Burt E. Hull Interview

PIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL Page 1 TOPIC: Spindletop, Sour Lake, Big Thicket, Humble NAME: Burt E. Hull INTERVIEWER: W. A. Owens PLACE: Dallas, Texas TAPE NO. 128 DATE: 8/24-53

O.- This is an interview with Mr. Hull at his home on Beltline Road just outside of Dallas. Would you give me your full name sir?

H.- Burton Elias Hull.

O.- Where were you born, sir?

H. - I was born near Navasota, Texas.

O.- When?

H.- May 23, 1884.

O.- I'd like for you to tell me something about your father and mother if you could.

H.- Well, my mother was born in Navarro County, near Corsicana and move with her parents to Brazos County sometime in the, about '18, about the Civil, about the time of the Civil War or right after. Any my father was born in Ohio. And after the Civil War moved to Texas as a youth with his parents who settled in central Brazos County. And it was there that my father married my mother, oh, along about 1880, I guess.

O.- Yes sir. How many children were there?

H.- In our family there were four, of which I was the oldest.

O.- Well, would you tell me about your education there when you were a youngster?

H.- Well, I went to public schools in Grimes County. And then when I

was about 13 or years old, we moved to Houston. My father moved to Houston. And I, I went to Houston High School, but I didn't finish Why it was while I was in the Houston High School that I enrolled in Texas A. and M. College up at College Station, near Bryan. And finished there in 1904.

O.- Yes sir. Well now you worked some, I believe, before you went to A. and M.

H.- Oh yes. O. What kind of work did you do before you went there?

H.- Well when we first went to Houston, I worked for the Houston Post. Mostly In the circulation department.

O. Yes sir.

H.- And also in bill collecting. And then I worked for the railroads in the summer vacations and between terms of school.

O.- Yes sir.

H.- Why I worked for the Southern Pacific mostly.

O.- Yes sir.

H.- Wasn't much work to be done and there wasn't many industries in Texas at that time.

O.- I know. Well did you do all your work in Houston before you went to A. and M.? Or did you work elsewhere?

H.- No, I worked elsewhere.

O.- Would you give me some of the other places?

H.- Well, New Orleans, and Lafayette, Louisiana. Orange and Beaumont, Texas, the main ones that I can remember.

O.- Yes sir. Well, you were working in Beaumont then before you went to college.

H.- Yes.

O.- Would you tell me something about that work? Give me a pretty-full account of what you did in Beaumont.

H.- Well, I was working at Houston as a bill collector, and when the famous Lucas gusher came in in Spindletop. And I would say In less than 30 days after that gusher came in, the Houston Post sent me to--Houston Printing Company they called it, I suppose they still call It that--sent me to Beaumont as city bill collector. Because Beaumont had a boom on and they had a lot of new subscribers in Beaumont. And in addition they had done a lot of printing, for the various oil companies that had organized quickly for money making purposes and had stock certificates and fancy stationery and one thing and another. And Clark and Courts of Galveston and the Houston Printing Company of Houston were about the only two concerns that were in position to take that work locally. They'd have to go to Philadelphia to get their slug(?) heads or stock certificates. And the Houston Post had a lot of accounts in Beaumont just for printing.

O.- Yes sir.

H.- And I was sent over there to see if I couldn't collect some cash for them. They were a little beginning, begin to be the boss of the Houston Printing Company began to be concerned about a number of accounts they had opened in Beaumont. So I went over there to help try to collect some cash. And I stayed over there pretty near all of that spring, all that spring, I guess.

O.- Is that right?

H. - That was the year that the Lucas Gusher came in.

O.- Yes sir. Well did the Houston Post have a plant in Beaumont?

H.- No.

O.- They did all their work in Houston?

H.- Yes.

O.- Can you remember the names of some of the oil companies that you tried to collect from? I know there were a great number of companies formed during that time-

H.- Well, there was the Higgins Oil and Fuel, I believe, Higgins Oil and Fuel Company and the Lone Star Gas Company. There was over two hundred of them.

