PIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL TOPIC: Spindletop, Sour Lake, Batson NAME: Benjamin (Bud) Coyle INTERVIEWER: W. A. Owens PLACE: Houston, Texas TAPE No. 121 DATE: 7/28/53 RESTRICTIONS: None
O.- At the end of the last tape we were talking about drinking in the oil fields.
C.- Huh?
O.- At the end of the last tape we were talking about drinking in the oil fields, and wonder if you had anything else to say about that particular problem?
C.- Well, it was just like the other things then. We had some men that you couldn't work at all and some that, most of the fellows that I knew and run with, we'd just, three or four of us would get in town and have a little party, you know--
O.- Yes.
C.- ---and then go back the next morning and work it off.
O.- Yes.
C.- And forget it for another month or so.
O.- Did many people go to work drunk on the rigs?
C.- No.
O.- You never heard of a man falling off a rig because he was drunk?
C.- No. Some of them would go on but not very many.
O.- Yes.
C.- Cause that, beat them to it. I know I've seen several of them
come along, you know, few fellers would, but not enough to amount to a whole lot, you know. And first place, a fellow didn't make money enough them days, you know, to stay drunk too much.
O.- Yes.
C.- Three dollars a day, you know, and pay his board and room and laundry and clothes why, he didn't have much left. If they had a family, you know, why, things like that. And then drillers got $200 a month. They'd have a little more to spend.
O.- But they also had more responsibility?
C.- Yes, oh yes.
O.- All right. I'm ready for you to tell me about your first journey over to Sour Lake. Would you tell me the full story?
C.- Well, a fellow Will Young and Sam Webb, and Will Henry and I, was subject to a call from over there. They left us over at Spindletop and Jim Sharp wired, or called this fellow Martin up and told him to go get us and get us together a team and start us over there. Well,that was about two o'clock in the evening, time we left Beaumont it was between five and six o'clock, best to my recollection. And with a good team of horses and a hack. And we got out there and I never will forget it. Will Young and I used to skin mules together. And we had some trouble about something or other and we got out there and broke two tracers, but had hitch ropes, and we knew enough to take them hitch ropes and make new tracers out of them and get us through them. Oh, it was terrible roads. And we got in Sour Lake at two o'clock the next morning at the Springs Hotel.
O.- About what distance was that?
C.- Oh, takes about 20 miles, something like that, 18 or 20 miles.
And pretty good driving time for horses.
O.- Yes.
C.- And had a well going and got up the next morning and went out getting things there ready to try to cap it. And finally quit itself of its own accord, choked off.
O.- What well was that?
C.- That was, we called it Roche #3, I think.
O.- That was earlier than the Gilbert #1?
C.- Yes, that was the well. They never did finish that well. Never did make a producer out of it. They just left it alone as is.
O.- Yes.
C.- But they hit the caprock there that was that pay, what we call caprock pay. And they tried to go through it. See, they was doing that on option, you know. And they wanted to see what was deeper and so forth. They would cover it up if they could, you know.
O.- Yes.
C.- Well, it didn't cover up, it uncovered. Well, it made sand, just big piles of sand. I got a picture round here some place of that thing. Now I know this Texas bunch still argues with me that that's what they call their #3 well, but it isn't. That picture, it's our well. And so, I think that was three, had two behind it. Yes, that was called Roche #3. There was three of them wells, prospect wells. Two wasn't much of a well. It was off at the edge. It made deeper production out there afterwards but--
O.- Yes. They were all three drilled by the Sharp brothers?
C.- Yes. O.- Yes.
C.- Jim was usually the guy that was pushing the whole thing. He stayed there.
O.- Yes. Well you were telling about how they used it for speculation.
C.- Well, it's just like they was--had it under option, you see. And they wanted to keep it secret, you know, as much as possible, you know. And find out all the information they could, you know. And course they just never did tell nobody, but course all of us fellows that worked there knew what it was, you know.
O.- Yes.
C.- And I know they'll still tell you the Gilbert was the first big well brought in. But this well, we'd been using fuel oil off of it before ever they'd cleared out those jungles over there to drill the Gilbert well.
O.- Is that right?
C.- But they hadn't produced enough, only just fuel oil for the boilers out of it, hadn't got no pipeline or nothing in there to handle it.
O.- Well, how'd they keep people from knowing about it?
C.- Well, it's different from what it is now. There wasn't anybody keeping too much--nobody didn't think much of it.
O.- Yes.
C.- And like I'm telling you, the way we finished the well, they thought we set stringers in it.
O.- Yes. Go ahead and tell me that full story, would you?
C.- Well, I didn't work on it the first time. Tom Smith and Charlie Dawson drilled it. And when I got over there Jim decided to go backin it. And didn't, but a little old well there just a little old stray sand outfit and it didn't do in nothing. And we taken some two inch
pipe, went in that four inch and it hit the cap, hit the pure-d caprock. Well, sir, I never will forget it, we'd, had a fishing job on that Pear Orchard well, and had some three inch pipe collars turned down so it'd go inside of--a regular three inch collar won't go in an ordinary four inch pipe. They call it four and a half pipe now, but it was--we called it--well, they use it outside diameter now and we used the inside then. And Jim sent me after that. He drove me down to Pine Island Bayou and I got in an old boat and a paddle. Had to go to Nona to get on a train.
O.- Yes.
C.- No train over there. And the bayou was up and couldn't cross the bridge. And I walked over there, but just happened I was going to have to pull my clothes off and wade another bayou about waist deep. But a fellow come along with a team. And we could go across in that wagon I got on the wagon and went with him, and went over. I told him I'd go over there to see Martin and get a team. And they had some, couple of teams, a livery stable there of Walter and Jim. And go out to Spindletop and get that pipe. I knew where it was at, thought I knew where it was at, because I'd stacked it down there. And Walter was there. Walter said, "I'll just go with you." He wanted to be sure to get the pipe there, I knew why he was going along for. And he wanted to go out there for something else anyway. Got out there we didn't have any pipe. And a fellow come in there named Murray, the first one of these junk dealers and that'd buy anything, wouldn't never ask where it come from. And Walter Sharp knew him in Corsicana; he done that kind of business in Corsicana. He said, "Drop me off at Murray's place." I got there, I said, "There's that
pipe." Walter made that old Murray haul it to the depot. And he told him what he'd do to him if he ever caught him with anymore of his stuff. And then we carried that pipe over there and set it in there, and then brought the well in. And then went on there, and when John W. Gates and Walter Sharp and Charlie Gates, when they come over there, why Walter Sharp had me and one of my men to come over there at four o'clock in the morning and show them that well, just raining torrents. And--
O.- You opened it up?
