H. A. Rathke Interview

Primary tabs

  • PIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL TOPIC: Spindletop, Batson, Electra, Saratoga, Burkburnett Areas NAME: Rathke, H. A. INTERVIEWERS: Boatright, Mody C.; Kelly, Louise; Williams, J, W PLACE: Wichita Falls, Texas TAPE NO. 131 DATE: 9-13-53 RESTRICTIONS: None
  • Boatright- Mr. Rathke, how do you sign your name?
  • Rathke- H. A. Rathke
  • B.- H. A. Rathke. And would you tell us a little bit about your childhood and where you grew up?
  • R.- Well, I was born in Wharton County and ---
  • B.- You're a native Texan then?
  • R.- Yes, lived in Wharton County, Texas. Lived there till I was seven years old and come to LaVaca County to go to school. And folks then moved to LaVaca County that year then too. My sister and I was up there going to school and we moved up in there. We was up there and moved on down, in what place we called Koerth, had a cotton gin, post office. We just built a cotton gin down there and post office and farmed. Called it Koerth, post office Koerth, K-O-E-R-T-H, Koerth, Texas. Then I grew up there till I was eighteen years old and went to Spindletop.
  • B.- Well, now what, didn't you work at the gin before you went to Spindletop?
  • R.- I worked it from a barefooted boy, started a barefooted boy firing the boiler at the cotton gin. When I was thirteen years old I fired it the season through -- I mean without any assistance.
  • B.- That was a steam boiler.
  • R.- Steam wood burner.
  • B.- Burned wood?
  • R.- Yes, lots of it.
  • B.- So you learned to be a fireman there at the gin?
  • R.- I did. Wasn't no trouble at all for me to be a fireman. We didn't, in the fall had to set days to go to school in, I mean set days to gin in you know. There wasn't much beginning, just set one, two, or three days in a week, you know. First three days and then last one day. And I'd go to school and you know, and I'd get back from school; why, they'd have to pick up somebody else if they could, you know. If they didn't they would blow the whistle for me. It was about a mile and a half and I'd hear It and I'd come home. And so then I'd get there and they wouldn't have any steam, you know, shut out the steam. I'd take hold of it and throw it back up there and it was all over with then. No trouble at all. I didn't have a bit of trouble firing that boiler. It was just play work for me. It wasn't no work for me. I always could, I never did have any trouble.
  • B.- Now when did you go to Spindletop?
  • R.- December 29, 1901.
  • B.- December 29, 1901.
  • R.- 1901.
  • B.- And you went to work there as fireman?
  • R.- Yes. Yes, fired a boiler there until some time in 1902. And then I went to what little place called Dryer, Texas, and run a cotton gin. Wanted me to come up there and run a cotton gin.
  • Built a new gin up there and wanted me to come up there and run that gin. You see, I was just a kid then, you know, to run a gin.
  • B.- Yes, you weren't very old to be running a gin.
  • R.- No. I had to run that whole thing myself. There was no one there. But I could do that, I was raised in that. That was the easiest thing in the world for me to operate a cotton gin.
  • B.- Now who did you work for at Spindletop?
  • R.- Oh, I don't remember.
  • B.- You don't?
  • R.- No sir, I sure don't.
  • Kelly.- Have any unusual experiences at Spindletop or anything special you remember about it?
  • R.- Well, no, I don't know of anything unusual at all. I was firing a boiler which was natural for me, you know. That wasn't anything out of, out of the ordinary for me. Only we were firing with oil there you know, and I didn't have to carry any wood. And that was the greatest thing I ever saw, the easiest thing I ever saw. There wasn't anything to do only watch the water in the boiler, that's all.
  • B.- That was about the middle of the boom, wasn't it?