O.- Yes. H.- The man had an oil company, the Star and Crescent, they called it. And oh, Alamo Oil Company. I could go on, well, I'd really have to look at a newspaper or something published about that time to give you the names of some two hundred different oil companies.

O.- Yes, I know a great number were formed.

H.- There weren't but three of 'em that succeeded, or four, three or four that, that weathered the storm.

O.- Yes sir.

H.- In other words, they didn't have any market for their crude oil and they'd just drill a well in the hope of getting some more crude oil. And if they got the crude oil why they could find plenty of people that wanted to buy securities.

O.- Yes sir.

H.- And they didn't care whether they sold it, or they did care whether they sold it, but they didn't have any market.

O. No. Well, you were about a 17-year old youngster at that time.

H.- Yes, I was just a youth. PIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL

O.- Did you have any ----- H.- In fact, when I came back from Beaumont in May or June, 1901, to Houston. And in September of that year I entered Texas A. and M.

O.- Yes sir. Well before we get to the Texas A. and M. experience, I'd like to ask if you had any tough problems collecting money in Beaumont? Do you remember any particular stories about your collection days?

H.- Well, I've had inkwells thrown at me and everything else, but nothing unusual, I don't think. In those days, why, it wasn't the system, it wasn't the practice to mail an invoice. It was a practice to send a bill collector on foot and deliver the invoice in person to, for the debtor to submit his invoices in person, by personal carrier. You didn't mail, just send through the mail invoices like you do now.

O.- Why not, do you know?

H- No, I don't know except it was more or less customary.

O.- Yes sir.

H.- Maybe our mails, our U. S. mails weren't as reliable then as they are now, I don't know.

O.- Yes sir. Where did you live when you were in Beaumont during that time?

H.- Well, mostly at different boarding houses that year.

O. Yes, that year. H.- 1901.

O.- Yes sir.

H.- Later, why, when I came back, I went to work for the Texas.Company, why, I lived one year in a boarding house with Welch Del and Hollis Reavis, who started the first oil journal, now the Oil and Gas Journal

of Tulsa. O.-Yes sir.

H.- He and I occupied a room out on Coral Avenue.

O.- That was after you went back?

H.- That was after I went back.

O.- After ------

H.- Yes, later.

O.Do you remember any of the people that you boarded with on that first stay there?

H.- No, I can't remember now.

O.- What kind of ----

H.- Just anywhere, any boarding house would do.

O.- Yes, What kind of accommodations did you have?

H.- Oh, they were very poor, of course. I didn't have any regular boarding place because I was running back and forth between Houston and Beaumont so much.

O.- Yes sir.

H.- And why I stayed anywhere I could. Sometimes just rented a cot-overnight.

O.- Where would you be able to find a cot?

H.- Well they had them everywhere. I say had them everywhere, there were a lot of people that lived at Beaumont regularly; they rented the house to somebody and retained one room maybe, and sent their families elsewhere. Didn't want them there in that mob.----

O.- Yes sir. H. - boom. And there was a lot of tents up or vacant land, vacant-lots, where, you know, they were clean, they were ail right. Clean as

some of the homes were. And those tents, why, they just put some cot in there and for so much a night you could have a cot , Maybe dollar a night, maybe fifty cents. Oh, everybody was taking in boarders over there at Beaumont, they had to. They had a boom, had such a mob and boom on. The hotels couldn't begin to take care of the people. There weren't many hotels in Beaumont.

O.- Yes sir. What were the things that- impressed you most as a youngster when you went there?

H.- Well, that first year most Impressive was the curiosity of people who came to Beaumont; they couldn't believe that there was an oil well there, been drilled there that would shoot over the derrick.

0 - Yes.

H.- I mean that had enough oil in It, or had enough pressure behind it to force it over the top of the derrick. Nobody had ever seen anything like that in the world before. And of course there wasn't any demand for oil either.