C.- Opened it up and it was a well we estimated to make around from 5 to 7 thousand barrels a day.
O.- Yes. Then did you shut it as soon as they had seen--
C.- Huh?
O.- Did you shut if off again as soon as they'd seen?
C.- Yes, yes. And then got rid of the oil it all run out. Nobody never did know it was open or know nothing about it.
O.- Yes. Well, how did you get rid of the oil?
C.- The God Almighty taken care of that for us. He just washed it off down in the woods where, nothing but a bear could get nearly, down in that Big Thicket.
O.- Yes.
C.- And nobody ever saw it for, I know it laid there for--
O.- Yes.
C.- And time they saw it oil was everywhere anyhow and knew where it come from. So--
O.- But that is really the first discovery at Sour Lake?
C.- Yes that was really the first, that number three as they call it
got the monument over it. It was really the first finished caprock well. The one behind the house was the first caprock well.
O.- It wasn't finished?
C.- No, it never had no pipe on, just surface pipe set in there. And, oh, well, you could drill two or three wells cheaper than you could clean it out, because it was only 710 foot deep.
O.- Did Walter Sharp ever talk to you about his operations there around the late '90's?
C.- No, not much, just a little bit, said something or other. I know they drilled a well there at Sour Lake and one at Spindletop, tried to, you know, but they didn't, wasn't equipped for it, didn't have the money, and outfits they was with, you know, and one thing and another. They all had to walk out of there.
O.- Did you see the old refinery that he set up at Sour Lake?
C.- I saw some of the junk laying around there but I didn't--
O.- He never talked to you about it?
C.- No. Well, I don't think he, he didn't build the first refinery there.
O.- He didn't?
C.- No, I don't think. I think the Atlantic and Pacific bunch was the ones that built that first little old refinery.
O.- Is that right? I've been told that he did.
C.- No, no. No, Walter Sharp didn't think nothing of Sour Lake for a long time. Ed Prather wanted to buy it and Walter Sharp said no, no, said that's sand. They was afraid. They just figured it was just them little shallow sand wells, you know. And as I was telling you, they didn't know. We just only had a perforated pipe and the wire that
would--machinery was just common telephone wire, you know, for a stringer. And irregular and they was very unsatisfactory.
O.- Yes.
C.- And they couldn't keep the sand out of them. But they had no idea about that. Well, they had, till they went there and done that prospecting work there. And this fellow Roche got there and old man J. S. Cullinan. Course he had John W. Gates behind him. And they went in there and everybody, you know, thought that was the awfulest price in the world to pay for a piece of land,
O.- Yes.
C.- And you couldn't buy it back today for--
O.- That's right, for all the profit that it had probably.
C.- Sort of like, you know, they'll go around, you know, about these geologists. I use to tell them that if ever I find one of them guys that knows as much as they do, I'm going to marry him. Said, "Marry him?" I said, "Why, he'll think I'm married to him I'll stick so close to him." And you know they always said, you know, different things, you know. They'll tell you now about what great work they've done and one thing and another, you know. And it's plumb joke to me because I know that they've just--possibly there was no oil on the Gulf Coast only on the salt domes. Course they'll come back now at you this way if you ever get after them, "Well, if you go deep enough you'll find a salt dome," but they, it won't--
O.- Yes.
C.- And another thing is that West Texas you was a fool to drill a well out there. I've had some of the biggest ones, old Doctor Phillips and several of them tell me that. But Walter Sharp said if they ever
got drilling rigs where they could go 10,000 feet, they'd get oil almost anywhere they drilled. Darn if it don't look like it now.
O.- Yes. Well, when did you go to Sour Lake to stay? At that time?
C.- Yes.
O.- Well, where did you stay?
C.- Well, first I stayed at the Springs Hotel.
O.- Would you give me a description of that?
C.- Well the Springs Hotel, I had a Sunday paper here I--well, anyway I tell you a whole lots looks like this club that D. Ferris and them's got out here. The front part of it had a big old thing that they drove the hacks under and one thing and another. Long porch and two story old building and, and health resort. It's a wonder to me everybody that went there and drink that water didn't die.
O.- Why?
C.- It's nothing in God's green earth but the worst kind of seep water. There at that little old lake they call it, a lake, why, it wasn't as big as a fish pond. A little old kind of artificial hole there. And that water, them wells under there all different, but you could take a beer bottle and knock the bottom off of it and stick it down in that mud and set it afire. And it'd burn till the wind blowed it out.There's a path around there that went over what we called the Shoestring district. And we'd take and work some two inch pipe down there and put a tin can over it. And set it afire so we could go by there at night. And there was a little old well they drilled there. They said it was 18 feet. I don't know now, just a little old hole. I think it was about half. And it flowed mud and water and a little gas and a little oil. And that's what that old nigger put on them to cure--
It would cure the eczema.
O.- Yes.
C.- You see, that old nigger, Doctor Mud, now he was a character. And these oil companies put night and day scouts on him, because he said he went out in the woods and got that mud to put on them people, but he did no such darn thing. They scouted him there and he neverdid leave his house at night. I don't think you could pulled him out in that woods at night with an ox team. But them little old wells there was wooden curbed.
O.- Yes.
