired and someone delegated me to the long distance board (although we all had to switch at regular intervals). Most of our calls out of town were made from the two long rows of bawdy houses, or the 'Red Light District', as it was known in those days. When they wanted to talk to some man, they would give the man's last known location and just say, "Find him!" They invariably left an address wherever they went, and for the most part, that was all over the United States. Believe me, I have chased more men than any other woman I know - and I never saw a'one of them! The women in those houses were all patient, courteous and kind to us switchboard operators - each Christmas they would send us girls in the office eggnog, whiskey or whatever spirits we wanted. It was said that some of the women in the Red Light Light District threw parties that were the equal to any party ever known in Oilton. There was never any of it that appealed to me, because I could never forget from whence it came, and felt sorrow and pity that they had been condemned to such a life. My father had told me not to forget that some man was always behind any woman who committed herself to such a life. Of course, most everyone who came to Oilton in those days had some kind of tale whispered behind him. But for the most part, those sorts of things were disregarded. Not long after the town had become a city, the City Council let a contract for sewer lines to a couple of men from Tulsa. When all was said and done, the new sewer turned out to be somewhat short of what the Council had thought it was getting, for the money paid. When the citizenry learned of the town's predicament, they organized a tar & feather party, to run those Tulsa boys clean out of town… but as soon as the heat was off, they returned - and of all things - started the Oilton State Bank! (It lasted all the way until the beginning of the Great Depression, when it finally went broke.) Lease buyers for all the major oil companies were in town, but in those early days there were plenty of 'blue sky' operators working in the area, too. If they sold you stock in a lease, no gusher would ever be announced. Most of us were not taken in by any of those people, but the city druggist decided to make a little money for himself - at the expense of his friends. He sold stock in one company, but drilled a well on another lease he owned by himself, using the proceeds from the stock he had sold. Unfortunately (for him) his well was a dry hole, and he lost a great deal of money. (Drilling a well is an expensive business.) A 'necktie party' was surely in order, but no one seemed to care enough to organize it. Oilton was always full of riggers, drillers, operators, roustabouts, pumpers, and other oilfild workers in those day. They were all paid very high wages for that period of time. Drillers received about sixteen dollars an hour, and roustabouts were getting about seven dollars an hour, as I recall. Compared to my own $150 a month paycheck, their salaries seemed fabulous. However, most of them were a careless lot, and didn't know how to take care of their money. The drillers were usually better educated, though, and had bank accounts and owned their own homes. The large oil companies soon built houses for most of their employees who worked on the leases. Casing-head gas, as I remember, was natural gasoline. There was a lot of casing-head gasoline on the leases, and it was free if one was not afraid to use it. Since it burned just as well as the more expensive gasolines in old Model T Fords, we burned it. This vanished after the refineries were built. Gas which had formerly been burned off routinely as excess, became a commercial product that was piped to all of the oil field houses, and eventually sold to cities all over the state after pipelines were built. Some of the most colorful things to see in all this hurly-burly were the mule skinners. These were men who hauled the heavy pipe into the fields for drillers to use. They drove teams of about eight mules or horses, which were hitched to long wagons. The harnesses and teams were their most prized possessions. Each man handled them gently and kept the harnesses meticulously clean, oiled and polished. A great deal of this harness was decorated in silver, and some sparkled with bright pieces of glass jewelry. They were rough-looking men, but their horses and mules were magnificent animals. There was no pavement in those days, and it was nothing to see their wagons mired to the hubs in the mud on the streets of Oilton. The horses strained and pulled with every ounce of muscle to pull out of the mud, until finally they would pull their loads on through. The rippling muscles, shiny skin, and their great efforts made me keep wanting to help them, and only when they had gotten their wagons out, could I finally relax. They were never whipped, but only encouraged to do a little bit more. All those teams were soon replaced by heavy trucks, after paved roads emerged. I have often wondered what happened to all those skinners… The drillers were skilled men. After they reached a certain depth, they would bring up cores of earth, rock, clay and sand. As they approached depth, they became cautious, and set up the known safeguards to protect the men and the derricks. There was a great deal of gas pressure back of a gusher. Hundreds of flares could be seen all over a field, in an attempt to get rid of this surplus gas. This gas was called a 'wet' gas, and