O.- No.

H.- And so people came more from curiosity than anything else. They ran excursion trains every Sunday from as far north as Kansas City and from Houston, Galveston, San Antonio, Dallas, and as far east as New Orleans. Every Sunday they'd be excursion trains come into Beaumont. Nobody on it but people just sightseeing, that's all. That went on all of the first half of 1901.

O.- And you saw a great deal of that?

H.- Yes.

O.- What was the effect on ----

H.- I expect there was half of the people in Beaumont came there

Page 8 originally Just for sightseeing, that was all. I know that Lee Blaffer, of later Blaffer and Farish, or later the Humble Oil and Refining Company ----

O.- Yes. H.- --and Bill Farish, Lee was living in New Orleans and Bill Parish was living over in Mississippi somewhere. He was a lawyer in the cotton delta of the country there. Just a lawyer, just a country lawyer. They both told me they come to Beaumont for no other purpose than just of sightseeing. But they saw what the opportunities were and they stayed. And later on, why, they started that; well it was Blaffer and Farish, I believe, first.

O.- Yes sir.

H.- They, they went over to Humble some years later. That's where they made their first success. And later they got in with Ross Sterling, Governor Ross Sterling, and they, and Harry Weiss, and they organized the Humble Oil and Refining Company. And was successful in Central Texas, North Central Texas. They bought control, no they sold the con-trolling interest In the Humble Oil and Refining to the Standard of New Jersey. And it finally developed into Humble Oil and Refining Company of today.

O.- Yes.

H.- So that was started by a couple of sightseers, that's all.

O.- Uh-huh. You think a great number of others did the same thing?

H.- Yes, lot of others the same way. Now that Pipkins, well, local people in Beaumont, they were there before the oil industry started. And they were successful. Harry Weiss, who was later, went in with Blaffer and Farish. Harry Weiss and Pipkins started what they called

the Paraffine Oil Company. It was successful and they sold out to somebody, I've forgotten who now. And the Sun Oil Company was another successful, early bird in the Beaumont days, I mean the Spindletop days. There are In Dallas, there's three or four old timers that I recognize as being in Beaumont at the time of the boom is Alvin Gardner, of Gardner Brothers Drilling Company. He was scout there for the Gulf, in their very first year. And then there's the, the Gladney Boys, Sam Gladney of the Sun, and Don Gladney of the Humble, of the Magnolia. They were both in Beaumont that year, that first year. Oh there was maybe others, but I. see them occasionally so I know they're here.

O. - You know those three are here?

H. - Yes,

O.- Well, how did you ----

H.- See, that's been fifty years, fifty odd years ago.

O.- I know it has.

H.- It's hard to remember back all the little details that happened fifty odd years ago,

O. - Yes. That's one of the reasons we're trying to get this history, because people don't remember as well. And we need to have them remember as much as we possibly can. Why did you decide then to go back to school?

H.- Well I never, I didn't get a diploma from high school In Houston.

O.- Yes.

H.- And I thought that if I quit and went to work in the oil industry right then, or any other industry right then, why I would be handicapped by not having enough education. And I had a few hundred dollars

that I had saved. And I thought it would be better to go to school and get a diploma than it would be to try to make a success in life handicapped by not even a high school diploma.

O.- Yes sir.

H.- And if I went to work, I was afraid that I wouldn't quit later on and go back to school.

O.- Yes.

H.- So, I had a chance- I had a little money and I had a chance to go to enter Texas A. and M., on examination and finish in three years. So I took it.

O.- Yes sir. Well I'd like for you to talk about your A. and M. experience for a little while if you would, because I know that a great number of Aggies would like to know what it was like there then.

H.- Well, we only had a battalion and there were only about 400, I think, 450 enrolled in all, students enrolled in the institution.

O.- Yes sir.

H.- Course I know all about A. and M. My grandfather laid some of the brick in the original Main Building when he lived, in Bryan. He was what they called a circuit rider then.