C.- And they all taste different. And two to four, you could hardly drink it. Five, maybe four and five you can drink it, but six and seven, dadgummed, if you could, five or six, five, six, and seven, seven I couldn't hardly drink it at all. Hard, but that was all there was. They was only four or five foot deep. Cause I know, a newsboy come by there and he was looking down in there. And had three silver dollars in his pocket and they fell in the well. And he went and got his father and they bailed the water out of there. And knocked one of them boards off and that kid was going to crawl down in there to get his three dollars. And the gas knocked him out. And his father was running hollering, and Jim Sharp run down there and that boy would have died if it hadn't been for Jim Sharp. Jim run down there and jerked him out of there. And on Spindletop we knowed how, we'd brought them fellows back there, you know. And in fact there was in that big burn there, if it hadn't been for Jim Sharp a fellow named Tom Barrett would have died, but Jim had met with these athletes you know. He was quite a athlete, he was a pretty good boxer. And he pumped the
life back into this boy. Now that's the kind of well them things were, they was drinking that health water out of. And they had a building there, and then they had a row of buildings, one story buildings, called Bachelor Row. And that's where all of us drillers and fellers stayed there, stayed out there in Bachelor's Row. That was just for me. Just a long road and they had a little waiting room in there or a place in there, and had a bath. And we stayed there and eat at the main building. However, I was back there and staying there. And I was there by the hotel. I was staying there when the hotel burnt down.
O.- Is that right? Could you describe the fire?
C.- Well, see, it was built in more of an L shape. Well, out this way and this way the room, and back on this end of it was the kitchen. And I had a room right in between there. And about four o'clock in the morning I heard a nigger wench, "Calvin, bring my shoes!" I never will forget it. Just kept yelling, you know. And I thought it was some of them nigger cooks. I knowd it was about time for them to come in there. And come down there and one had caught another nigger in his hole, you know.
O.- Yes.
C.- And I run up that, had the window shade down and I couldn't see nothing, you know. I run up that window shade to cuss her out, you know, for waking me up that time of morning. And whee, that whole thing was afire. And by that time, the landlady and her niece lived downstairs, they got them awake. And they come, and me and this little girl woke everybody up on the second floor and we got out of there, nobody hurt.
O.- Is that right?
C.- Well, you know, that was made out of this pine that they only sawed logs up to the first knot or limb and then on out on good hard pine. And it'd been standing there and it'd been painted two or three times. Boy, you know it was a bonfire for your eyeballs.
O.- I'll bet. What was the name of the lady who had it?
C.- Betty Lane, Aunt Betty Lane. She was a great big woman, mighty fine woman.
O.- Did you lose your belongings in the fire?
C.- No, I didn't lose nothing.
O.- You got everything out, huh?
C.- That's right. Not but very few lost anything.
O.- Yes. They had time to get out.
C.- I never will forget what a fellow named Bobby Robinson did. We'd had a little poker game, just a little friendly penny ante game. And, see, it was a mile or so up there to town. And we sent a fellow up there and he brought us a couple of quarts of whiskey. And it was rainy, bad weather, nothing to do, you know. And, oh I guess we played till twelve o'clock maybe. Didn't play late, wouldn't play late. And we had one quart left, never did touch. And Bobby taken it along to his room with him. And I never will forget it. Out of New York, Bobby, he was quite a little guy, little bitty guy. And he said,"Look there, I got her." And directly he just dropped it and said, "Oh, my God," he said, "while I was getting this, I left a brand new fifty dollar suit of clothes hanging in the closet." So we was all there, that was quite a bunch there. Yount's wife, wasn't his wife then, was there.
O.- What was her name?
C.- Dailey, Charlie Dailey's wife. And I know she kept wanting Charlie and I to keep moving her trunk back. Everytime it'd get a little warm she wanted to move her stuff back farther back.
O.- Uh-huh. Do you remember anybody else who was there at the fire?
C.- Oh, I don't know now who all was there. Robinson, Charlie Dailey, and there was a banker and his wife there, fellow that run the bank up there, oh, forget his name now. And say, I'll tell you now who Martin was running for--why I didn't think of it?--Terrell Estate.
O.- Terrell?
C.- Terrell, Terrell, old Captain Terrell's estate.
O.- Oh, yes.
C.- And, you know, he was an old timer.
O.- Yes.
C.- Bill Terrell. And I happened to think about it. And he can tell you all about it.
O.- Yes.
C.- Cause he was bookkeeper for them when they was down there in a little old tiny building.
O.- Yes. Well where did you go to stay then, after the hotel burned?
C.- Well, that was back in a later date. That was back in '18, I think that thing burned in '08 or '09.
O.- Oh, it was much later than the fire?
C.- Oh yes, yes.
O.- Oh. All right. Well I'd like to go back earlier then to get some of the other operations.
C.- Well, then an old fellow named Boyle run it, the Springs Hotel,
when we went there.
O.- Oh, I see.
C.- And he sold out to a woman, I forget her name. And she immediately jumped our room rent up and board up to $75 a month.
O.- How much had it been before?
C.- Thirty.
O.- Thirty to seventy five?
C.- Yes. Well, we couldn't pay it and Jim and Walter Sharp built us a house. But while they was building the house we stayed around, had a terrible time getting a place to stay. I never will forget, I moved into--fellow he, fellow's name, the Walden brothers. And one of them turned his tool house into a place to sleep. Well, I was working nights and he slept there at daytime. Nice sleeping there and it was right up there by that old Ryder Hotel. They all called it Wall Street. Oh, everything, all these here fly-by-night boomers and lease and speculators and things had places up there, and the real estate guys you never saw it----. And it was right out in the Piney woods from that, this shack was. I think it was about a six by eight, not over eight by ten, I know, thing, you know. It was setting way off there, you know. And always somebody knocking on the door in the daytime there wanting to know if they could get in. They thought it was a ChickSale. I told that on Dad Walden. He'd tell me, "I'll kill you if you tell about that." I remember one day I was asleep and I heard something go boom and the house go to moving. And a log caught me and they had a great string of oxen to a boiler and they'd hung me with the wheels of that wagon, you know. And turned me off of there. By that time Walter and Jim had us a house built for all of us drillers.
O.- Yes. Where was that, over on the----
C.- No, it's uptown, in the town. The residence part of the town.
O.- Yes.
C.- Where it opened up there.
O.- Well, how big was Sour Lake when you first went there?
C.- Big? There was one store and a post office there, and scattered dwellings.
O.- Yes.
C.- And then down there that was where really the town started at, up there was this Barrenholt's store. Why, I see that fellow around town here. He's, I don't know what, doesn't do nothing. He's been sick for years and years. Used to see him ever time I'd go to town. I haven't saw him lately, because I haven't been up town lately. But I see Barrenholt nearly ever time I go up there.
O.- What's his name ?
C.- Barrenholt.
