Clint Wood Interview - Clint Wood Interview [part 2 of 2]

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  • PIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL And I said, "I haven't got it with me." Said, "That's aright; we can git it*" B.- Well, were they workers? W.- Huh? B.- Were they workers out of a job? W.- Yeah, they were roughnecks out of a job. B.- Uh-huh. W.- One night, one morning there at Humble -- or was it Batson? Batson -- they picked up five fellows that was killed that night. They's layin' around different places, you know. (Not included on this recording -- HW) Some fellow'd knocked 'em in the head. At Sour Lake it was not uncommon to go down in the morning, any morning, to go down through the oil fields and find somebody that'd been hijacked and knocked In the head.
  • And it was the same way at Spindletop, and Humble --lot of times they'd go down there and the tram, the tram road that ran from Humble, Bender's Sawmill down into the oil field, through the oil field, you know,
  • And that's the way they all traveled, you know, because it rained so damn much down there you couldn't even go through with a buggy.
  • And they'd go through that tram road, and it wasn't nothing but common to pick up two or three dead men along that tram every morning.
  • B.- Were they, uh, wide open on gambling and ---
  • W.~ Oh, yeah, wide open on gambling and beer joints and saloons. Wasn,'t no prohibition then, you know.
  • B.- Uh-huh
  • W.- Old, uh --- ah, what was his name? He was district attorney
  • over there in Hardin County - Ralph, uh --- umm. Well, that's got me this time.
  • He would, uh --- he was up there at the Chicago Fair, somewhere there, and they wired him back to arrest all the gamblers and the whores at Sour Lake and Batson, and put the money in the bank that he'd withdrawn against that day.
  • He said he had to have $350 or $500.
  • B.- Did they arrest them?
  • W.- Huh?
  • B.- Did they arrest them?
  • W.- Oh, yes, pulled 'em all in.
  • They had a lot of nigger whores there, and white whores too. I don't know whether you want to record that or not.
  • B.~ No, that's --go ahead.
  • W. - And so one Saturday evening there, he give a show. He turned a white whore and a nigger whore out and let 'em fight, and he charged $1 apiece for all the people who come down to watch it. Make 'em pay $1 to see this fight, these fights.
  • Had one great big old nigger there, she cleaned up on 'em pretty good.
  • Finally come to a little old black-headed French gal, turned her out with a big old nigger woman.
  • And she give that old nigger gal the worse whuppin' you ever saw anybody git in your life.
  • B.- (LAUGHTER) -And it cost you $1 to see every fight. Well, maybe they'd be eight or ten fights.
  • B.- Uh-huh, well, how did they fight, scratch, pull hair, or hit?
  • W.- Well, they'd pull hair and bite.
  • B.- (LAUGHTER)
  • W.- And kick. But boy, that little old French gal, she gave that old nigger mama the awfulest whuppin' you ever saw! And it was funny to us kids, you know.
  • B.- Sure!
  • W.- We were just boys. But you had to have some kind of entertainment.
  • B.- Well, there wasn't much else, was there, in the way of entertainment?
  • W.- Nothin', nothing a'tall.
  • B.- You didn't have any picture shows,
  • W.- Nothing, not a thing, except they go in and shoot crap at one of these beer joints. And most of the boys that had $1 was in there shootin' crap.
  • B.- Now that's at Batson where this ---
  • W.- That was at Batson.
  • B.- Where this ---
  • W.- And Sour Lake both.
  • B.- --- where the, uh, county attorney wired ---
  • W.-Where the district attorney ---
  • B.- Where the district attorney --- W. ---had the, hell the sway.
  • B.- Did the jail hold 'em all?
  • W.- Huh?
  • B.- Could they put 'em all in the jail or did they have to kick some of 'em out?
  • W.- Oh, yeah, they put all -- he built a wire fence, you know, about eight feet high and about 200 feet square. Because they's lots of 'em.
  • B.- I'd think so.
  • W.- And we'd go down there, me and the others, of an evening and watch that show.
  • B.- The, uh, Burkburnett boom somewhat like that?
  • W.- No, no, the Burkburnett -- 'course they had law and order up there.
  • Well, it was pretty tough, but not like that.
  • And then besides they'd gotten a better class of people into the oil business.
  • I know lots of roughnecks -- boy, they were just as good a men as ever lived and they got somewhere, too.
  • B.- That is, if they stayed sober and worked ---
  • W.- Yeah, sure,
  • B. - and I know Morris got an old boy used to work for me, Jimmy Hurt (?) -- finest boy ever was.