O.- Yes sir.

H.- He was gone from home a great deal, but when he was at home, he made his living by laying, he was a brick mason. And he laid some of the brick In the Main Building. And I knew all about it. And one of his sons was on the, not on the faculty but he was teaching there.

O.- Yes sir.

H.- So A. and M. offered any mechanical engineering, civil engineering and agriculture, veterinary science, and horticulture, that's about all they had,

H.- -----in the way of, of degrees. Bachelor of Science degrees in either of those courses.

O. Before we go ahead would you give me the name of your grandfather who laid bricks and also your uncle who taught there?

H.- Well,my grandfather who laid the brick In the Main Building was, name was Walter South. And his son, who was a teacher at- A. and M. was Horace South. Incidentally, Horace South has been to Virginia, University of Virginia. And he organized and played on the first football team that A. and M. ever had.

O.Is that right?

H.- He coached and organized it and played on it himself and he was a member of the teaching staff. But still a student.

O.- No eligibility rules?

H.- That was in the 1890's somewhere.

O.- Yes sir.

H.- No there wasn't, didn't have any Southwest Conference then. So, why, he was eligible to play, anybody could play.

O.- Well you stayed in the dormitory, I take it, when you were there?

H. - Well, I stayed the first year the dormitories, didn't have but four dormitories. So the first year I stayed in a room in the chapel, an old chapel. A fellow named Sadler and myself had a room down there. The second year I stayed in Fifer Hall. I believe that building is still there but there wasn't but about 20 rooms in the building.

O.- Yes.

H.- And my senior year I occupied a room over in Austin Hall. I think that building still exists. But it had, it was a duplicate of Fifer, it was only about 20 rooms.

O.- Yes.

H.- All the other buildings on the campus are new, compared-that is, they've been built since I left there. And I'm not so familiar with the layout now. But those old buildings I think are still existing, Fifer and Austin and all buildings. Unless they've been torn down and razed to make room for other buildings, why they still exist.

O.- You took your degree in 1904?

H.- Yes. O.- And what was your major subject?

H.- Civil Engineering.

O.- Civil Engineering. How good was the training you had at that time for your work?

H.- Well, there wasn't any industry in Texas to speak of in 1904, except railways. Then there was some cotton ginning and wasn't any textile industry in Texas as an industry. And the oil industry hadn't started, of course. And so there wasn't much field for a young fellow to get a job except to go to farming or ranching or set himself up as a veterinary science, doctor of veterinary science in some community. There wasn't many industries to whom you could apply for employment on a salary basis. Even in a highway department, there wasn't any state highway department, wasn't any highways. There wasn't a county in the state with a graded road clear across the county. Wasn't any need for it. So I went to work originally, when I came out of school, for the Southern Pacific. I had done a little vacation work for them before, the Southern Pacific Railroad.

O.- Yes sir.

H.- And I was immediately sent down to New Orleans. And they had three

or four different branch three or four subsidiaries; the Texas and New Orleans, and the Galveston and Houston and Harrisburg Railroad, and Houston Texas Central Railroad, and I've forgotten, some other subsidiaries. But I was, anyway I came back to Houston before the end of the year because I could live at home. And only got $55 a month down there in New Orleans. That isn't hardly enough to pay your board. So I was glad to get back to Houston. I hadn't been in Houston very long.

The way I came to Houston, however, was in the fall of 1904. And as an employee of the Sabine and East Texas Rail-road, which the Southern Pacific had just bought. Well, they had gotten around about the anti-trust act, either the Federal or the state anti-trust law, I don't know which. They claimed that the Sabine and East Texas being parallel to the Houston and Texas Central,--and serving the same areas up here around Dallas and Fort Worth from the Gulf Coast, why violated the Federal anti-trust act, or the state antitrust act, I've forgotten which. Anyway, either the attorney-general or the railroad commission or somebody ordered the Southern Pacific to sell its securities in the Sabine and East Texas. So they told me that all officers would probably be charged, the Sabine and East Texas when they sold it. And I would probably lose my job.