O.- Barrenholt.
C.- Uh-huh. Oh, I forget his first name.
O.- Yes.
C.- Then the next outfit come in there from Corsicana, Nichols and Watson. And by the way they built a two story house and I roomed there awhile after I come out of--that's where I come out of the shack to Nichols and Watson. Stayed there till they got that. And that was all was there that I remember anything about.
O.- Uh-huh. And how soon did the town start growing after you got there
C.- Whew! Well, it was, oh, next two or three months after we got there before they got really to building.
O.- Yes. Well, would you describe what went on? You watched a lotof that happen.
C.- Well, they just built there so fast. You see, that was supposed to be a local option territory.
O.- Yes.
C.- But they got in there and declared the election void and well, they just sold it anyhow. I never will forecall--get, a fellow named Lewis Somebody Else, that use to have these nickel splits, what they call beer. Made down here at Houston, where all beer was made. A little bottle just cost 'em a nickel.
O.- Yes.
C.- And they had a bootlegging place there and had about six or seven men. They just dumped in a tub, or half of a barrel, you know, sawed in two, and tin tub and everything else. Had them all scattered around over the floor and charge you 15 cents a bottle for that. And had four or five men open them, just as fast as they could haul them in there and open them. And then there comes the saloons and the gambling houses.
O.- Yes.
C.- Thieves and the thugs, and it was awful.
O.- Really got pretty rough?
C.- Oh, it got awful rough.
O.- What were some of the saloons there?
C.- Well, the Crosby House was the best saloon. That's where most of the fellows that had any respect for themselves--that's where we done the little drinking we done, right there mostly. A fellow Lewis had a saloon, a fellow Tom Thompson, and I don't know who all now. But
several of them up and down there. There was a whole bunch of them.
O.- Yes.
C.- But old Captain Kidd owned the Crosby House. He owned the Crosby House in Beaumont, and he owned that Crosby House. He had rooms upstairs and a saloon downstairs. But his was, run in a gentlemen's way because the ol-- And then that railroad come in. Why, they built another town site. Course it's all down there now.
O.- Yes.
C.- Down by the railroad, the station. The old railroad, somebody's taken the railroad up now. And when it did come in there, they went down there. And old lady Malivant, she was a character. She opened up a hotel down there.
O.- What could you tell me about that hotel?
C.- Well, I never did stay there but I've been by there a lot of times. And she [inaudible], and more or less a boarding house. But they called it a hotel. I forget the name of the thing now. She come out of the Reservation or something here, I think. I disremember. Of course I know she was a character.
O.- Is that right?
C.- But she didn't have no women around there that I knew anything about at all.
O.- Yes.
C.- And then another quite a character opened a place there, was old lady O'Neal. Whew, she was a tooter!
O.- Tell me about her.
C.- She was an old Irish woman, just an old West Virginia and Ohio, and Pennsylvania Irishman.
O.- Yes.
C.- She was a pretty good old woman at that. She had a terrible family but pretty good old lady. Well, I roomed with her in later years there after, well after, and I never did board there when she run a boarding house.
O.- Yes.
C.- Because when she run the boarding house, I had Sharp's up there to eat at and it was a better place.
O.- Yes.
C.- And they, they were----
O.- They built another, the other camp there?
C.- Yes. They built us just a house, a nice house. We got one of the fellows to run it, you know, and board us, Bill Merritt. And I got to run a rig over there. One day Walter Sharp come along, him and Jim, and said, "Come go with us, turn that over to somebody." And, you see, they'd drilled two wells over there. And they had a contract with the Gulf Oil Company at eighty cents a barrel to take the production off of two wells. Or had one well, was what it was, couldn't take that. And, that was in that Shoestring over there. And they got me down in the woods. "Sit down," said, "Now listen here, we're going to tell you something. Now, we know you don't like work at nights. But now, we can, we're going to pay you just as much money as ever you're getting drilling, $200. And we can hire fellows, plenty of them at $90 a month to do this job. But we're going to have a lawsuit. And we hire these fellows, we don't know where they'll go at, but we're pretty sure we can keep our hands on you. And we can trust you. And we've got to have somebody that they can't buy off and one thing and another. So
you do us accommodation to come over here and gauge these wells at night." And I done that there for three or four months.
O.- Yes.
C.- I didn't do nothing but go out there and, only run two tanks, one at seven o'clock at night and, two, six o'clock in the morning. That's all there was to it. It'd run over and run off down and run back in on the Texas Company property. And they picked it up and carried it out to the----. That well would make 17,000, had it wide open. Make 17,000 barrels a day from 710 feet. I gauged it and know it made it.
O.- The Texas Company was getting the extra oil though?
C.- Well, Sharp and them were getting some of it too.
O.- Yes.
C.- And then a lot of it went on down into the woods too. But they let it run there. But they never had no lawsuit. They settled it up with them some way or another.
O.- Yes.
C.- The Gulf couldn't handle their own oil, let alone, but they didn'thave not idea any such well was coming in like that.
O.- Yes. Nobody was prepared for such production.
C.- No, no.
O.- Well----
C.- And then lined up with that, they had an oil company called the Drillers Oil Company. They formed there at Beaumont, had a well or two there. And come over there and they drilled one dry hole. And Ed Prather was looking after it. And old Judge Hardin and some more that was interested in it said Sharp wouldn't give them a good driller. They had their own rig. And Walter says, "Well I, we never thought,
about it, nothing about it," said letting Ed do this. Said, "I'll let Ed pick any man we got to put on it." And Ed picked me. And I went down to Shoestring there and made a well. And till Batson opened up and then I went over there and drilled some wells for the Drillers Oil Company, worked all through the Batson field with the Drillers Oil Company. And that was the last connection directly with Sharp,
O.- At Batson?
C.- Yes, at Sour Lake.
O.- At Sour Lake?
C.- Yes.
O.- All right. Well, would you describe work on the Shoestring, what it was like then?
C.- Well, now that was a--I forget how wide them things were. They wasn't very wide, just strips of land and run way back into the woods, you know, clear off the field. And there's one little corner of it down there what they called the Wirt-Davis, was all that ever really amounted to anything. The others just had them little old sand wells, you know, and they wasn't much.
O.- Yes.
