Greenbrier County, West Virginia - 160th Anniversary Booklet - Part 24 *********************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. *********************************************************************** Historical Booklet - Greenbrier County 160th Anniversary - 1778-1938 Published 1938 Transcribed by Lori Samples THE HISTORY OF OIL AND GAS The oil and gas industry has been, for many years, on eof the most important industries in the state, with large investments, employing thousands of men, paying regular land rentals and royalties to approximately 200,000 farmers and landowners, supplying over half the population with natural gas service for domestic and industrial uses and contributing largesums to the support of the Federal, State and local governments. The geology of Greenbrier County is interesting in that all of the principal formations now producing oil and gas in West Virginia appear in regular order witing the west and east boundaries of the county. While a number of shallow wells have been drilled within the present county boundaries, there has not been sufficient drilling to test the deepper producing sands. the well drilled on Greenbrier River about one and one half miles northeast of Anthony Post Office to a depth of 2,575 was about 2,500 feet above the Oriskany horizon where the large gas wells in Kanawha County are now formed. About one half of the toal oil and gas in West Virginia is produced in the territory which orginially comprised Greenbreir County. Natural gs was found in West Virginia by the very earliest explorers and settlers. The gas escaped through the fissures of the rock bound resevoirs and bubbled up in streams and springs. About 1750 a traveler, searching for the Fairfax Stone on the head spring of the Potomac, discovered "on of the curiousities of the great westn world. 'This was a small stream 'four poles wide and knee deep' in the middle of which 'there was a constant bubbling of waters as iif a blowpipe was at work. The smell came p similar to that of stone-coal fire. The guide waded in, held the lock of his rifle of his rifle near the bubbling part of the stream, and pulled the trigger. it flashed and tat ia fire was blasing on the surface of the water as large as a yard swuare and two feet high. The celebrated "burning spring" was located on the bank of the Kanawha about six miles above the present city of Charleston. Mathew Arbuckle traversed the calley in 1773 and noted the spring. In 1774 John Floyd, assistant surveyor of Fincastle County, halted there on the way to Kentucky. Thomas Hanson noted in his journal: "April 14 (1774). We proceeded 14 miles down the river, passing by the burning springs - which is one of the wonders of the world. Put a blaze of pine within 3 or 4 inches of the water, and immediately the water will be in a flame, and continue so until it is put out by the force of wind. The Springs are small and boil continually like a pot on the fire; the water is black and has a taste of Notre. The spring never rises above its bank, nor does any water run from it above the ground, tho it continually boils up. One of the springs was dry, at the time we were there and the earth in the hole of it was burning." Later in 1774, General Lewis halted his army there en route to fight Cornstalk. The soldiers carried back to Virginia the stories of the marvel, and in 1775 Samuel Lewis, surveyor of Augusta County, and Leonard Morris surveyed and located the tract of land on which the springs were located for George Washington and General Andrew Lewis. A patent was granted later for the land, signed by Thomas Jefferson, governor of Virginia. Washington referred to the property in his last will: "the tract of which 123 acres is a moiety was taken by General Andrew Lewis and myself, for and on account of a bituminous spring, which it contains, of so inflammable a nature as to burn freely as spirits, and nearly as difficult to extinguish. The modern development of the gas reserve of the state really began in the Great Kanwha Valley between 1805 and 1808, near the "burning spring". In 1936, West Virginia produced 3,517,290 barrels of oil and 140,000,000,000 cubic feet of gas. NEXT: RECREATION AND VACATION