  • He got out of the First World War and he come up there and hit me for a job.
  • And I told Charlie Morris, who's superintendent for the Humble up there at Wichita now, to put him on, and less than a week he come back in there and wanted a job drillin'.
  • I said, "Boy, you've only been roughneckin' three or four nights out here."
  • "Yes," but he says, "you know that driller you have out there you have, I -- second night I's out there I run the drillin' rig out there and he got him another job over there.
  • And he's gittin' $22 a night for this other fellow and he's gittin' $22.50 from you and I'm doin' the
  • drillin'. And I'd rather work for you than work for him" They'd pull off tricks like that, and they could do it. They was just so much demand for drillers,
  • B.- I've heard of 'em going to sleep on the night shift, but ---
  • W.- Oh, they slept all the time. Wasn't nothing you could do about it, nothing you could do about it.
  • But there was lots of things, you know.
  • I know over at Burk, when that part of the field first opened up - I'd always git up about 4:00 and be out in the oil field before daylight.
  • And old man McBride from St. Louis, who was a great fellow, left a big estate.
  • He, he lived at St. Louis, and he'd go out with me; he'd come over here, and he got a quite a bit of production.
  • He'd drive out with me. I know we went by -- we's drillin' a rig where we drilled down and set the casin' and then drill In with cable tools.
  • This old cable tool man, he's layin' down in the seat with his head layin' against the headed post, and the rig - the tools was muddied up, just settin' there.
  • Old beam was just goin' up and down. He's layin' there asleep.
  • It was just gittin' daylight and I just walked up to him and kicked him in the ass.
  • I said, "You son of a bitch, what are you doin' there? Pull them tools out and git out of here."
  • And old man McBride said, "That fellow'll whup you." And I says, "No, that scared him so damn bad ---"
  • (LAUGHTER)
  • Old W. Lee McBride.
  • B.- (LAUGHTER) W.- But things of that kind would happen to you, you know.
  • B.- Yeah, (LAUGHTER)
  • he didn't try to whip you?
  • W.- No, he could've done it, might have. I don't know, I was quite a scrapper them days. But it's a great life if you don't fall down.
  • B.- Well, some of those old drillers were pretty interesting old characters, weren't they?
  • W.- Yes, they were, and good men -- boy. I had one old driller, Jerry Kennedy, and - boy, he would - he stayed drunk a lot, but he was a great character.
  • He made some money but then gambled it all away.
  • He had $350,000 in the bank there in Wichita. That's along about 1920.
  • Then he got to gamblin' with the Jews up there and first thing you know, he was just a tramp.
  • We had to take up a collection to bury him. And one of the test men ever was, Jerry Kennedy, Irishman.
  • B.- By gambling you mean actual playing cards and shooting dice. You don't mean speculating?
  • W.- Jerry -- oh, no, he played poker.
  • He'd git them Jews come down from Chicago and they'd --- Jack Art (?) had a brother there in Wichita, a jeweler.
  • They'd git them and some of them old boys, especially Jerry, in a poker game, and they'd play for two days, and he'd lose as much as fifty-thousand dollars in one night --- [undecipherable]
  • I'd say, "Jerry, you know you can't beat those Jews."
  • He'd say, "Can't nobody beat me playin' poker."
  • I says, "They are beatin' you, aren't they?" "Well, but I'll git 'em."
  • Poor old Jerry died a tramp. I and three or four more fellows had to bury him.
  • W.- Ralph Durham was this attorney's name.
  • B.- At, uh ---
  • W.- This attorney's name,
  • B.- Ralph Durham? W.- Uh-huh, who collected off the whores and gamblers and he collected too. Didn't do him any good; he died a tramp, and a drunkard,
  • B.- There's some stories that I hear about every oil field, probably not so, but I want to ask you about some of them. Did you ever hear of somebody stealing a boiler?
  • W.- Oh, yes, I know the fellow that stole it, John O'Neal.
  • B.- John O'Neal? Where was that?
  • W.- At Spindletop
  • B.- Uh-huh
  • W.- He stole a boiler with the steam up, pumpin' a well,
  • B.- How'd he get away with it?
  • W.- He just disconnected it and slided it over to his, see; a sixteenth of an acre on Spindletop was a pretty big lease.
  • And he and his crew just slid it over there on his little old lease.
  • John was quite a oil man; hooked it up to his rig.
  • Next morning the fellow came out, he didn't have any damn boiler,
  • B.- (LAUGHTER) Well, he could see it right there -
  • W.- Yeah
  • B.- Did he get it? W.- Well, had so damn many of those little old boilers you wouldn't know yours from anybody else's.