C.- And, for those days. And that is what is known as the Shoestring district, because it's in strips, you know----
O.- Yes.
C.- ----because it looked like a shoestring, narrow strips.
O.- How many wells do you suppose were in there?
C.- I don't have the least idea. There's a couple of hundred of them, I expect, that produced, maybe not that many.
O.- Well, could you tell me about gassing in those wells?
C.- Oh, shoot! Somebody was always getting killed in there in that Shoestring district, at night especially.
O.- Why?
C.- Gas overcome them. I know two boys there that died there one night working for Howard Hughes. I know I help pull several out of there and bring them back.
O.- Why didn't you----
C.- In fact, I got knocked out myself there one time.
O.- How long did it take you to get over it?
C.- About three or four minutes. And I never will forget it. I went to help a friend of mine out on a fishing job. He didn't know how to do something, or didn't know how to do nothing much. But he just had a job for a friend around there and I got to be a friend of his. But I felt it. I knew it was coming because my ear--when your ears got to ringing. I'd been, I was knocked out once on Spindletop too.
O.- Yes.
C.- And when you come to, why, you don't know nothing about it. I never will forget at Spindletop a fellow Tom Smith. I walked up on his rig, one of Sharp's rigs. He says--he's a tall fellow--"That fellow's gonna get knocked out over there if he don't move." There's a V in the well and he was standing on some pipe at the V. And you could see the gas, you know. You could see like heat in the air, you know.
O.- Yes, uh-huh.
C.- Says he's going to get a whiff of that directly and knock out. And I couldn't make him hear me. And I run over there and there was a new derrick here, no rig on it, just a new floor. And there was two
women and a man standing on that. And just as I hit that floor that fellow went backwards. Well, if you've never seen anybody knocked out with it, you'd swear they was dead.
O.- Yes.
C.- So I just rolled back. And, course I was much of a man then. And I just run by and grabbed this fellow. He had on a slicker or a raincoat. And I just grabbed him by the collar of that. And the pipe was green and I just skidded him away from there in time for two or three roughnecks got there. And we had him on that floor, you know. And one holding each hand and I was on his breast pumping. And these women beating in my back, "Leave my brother alone, leave my husband alone." I never heard such squalling and hollering in all my life. And course directly he, "What, what, what's wrong, what's the matter, what's the matter?" And they commence to want to hug and kiss me and all. Younever saw such a mess up there. And they were the worst excited women.Course they thought he was dead, there wasn't nothing to it.
O.- Yes.
C.- We knew he wasn't dead, knew he would be all right in a minute. But they didn't. They thought he was dead. And first one ever I saw, I thought was dead too. And I saw them five fellers that died in that Beaumont-Palestine well.
O.- Could you tell me about that? Where was----
C.- Out at Spindletop, It was a wild well they let. Got wild on them and they went in there to shut it off. Tom Blair was the only one of them that lived. If it hadn't been for Jim Sharp, he wouldn't have lived. He worked on him five hours before he got it out of him. But he was drunk to go on. They all was, they stayed drunk. I didn't see
them when they went in there but I saw them after they was pulled out. I helped work on old Tom Blair.
O.- Well, you would think they would have learned about gas, don't you?
C.- Well, you see, we had no separators then. And, and like you just stick around a little bit too long, you know. And we had no way. At Batson old J. S. Cullinan and, Walter Sharp rather figured out a kind of crude separator out of a wooden tank. But the guard tank would shrink and then it was in a heck of a mess. And then old man J.S. ordered a steel one. And that's the start of the separator business.
O.- Is that right?
C.- And we'd set the steel one on top of the, of our settling tanks----
O.- Yes.
C.- ----and flow the well in there. But we had to regulate it with a piece of piping. Hasn't got the gauges and things on it like it has now.
O.- Yeh. You think Walter Sharp was really responsible for the invention then of that first separator?
C.- Yes, he was really. We taken this tank and we put what we called a false deck in it.
O.- Yes.
C.- And filled that full of mud for a topping, you know. And then we'd flow that well in there. And then let it run out. That'd be the separator, you know. And then the bottom part of that. But see, it'd shrink, we couldn't drive the hoops on it because we had this here. You couldn't put a top on that wooden top pattern if you know what, we'd blow it off, we was afraid, you know. And we put that weight top on there, you know. And that way we couldn't drive the hoops off of it.
O.- Yes.
C.- And it'd get to leaking and just as bad as, worse than if it'd all wear out in one place.
O.- Yes.
C.- But old man J. S. built the first one of the steel ones, poured on, topped on there. And, see, them wells was so close together at Spindletop and Sour Lake, that Shoestring.
O.- Yes.
C.- There was just a well every 20 feet, you know.
O.- One man's well would gas another man's crew.
C.- And----
O.- And horses and mules as well?
C.- Oh yes, yes, oh yes. I know that where I got my finger--we had an underground pit flowing, and them blowing their wells. It'd run off down there in the furrows. One morning a fellow come in, said, "You better do something. There's five dead cows down there by that tank." I got the team and had him run down there and pull them off out in the furrows. A horse and mule can't stand a bit of it, hardly.
O.- Yes.
C.- They'll go down quicker than a man. They'll go out where a man won't go out.
O.- Well, while we're talking about inventions, who was the first one to use mud in drilling?
C.- Well, I don't know. Curt Hamill claims that, and he may have been.
O.- Yes. Do you think that Walter Sharp used mud in drilling waterwells? Do you know whether he did or not?
C.- No, I don't think he did.
O.- Well, do you know whether old man Bowden did or not?
C.- I don't know. I don't know. I know down in Mississippi, Walter Sharp and them, maybe old Bowden had something to do with that, I don't know, wouldn't say, think he did. Him and Walter used to be partners. They had a gravel pit they had to go through down there but they drove through that and had to bail the gravel out with some rods like sucker rods.
O.- Yes.
C.- And I don't think they knew anything about mud or they'd got through that gravel there. But you see at Corsicana they had no such thing as quicksand like. They could drill them with a cable tool up there, you know, but those rotaries are lots faster. But they couldn't drill nothing with a cable rig at around here no how; the sand's too bad.
O.- Well, can you tell me about the invention of the rock bit?