if it were burned in a home, it would smoke it black. Until refineries were built, the flares lit up all the leases and gave them a gala appearance at night. They had to be located far enough away from the drilling rigs, to keep from setting them on fire when the oil and gas began to spout. Sometimes no oil was found in the sands, and sometimes they were shut down. Sometimes the lease-owners ordered them to go deeper. The rigs they used were known as 'star rigs' and were not suitable for drilling more than one of two thousand feet. Later, rotary rigs were brought in to do depth drilling, and they could explore to different depths. If a large flow of oil was brought in on a deep hole, this would be put on a pump. After a large flow of oil was gone, many wells were opened up on higher levels. The sound of an oil well had it's own peculiar noise, which consists of a sighing or blowing noise, such as that of steam escaping in regular 'breaths'. As soon as a site for a new well had been staked, the rig builders came first. They either owned their own rigs, or the oil company contracted with them to construct one. Their work was dangerous. The rigs were high, and the men had to be sure-footed, or they might fall to the ground and receive permanent injuries, or die. There were no seismographs available to take pictures of the oil pools, or to indicate where they might be found in those days. Many companies drilled wells just to define the limits of a pool of oil. Drilling dry holes was an expensive pastime, and many a small company went broke at it. The drillers then brought up their drills, and kept them sharp and biting by heating the long metal bits red-hot, then hammering them with sledge hammers. One man would strike the bit, then another would hit it as the first man raised his hammer, and the ring of steel-on- steel could be heard everywhere. Many people drove out to some well, just to watch the men at work, or to see the 'black gold' coming over the top of a tall rig. Large scoops would be removed from the earth to form a basin to catch the oil, and as soon as possible the well would be capped, and the oil pumped into storage tanks. After oil pumps were installed, they made a popping sound, and we went to bed at night lulled by the sound of those motors. The regularity of their noise soon became only a muffled hum, and a well that went suddenly quiet for repair would keep us from sleeping until it started-up again. There was a lot of bank robbing, and many hold-ups during those early times. The Santé Fe railroad afe was broken into two or three times. Finally, the railroad ordered my husband to take the money home with him. They were doing about one to two hundred thousand dollars worth of business daily. This was mostly in checks, but sometimes there would be several thousand dollars in cash, in his money bag. He would walk home past the gambling joint and the Red Light District, and no one ever suspected him of having it. He would come in, throw the bag of money in a corner, and after we had eaten our evening meal, we would go to bed without a thought of fear. Oilton was a town of young people in those days, and we supplied our own amusement. There were swimming parties, picnics, bridge clubs and dancing. There was a church, a Missionary Society, and one Federated Club. Land was cheap and our little home was soon paid for, where we had a garden in our yard, and raised chickens and owned a pig. The greater part of our married lives was spent in this community, and all four of our surviving children were born and raised here. Our small amount of money seemed to cover every need, and we were decently fed. Just being alive and being together was enough. What more can anyone ask? Life has been exciting. One event followed right after another, and they have all been different and interesting. My children have all led good lives, and I have eight grandsons who have more than their share of brilliance and intelligence. At this Easter time, I am reminded of the five loaves and two fishes… if God had not been alive and lent His help, survival would have been impossible. There is no other way to express it, and it is with a grateful and humble heart I thank Him for it. Ruth Clarice (Mansell) Alexander March, 1967 (Samuel Wesley Alexander died of a heart attack on 20 September, 1937, while at work in his depot office. Ruth, with her two youngest children still in school, eventually went back to college and received her teaching degree. Later still, she became a social worker for the State Child Welfare Agency, living for many years in Oklahoma City just across the street from the State Capitol Building. She passed away in 1968, while living with her daughter Gail's family, in Edmond, OK. - Editor) (Editor's Note: My grandmother and grandfather, Ruth Clarice (Mansell) Alexander and Samuel Wesley Alexander, moved to Oilton looking for work in 1914, about six months after they were first married. She was 19, and he was 25 years old. There they raised up their family of three boys and one girl - Julian 'Alec', Paul Wesley, Carl Dean (my father), and Gail - who all grew up to graduate from Oilton High School. Late in her life, my grandmother took the time to write down her reminiscences of those early days, and this is what she had to say…) --------------------------------------------------------------------- Return to Creek County Archives: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ok/creek/creek.htm