So I began to look around for another more stable job than be working for a railroad that you didn't know who was going to be running it inside of a month. So I found that the Texas Company needed some men. And I applied to the Texas Company in Beaumont. That was in December, 1904

O.- December, 1904.

H.- Yes.

O.- So you went on to Beaumont then?

H.- Well, the Texas Company right away said they needed men. And so they sent a man over to Houston to see me, Mr. Cushing, Bill Gushing, the superintendent of the pipelines. He's dead now. But Cushing came to Houston and hired me. Hired another boy from the Southern Pacific and we went to work the next week.

O.- What salary?

H.- I, oh, I believe about $75 a month is my recollection now.

0- Seventy-five a month.

H.- Course they paid our expenses whenever we were traveling.

O.- Yes. Well, did you report to work in ----

H.- I went back to Beaumont then, the first of January, 1905, with the Texas Company. And stayed with them 47, 46 and a half, or 47 and a half years, I've forgotten which.

O.- That's quite a time.

H.- Yes. O.- Well, who were the officers when you reported in Beaumont?

H.- Well, the principal officers, executive officers were Mr. J. S. Cullinan was president, and Mr. T. J. Donohoe was executive, was what we'd call today executive vice-president. And, oh, they had, oh, Judge Autrey was some kind of a executive officer. He was in charge of the legal part, he was general attorney, J. L. Autrey.

O.- Yes sir.

H.- I had about all the main ones. I don't believe they had any refining department then nor any sales department. The pipelines were run by W. T. Cushing. The company did most of its business was buying and selling crude oil. It wasn't a big producer, wasn't a producer at all. Well, they had some interest, some collateral interest with it

wasn't producing, wasn't like it is today, didn't have an integrated production department. Old man Lehman was manager of the refinery at Port Arthur, little refinery. And Mr. Holmes wasn't with them. R. C. Holmes wasn't with the company at the time I went with them. He had been with them, but he had left them to accept a more lucrative job with Bass and Benckenstein at Port Neches, building and running that asphalt plant that they built there. Finally Bass and Bencken-stein bought a lot of crude oil. I think it was from the Texas Company to run their asphalt plant, the Central Asphalt and Refining Company, they called it. And they couldn't pay for it. And the Texas Company had to sue them and in the judgment the Texas Company got their plant back. So they Inherited Mr. Holmes with it. That was in the summer of, fall of, spring of 1906, a year later. And Holmes rehabilitated the plant, made changes in it. And the Texas Company thereafter--and it operates today as a unit of their refining department. Of course Holmes later became president of the Texas Company.

O. Yes sir. What was your Immediate assignment to work when you went with them?

H.- The first job was more or less surveying the route from Sour Lake to Humble. However, some of the piping wasóthe men were the ones who had to lay the line; all I had to do was go through the woods. And then that was finished in the spring of 1905, that was a six inch line, the original six inch line from Humble to Sour Lake, where it tied on to the six inch and went to Port Arthur. Then I spent the balance of that year more or less, oh, in small, relatively small jobs Or comparatively small jobs around Humble, Sour Lake, Saratoga, Batson Jennings, Louisiana. We had already pulled out Spindletop didn't

have any line over there at all. Wasn't taking a barrel of oil at Spindletop.

O.- Well, before we talk about those I'd like for you to talk about exactly how you laid that line from Sour Lake to Humble?

H.- Well, that was laid by the Company itself, it was all screw pipe threaded and coupled and done by hand. Didn't have any machinery then, didn't have any automobiles or trucks, nor gasoline engine-propelled equipment. Heavy equipment for cranes and caterpillars, tractors and things like that were unknown. That was before the day of machinery. Neither did they have any pipe-laying machines that they later used for bucking up pipe. It was all done by hand. And with, old Klein lay tongs, about six men to a set of tongs.