C.- Well, that there is. If I wanted to talk on that, I guess I know about as much about it as anybody outside of Howard Hughes, Ed Prather or somebody like that, some of them fellows. We had a terrible time, you know, a very crude affair, you know. Our bits wasn't any good, to speak of, you know. They just ordinary steel tempered, and water and oil and they'd wear out quick. And it was a big trouble to change them. And some fellows at Sour Lake, Johnny Wynn and some fellows--Johnny claims more about it, but Johnny didn't do nothing but put up the men. Old McLaughlin, him and another fellow, I forget that other fellow's name now, was really the fellows that made the bit. But old Johnny, it was in his shop and he put up the money, he claims it.
O.- Yes.
C.- But it wasn't. It was old McLaughlin. And the Union Sulphur
Company had a crude affair of a bit. And old Newmanson had a crude affair at Shreveport then.
O.- Yes.
C.- Which would develop the Reed Roller Bit out of the patent. He claimed they didn't get something or other. He did though. And Walter Sharp, Howard Hughes, and more or less, you know, one of them kind of fellows, you know, a funny guy. But Howard Hughes hadn't made a success in the oil business, that was a cinch.
O.- Yes.
C.- But he was a pretty good engineer. Pretty good dreamer, you know. And Walter knew it and he bought all these patents up and turned Howard loose to make a rock bit.
O.- Walter actually bought the patents himself?
C.- Yes.
O.- And turned Hughes loose.
C.- Howard may have bought them but Walter paid for them.
O.- Yes.
C.- And for a half interest, you know. And then Walter did it someway or other. Mrs. Sharp sold her half interest to Ed Prather. And then Ed finally sold out to Howard because--said Howard run him crazy, the way he'd do business, you know. Nobody, but old Howard, he made a lot of money out of it.
O.- Yes.
C.- And that was one of the first of this rock bit business, you know. Howard, really, he taken all them bits and was a long time with--really the only thing he had a patent on, might near anything that'd stick up though, was this lubricating affair.
O.- Is that right?
C.- And this Reed Roller Bit, you see, he beat them, you know, and I run the first drive bit for old Reed, in a drilling rig that I was looking after for around, that was ever run without oil.
O.- Where was this?
C.- Out at Humble.
O.- Is that right?
C.- He give me a $50 suit of clothes to run it and that was a top suit of clothes them days, you know.
O.- Yes.
C.- At Hamilton Brothers up here, old Hamilton brothers. To run it for him, I run it and he really made this here new bit that they don't use no lubricating with, but he couldn't get a patent on it. And Hughes just taken it up too and makes a little better one, I think too, always did. Some people like the Reed the best, but I always liked the Hughes bit the best.
O.- Well, what was the name of that well at Humble where you made it, do you remember?
C.- Oh, it was down on the river there and kind of a little old outfit called the Texas Oil Producers. But now I never would say nothing about running it in there cause I went to contracting and I didn't want nobody to know that, get in no argument with Hughes or any of them.
O.- Yes, of course.
C.- But I'd done it for Hughes.
O.- Yes. Well, you think that Hughes actually is the man who invented it, the bit from all these others?
O.- Yes, yes, he is.
O.- You don't think that--or do you think that Sharp had anything to do other than financing?
C.- Well, he'd bring his ideas to Walter, I'm pretty sure of that.
O.- Yes.
C.- But how much Walter had to do with that I do not know.
O.- Yes.
C.- But when it come to anything like that--one thing about Howard Hughes, when he made anything he wanted it to be good. That's been one of his secrets of success. Everything he made was good, that ever I handled.
O.- Where did you first know him?
C.- Huh?
O.- Where did you first know Hughes?
C.- Beaumont.
O.- Well, could you tell me something about him there?
C.- Well, the first I knew of him, he was hanging around there and I don't know what he was doing, but hanging around with the Sharp brothers. And then him and Ed Prather and Walter and Jim Sharp organized that Texas Pumping Company I'll tell you about.
O.- Yes.
C.- Went to putting these steam heads, but we didn't have no place to put them in all that. We didn't have none of these power units then, and these things, just those little old steam heads of business. And we put them in the wells out there, pumping them on 50%, I believe, or something like that. And blowing them with air too. But one air plant, I don't, one air plant Howard Hughes didn't have an interest in,
the biggest one. But the one over there he did.
O.- Well, on the air plant, Walter Sharp didn't invent that, you think?
C.- No, no, no. Old man Griffin was the man that had the first airmachines at Spindletop.
O.- Old man Griffin?
C.- Yes. Oh, he wasn't an old, I called him old man down there. I guess he was 40 or 50 years old. Course I was just a boy. But Griffin had that first air plant there.
O.- Yes. And Sharp got the idea from----
C.- No, Sharp had blowed water wells with them before.
O.- Oh.
C.- There's nothing new about blowing wells though.
O.- Yes. C.- I think they blowed some of them wells at Corsicana with them. No, but this article in this thing about him having a patent on it and everything else. I know the one that Howard Hughes had an interest in. And they was hard to get an air machine, any size. And Walter found a big old ice machine, low pressure machine, we called it. And it'd make lots of air but it wouldn't put up much pressure. And put that up there and put it in a well for Paul Amos over there in the Lone Acre. But you couldn't buy no parts for the obsolete thing. It had a funny valve in it, but you could make them. And one of them broke one night. And of course I had to go to town and have it made. And I went over to get the fellow's gate in the well and was going to put it somewhere else. And he says, "Why, shucks, I'm still getting oil."And that well flowed for 30 days before old Paul found it out. And that Security Oil Company, I believe it was then, had that big Magnolia
Refinery then. And he was going to come out there and going to change the connections from--I think we was running it to the Texas or somebody--and take that well away from Sharp. And this old boy caught them, you know, and I got there. And called Walter and told me to go up there and keep them away. And I never will forget it. Jim had the first automatic pistol I ever saw or any of us ever saw. And a fellow by the name of Jim Byrd, he always wanted to shoot that damn pistol. I never was pistol crazy, but he'd want to shoot that pistol. And I had that pistol down at the camp and another one. And I went down and got them and give one to Jim. "I'm going down here and move these here pipeliners off." And I went out there, and, oh, this fellow--I forget his name--but he used to be--he died up here the general superintendent at Shreveport for the Gulf, he was a Easterner. Old Jim couldn't resist the temptation and he got behind that tank and shot that pistol. Well, this guy jumped and had his team cut there, and them Mickey's throwed down their shovels and tongs and things and all run and he jumped in his buggy and run off. And old guy, old Paul he'd ride around there with me, you know, and ride around. And about that time Walter and Jim drove up. "What's the matter?" he said. "By gosh," he said, "I like to got her back." He knew if he'd ever got all the pipeline they'd had a mighty tough time getting it back. And I never will forget, old Paul Amos met me in the Crosby House bar. Come up to--I forget the fellow he was working for, knew him very well. He said, "I don't give a damn what the Sharp brothers are paying you. I'll give you $50 more a month." That was a big raise them days, you know. He said, "By golly, you put that over my men for over thirty days out there and I didn't get by thirty minutes with it until you
was on my neck. I want a man like you." But I didn't take the job of course, but it was all right.