  • B.- Did he ever get it back?
  • W.- Huh? B.- Did he get it back?
  • W.- I don't know. But I know he stole it and he finished that well too with it.
  • John come down there from West Virginia. He, uh -- no, I wouldn't tell you that, that thing runnin'.
  • (BREAK)
  • W.- They were good to you.
  • B.- That's the people in East Texas you're talkin' about?
  • W.- Oh, yeah, they were a good class of people. Most of 'em had been in the sawmillin' and that was stuff they had left after they cut the timber off.
  • Then they went and sold that land to these niggers that worked for 'em.
  • There's a nigger over there had about 600 acres over there at Overton, and he leased that land to Douglas Scott. It was all good.
  • He was one of the best citizens over there and everybody, white people, respected him.
  • Every once in awhile you'd git a nigger, little old nigger that bought a piece of land, maybe fifty acres or sixty acres, and had several heirs, over a period of fifty years.
  • You'd lease it from what you thought to be the landowner and they wouldn't be no landowner at all.
  • They just lived there and the children had married and lived all the country.
  • First thing you know, you had to git about fifteen or twenty signatures to a lease before it was any good.
  • Then when you got that fixed up, here'd show up some more damn niggers claimin' they were the offspring of this nigger, you know. But it made it pretty rough on you, pretty rough.
  • B.- Did you ever hear of a Negro over there named Gabriel McElroy?
  • W.- Yeah
  • B.- Do you know his story?
  • W.- No, I don't, much about it. I've heard it, but I don't know much about it.
  • Now those niggers around Overton, they used to work for, for, oh -- fellow that owned all that country nearly.
  • They wouldn't deal except you go to see one of these white men they used to work for. Had to deal with them.
  • B.- Uh-huh, were they pretty good about protecting their Negroes' interests ?
  • W. - Oh, yes, you betcha.
  • Crim, that's it, Crim. B.- Oh, yeah.
  • W.- Well, Malcolm Crim, he'd go out and see these niggers and when the oil first came in he'd say, "Now, don't you lease this land till you first see me. I'll make the trade for you."
  • And every one of 'em stayed there, in there, and a nigger got a trade, you had to trade with Malcolm Crim.
  • B.~ They trusted him.
  • W.- Yeah, all the niggers trusted him, because they knew that he'd protect 'em.
  • One nigger over there -- I forgot his name. Anyway, he owned about, all total, nearly a section, but he, uh, didn't have a thing to do with it.
  • He turned it all over to Malcolm Crim.
  • And he did just what Malcolm Crim told him to do with his money. He's a wealthy man too.
  • B.- Well, what did they do with their money mostly? Did they buy-land with it, or invest it In some way?
  • W.- Well, most of 'em just stayed on there, on the farm; they had farms, you know. And most of 'em just stayed right out there on the farms.
  • And they'd go into Overton there, and, uh, not Overton, but Kilgore.
  • They'd go in Kilgore and see Mr. Crim, They'd go over and check his bank account and whatever he, Malcolm, told 'em, that just suited 'em.
  • B.- Would you say that the stories about the landowners wasting their money on automobiles and big houses and fast living, would you say that's typical or---?
  • W.- Well, it's typical, except there's a few landowners that, that kept their heads and they know what they're doin'.
  • They go to their bank and do all their business through their bank, No, a few of 'em would, but not so many of 'em.
  • (BREAK)
  • W.- California showed 'em all how to produce oil, these deep wells and things.
  • You can take fellows like Sid Richardson over here, probably worth $200 million. Twenty-five years ago he was just scalpin' leases.
  • And, uh, with these new equipments, they've been drillin' wells down to 15,000 feet and deeper; they got wells pro-ducin' below 15,000 feet. Well, that, uh, twenty-five years ago, you couldn't go below about 3,000 feet.
  • B.- Either with a rotary or a cable.
  • W.- No time, with nothing. Because we didn't have the equipment.
  • But the California people went to makin' those steel derricks, high derricks, and these heavy power rigs, gasoline rigs, 'Course steam's
  • no good for drillin' wells any more; it's too expensive. But these gas wells and these gasoline rigs and gas rigs, you can make 'em with interchangeable.
  • Boy, you can go just as far as the equipment will stay together.
  • You can't git a pipe that'll stay together on these deep holes except that they treat it at the factory when they make it. Just common ordinary pipe you couldn't --
  • B.- Would pull in two.