O.- Did you at any time test any of the Hughes bits for them in those early days?
C.- Yes, I tested some of them, one out in West Texas, they brought way out there.
O.- Do you remember what year that was?
C.- 1911.
O.- They were pretty well perfected by then, were they not?
C.- Well, they hadn't really put them on the market yet.
O.- They hadn't?
C.- No, they had still, figuring with them.
O.- Uh-huh. How secret were they in their operation on that deal?
C.- Oh, well, out there didn't have to be very secret because they just shipped it out there in a box, and I was way out on a ranch with nobody to bother me no how.
O.- Yes.
C.- But around here they was very secret about it. I remember around down Goose Creek when they first tried out some of them down there. And----
O.- You never saw them try any out out there?
C.- No, but out there I tried it out out there. It was all right. There was a lot of work to them things. This here thing they've got now they've got them all; see, they got a ball bearing, got that, wouldn't work without that oil that worked on them others. Cause it'd soon burn up and lock. And when they lock, why, all the teeth flattens right out, right now.
O.- Well, I'd like to go back to Batson now for a little while. You went over there; do you remember what year you went to Batson?
C.- Well, that was '04, wasn't it?
O.- 1904. You didn't go to Saratoga then?
C.- I went from there to Saratoga.
O.- Prom Batson to Saratoga,
C.- Yes.
O.- All right, well----
C.- Well, I went over there for the Drillers Oil Company. That come along, let's see, that must have been, I know it was Christmas time. I never will forget, they sent me two boilers from Liberty over there. And I promised my mother faithfully I'd come home Christmas dinner. And had a terrible time getting my boilers moved in Beaumont, never will forget it. And so a fellow putting the necks, had them on the collar, just couldn't get them on the horses. Fellow said, "Go get that transfer clerk and give him ten dollars and he'll have 'em moved for you." And I'd been trying two weeks, I think, and Ed Prather and all of them, they finally left. And I went and got this old boy. And I give him $10, and, doggone, three hours my darn boilers was at Liberty. And it was Christmas Eve and I went over there and I caught that train and went to Dallas on that train that night. And eat Christmas dinner and come back, and was in Batson the day after Christmas. I went in there and I drilled, oh, about fifth or sixth well in there for the Drillers Oil Company there. Then we put that in an earthen tank. And one of the first perforated wells that ever paid off would be one of these perforaters on it. Bill Sturm had made one, kind of crude affair to what they got now.
O.- Yes.
C.- And not so much different. And I perforated that well and blowed it with air and made a lot of oil out of it.
O.- Which well was that?
C.- That was the Drillers Oil Company number 1, Knight, I believe they called it.
O.- At Batson?
C.- Yes. And then we drilled some more shallower wells for them out there.
O.- How long were you in Batson?
C.- About a year, I guess, or a little better.
O.- Where'd you stay there?
C.- We had our own little shacks, and Sharp had a boarding camp, see. And I was still connected with Sharp there, you know----
O.- Yes.
C.- ----in a way. That Drillers Oil Company is part of theirs. And they had a eating shack, why I eat there. And we all, first had those shacks up on the lease but it got so gassy and everything we had to move them. And I eat up at town then. But that's while Sharp was getting his camp. And then they put it off down that way where Ben Harper built what they called the Batson Iron Works, and down there and machine shop. And we all went down there. I think Sharp owned property down there or something. And we all went down there, moved our shacks all down there. And I had a shack for my men and one for myself.
O.- Yes.
C.- And we stayed there.
O.- Well, you had pretty good living arrangements?
C.- Oh yes, it was just a good bed and a good tight house.
O.- Yes.
C.- Had no bath, had our bath up at the boiler house.
O.- Yes. Well, how about the situation in the town itself?
C.- That was the toughest place in, oh Lord, that was the awfulest thing that ever was. The county attorney up around--Durham, he was law and order.
O.- What was his name?
C.- Wouldn't--Ralph Durham.
O.- Yes.
C.- And well, old Captain Kidd moved the Crosby House up over there. And I don't know how many saloons there was up and down there. Tom Thompson's, and old Tom Wyman had one. Oh, I don't know, there was 10 or 15 that I can think, but anyway several of them up and down there. And gambling was wide open.
O. - Yes. Prostitution?
C.- Prostitution, nearly all them, all but the Crosby House had a dance hall in the back of it, damn old bats back there. And then they had a--old lady Grace had a place back out there. She was from Temple. Big two story room, kind of a livery stable. And she had the best place. And then there was the jungles down there. How awful, my, my.
O.- The what, I didn't understand you?
C.- They called it the jungle. It's off down there about quarter of a mile, half a mile back in the woods. It was a jungle back there, the niggers got down there.
O.- Yes.
C.- Oh, I don't know, everything got mixed up down there. And we finally had to get Rangers over there, it got so bad, oh my goodness alive. You couldn't go up there hardly without you wasn't in a gang without getting robbed.
O.- Is that right?
C.- Yes. Cause they won't let you get out of town. A fellow will poop you over the bean and get your money.
O.- Yes.
C.- And one thing and another. And we got the Rangers in there.
O.- Did you see the Rangers when they were there?
C.- Huh?
O.- Did you see the Rangers there?