  • W.- Just twist it --- B.- On the weight, yeah.
  • W.- Its own weight would pull it in two. But they'd treat it and, uh, make it more like a rope, that it'd carry itself.
  • Because you take 15,000 feet of drill pipe, that's a lot of weight; that's 300-400,000 pounds. And then whirlin' it there too.; just whup itself in two.
  • B.- How much did it cost to drill a well when you first began drilling 'em?
  • W.- When I first began drillin' 'em?
  • B.- Uh-huh
  • W.- Oh, 'round $3,000, $2,000 or $3,000. Pipe was forty cents a foot; now it's three dollars.
  • And drill pipe, four-inch drill pipe, was forty cents, good heavy pipe too, but we didn't have no tool-joints.
  • "You had nothing except the collars like come on the pipe, and it would twist off.
  • But now they got these tool joints that was the biggest improvement.
  • But we didn't have 'em till about 1912 and not many then. Now you can git all of 'em you want but they're expensive.
  • B.- How much does it cost to drill a well now, would you say?
  • W.- Well, some of those wells out in West Texas cost as much as $500,000.
  • I've got a friend that run some big rigs out there, Arch Clarenger (?), fellow used to roughneck for me back when. He's got some of those big rigs out there, that cost as much as $500,000.
  • He told me that Gulf paid him on one well out there over half a million dollars for drillin' one well.
  • B.- Uh-huh
  • W.- They drilled down to 8,000 feet, see, perpendicular.
  • Put in a whip stock and, uh, diverted, say - forty-five degree angle, and drilled 5,000- 6,000 feet out south, then drilled in that same hole for 5,000 - 6,000 feet north, and then 5,000 - 6,000 feet west and then 5,000 -6,000 feet east and the bottom of those holes would be a mile apart, more than a mile apart.
  • B.- Uh-huh W.- They'd test all that area out of one well, you see, like down in the Gulf there.
  • Forty miles out the Magnolia got a, built a concrete platform that's about, uh, 300 foot square.
  • They drilled a well straight down got to be cool there too-- straight down and then they drilled one on each corner horizontal, four more wells, five wells on that one little platform, about 300 foot square,
  • B.- Uh-huh
  • W.- And they're doin' everything like that now.
  • B.- Does that demand a different type of workman from the old --
  • W.- No, they have an engineer that sets there on the derrick and keeps tab on that, log on the well, after they divert it horizontal.
  • The company has there - all of it's their risk too. But they have engineers sets there on that -- and gauger, takes a gauge on that drill stem. Put a swivel joint on at that 8,000 feet.
  • And you take like over there at Conroe, that big well of Aber-combie's , Jim Abercombie, flowed there so long, about 6,000 feet a day, wild, and they picked up all the oil and pumped it right into the line when their liable was only about 60,000 - 70,000 barrels. Made 'em a lot of money.
  • The good wells made -- Jim Abercombie's one of the best.
  • And the Humble tried to stop 'em, and the Railroad Commission tried to stop 'em. They said to the Railroad Commission, "You stop it. There it is -- go stop it."
  • (LAUGHTER)
  • The Humble finally paid 'em $350,000 to let 'em kill that well because it was drainin' all their property, see.
  • B.- Uh-huh, uh-huh
  • W.- And they're doin' things like that. Looks like it'd just be impossible to an ordinary well man.
  • But these engineers are gittin' smarter than hell, I'll tell you. Nothing impossible now in the oil business.
  • And these old drillers and engineers they've got out there have put a spark plug in this oil business.
  • These big fellows, at the top, they don't know anything about the oil business any more. And they've made so damn much money they don't want to know.
  • B.- They don't have to know; they just hire somebody that knows.
  • W.- Hell, yes. Like they took Gene Holman (?), superintendent of
  • a lease out here in West Texas, superintendent of that district, and put him into New York as president of Standard of New Jersey.
  • B.- Uh-huh W.- Just a kid.
  • B.- Uh-huh, he was a West Texas boy, wasn't he?
  • W.- Yeah, went to school over there at Simmons University. And they're doin' things like that, you know.
  • B.- You don't have your ditch-digger and your tank-builder any more, do you?
  • W.- No, no
  • B.- And that has changed the type of workman that you find in the oil field.
  • W.- I've got a friend that's dead now, poor old Jack is -- he laid two pipelines from Liverpool in 1906 to Port Arthur, for the Gulf.
  • Digged every foot of that pipeline with shovels and men. Didn't have these ditch-diggers then.
  • Well, we better go eat, I guess.
  • (END OP TAPE)