C.- Oh, yes, well, first, another gang business up there. It just so bad, said, "Boys, we're going up there and run them son-of-a-bitches out of town." "Oh, not me," I said, "Now you'll get in trouble here, get in trouble." By gosh, they went up there and they run them off, wasn't nothing to it. But all those things run into something bad. All them gamblers taken their--them women and pimps and things took to the woods and hid. And there was another fellow, I believe Bronson or something or other, had a saloon. It had a nice bar to it and didn't have no dance hall and one thing and another. And then when Crosby House, it didn't bother them two places.
O.- Yes.
C.- And this bartender and this fellow named Lang, a good fellow, there was nothing doing, you know. And he was just out in front with his apron rolled up and stuck in and walking up and down. And a fellow
that was roughnecklng for me, a boy from Ohio that was kind of a timekeeper and bookkeeper, and he lent him a pistol to go on that with. And I could've shot him. I said this boy didn't know. He let that pistol go off and killed that fellow. Shot him in the stomach.
O.- Yes.
C.- Well, they tried to say he just shot at him, but he didn't do it. And they was going to hang him, they said, come down in the field and hang him. Well, I had a shotgun, the fellow that worked for me did. Jim Sharp had two or three 30-30 rifles and a six-shooter. And we all ganged up down there, you know. And we had a fence marked. They never got over that fence. Jim Sharp would've killed them as fast as they come through that fence, with his 30-30, as good a shot as he was. But they never come. Anyways they run this fellow off and I've forgotten. They ran him off and they caught him. And anyway, a fellow named Bill Hammond, just a boy about 21 years old, 20 or 21 years old. He got to toughing about it--and they're cowards, they wouldn't do nothing--uptown telling what they was going to do. Well, Jim Sharp had give this fellow Charlie Dawson one of them old long barrel 45 Colts. And he'd got hold of another one just like it somewhere. And if he didn't go up there and run ever son-of-a-bitch out of that town, you ain't sitting there. But he'd heard about the Rangers. And he was in a saloon, he'd held on to two gals, wouldn't let them leave. He had one of them sewing bar and the other one serving, be his bartender and one sitting up on the counter. And they was taking a drink. And every time anybody would stick their nose around that way, he'd take a pot at them. And they'd all left. But Captain Brooks was a Ranger and walked in. And I says, "Bill, how come you----?" He says, "I
knew that was a Ranger when he stuck his head in the door, and I wasn't about to shoot him." Well, Captain Brooks, next morning Bill had to go to work, you know, got sober and everything. And here I saw Bill coming, you know, and I said, "Who's that Bill's with? Looks like it might be that Ranger coming here." Sure enough it was. And Bill said, "I want you to go my bond. You got $50?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Well, I want you to go my bond." Wasn't working for me, working for the Sharp brothers though. And Jim wasn't there, so I said, "All right, I'll put up the fifty dollars." I talked to old Captain Brooks and our camp was still there on the lease.
O.- Yes.
C.- And Ed Prather had a bed there, for kind of a company bed, we called it. If any official come along, slept there, you know. And "By gosh," he says--Doc Brooks, Judge Brooks, Captain Brooks, he was afterwards Judge, you know. Brooks County was named after him down there. Talked to him, he said, "By golly, I'm just scared to sleep up there. There's the biggest bunch of thieves ever I saw in my life." And, "Well, why don't you come out there and sleep with me?" And he did. And he laughed, he said in my lifetime he said, "I guess I've taken a box car load of pistols off of people, different kind, short and long. Never in my life have ever I taken off boy, man, woman, or nobody else two big of pistols as that off of one guy." Well, he give me one of the pistols, said the other one's up here. And about three days after that, it was noon, we was eating dinner. Somebody says,"That Ranger's wanting you, you know that Ranger." They all thought he was after me to arrest me, you know. I knew him, you know. And he come back and he give me that other pistol and that $50 back.
O.- Yes.
C.- And said he was leaving but says there's another one coming over from Liberty. See he was going to Saratoga to trade out----
O.- Oh, yes.
C.- ----and this fellow coming in from Liberty, fellow Bates. And, never will forget that I went down there with Sam Bates, that jungle, the only time that ever I was in there. And a friend of mine come over from Beaumont. "I want to go to the jungles, I want to go to the jungles." You know how those fellows are, they want to see things you know. I said, "Wait a while till Sam Bates comes along and we'll go down there maybe if he's going down there." He says, "Who's Sam Bates?" I said, "A Ranger." "Getting yeller?" I said, "Dadgumright I'm yeller. I'm just as yeller as I could be to go down to that place. Why, a man's a fool to go down there without the law with him, without a Ranger. I wouldn't go down there with one of these here deputy sheriffs and constables they got around here at all, cause they're just as bad as they are. I wouldn't go down there with one of them at all. Why, you're liable never to come back." Well, he kidded me, you know. Along come Sam, "Well," he said, "I'm just on my way down there. Come on let's walk around a little." And he was a little bitty fellow but a nice fellow. Had another big old boy with him. Got down there we got in that dance hall. Well, I tell you she was rough, oh she was rough. This old boy said, "Mr. Ranger, you got any more Rangers downtown?" "No, Why?" He said, "By God I want you to send after them, I'm a little lone----" He said, "I never had no idea that that was that bad." Why, they arrested them there, you know, and chained them to a tree.
O.- Yes.
C.- Didn't have no jail for a long time. Chain them to a tree. They'd stay out there all night.
O.- What'd they do with the boy from Ohio, the one who----
C.- Well, we got him clear.
O.- Uh-huh, they didn't do anything to him?
C.- Huh?
O.- Didn't do anything to him then?
C.- Well, they arrested him and had a trial but----
O.- Yes.
C.- ----Sharp brothers and them, they furnished the lawyers. We had three of the--one of the best criminal lawyers ever in Texas.
O.- Yes.
C.- And that was old Judge Crawford from Dallas.
O.- Yes.
C.- And had a fellow--I forget his name--but had old Cooper, used to be with Carlson out of Beaumont, was one. And then an old state senator, I forget what his name was now. Oh, the old state senator was the weakest one of the bunch, but old Colonel Crawford cleared him right now. Cause they just didn't have enough witnesses. Well, they just--if they hadn't tried him on murder----
O.- Yes.
C.- ----if they'd tried him on, you know, homicide or something like that.