  • R.- Yes, just about. Yes, it was sure in a big boom when I got there, I'll tell you it was. And the unusual thing about it, people, individuals lot of, most of, so many individuals owned wells there, would drill and own their own wells. And they'd, they'd come out especially Sundays, the week-days too, but Sunday
  • especially they'd come out and bring their friends out there and show them their wells, show them the field. And they'd open up one of these wells you know, to show them, or two, whatever they had, and let it run off down in a ditch, you know. Probably make 30 or 40 thousand barrels a day.
  • B.- Just a waste of oil.
  • R.- And just running down the ditch just like a creek and run way off down in the bayou down there. And they'd watch it, and roam around there, and they'd walk around all over the field. And then come back and It was still flowing you know, and they'd get ready to go home, they'd close it off, go on home. It'll last forever that, that well. That meant a thousand years from now all we have to do is just open this valve and we'd have all the oil we want. That's what they thought, That's the reason they wasn't cautious.
  • K.- Well, that made a fire danger there, didn't it?
  • R.- Oh, and it caught fire too. Somebody set fire down there too, about a month later. I never seen such a fire, such a fire in my life. It must have been fifteen miles out of Spindletop down there in the bayou. But I never saw such a fire in my life. My golly, it looked like the whole world was afire down there. And bound to been, bound to been because God, there was probably a million barrels of oil down there. And no doubt there was.
  • B.- I guess those flames went way up?
  • R.- Oh yes. Just couldn't, black smoke just going, just sky-high. Looked terrible, that's all.
  • K.- Is that the well you were working with?
  • R. - No, that was just, these fellows like I'm telling you about opened a valve showing the people what it would do and then running around two or three hours over the field. And come back when they got ready to go home and shut her off, and go back, you know. You could, you could see some wells flowing all the time like that going down there steady, at somewhere all the time. A few you could see from where you was, you could see a few. And you could walk from one derrick floor to the other, you would never get on the ground. It was just that close.
  • B.- Well, did the fire destroy equipment or was it just down in the...
  • R. - No, that was down in the bayou, it didn't burn or hurt anything. However, we did have a fire up there In the field that burned up a lot of stuff, I'll tell you we did. Big fire.
  • K.- But the one you're talking about was just down in the bayou?
  • R.- Oh that didn't bother anything up the field at all, not a thing. It come up the field.
  • K. - Just looked bad?
  • R.- It looked bad, that's all. Burned up a lot of good oil.
  • B.- Did you have any trouble finding a place to live down there
  • R.- No, had a tent, a fellow that I knew. He had... and I went down with him, that used to work for us at home. He had been down there and he came back home for Christmas and I went back with him. That's how come me to go down. Told me about what
  • was going on down there . But he knew what I could do, you see. He knew there wasn't any, that I could get a job just as soon as I could get there. He knew that. He knew that I could do things he couldn't at all, even though I was just a kid. So he was staying in a tent with some other people. Throwed an extra bed in there and so I just stayed at there all the time I was there, most of the time. I stayed over at another bunk house then later on but I stayed there that long.
  • B.- Did the companies build bunk houses for you or did you have to rent those?
  • R.- No, I didn't. I stayed in one, I don't know whose it was. They told me to go down and stay in it and I don't know who, never did know whose it was. There wasn't many in it. I just stayed down there.
  • K.- Didn't have to pay any rent?
  • R.- No, you had to pay for your board.
  • K.- Yes.
  • R.- Get a meal ticket, paid for a week meal ticket, you know. I think a week's board at a rest rant cost $3 I think. Meal ticket was $3.
  • B.- $3 per week?
  • R.- Yes.
  • B.- Uh-huh. What were your wages then?
  • R.- $2.50 a day.
  • B.- $2.50. Uh-huh. Well that's not--
  • K.- That's in keeping.
  • B.- Yes, that's not too bad, if you could--
  • R.- I made more money then than I ever have since. Had more money. Didn't have anything to spend it for. Out there at Spindletop there wasn't a thing in the world to spend a dime for, for me. I didn't go into Beaumont so there wasn't any- thing to spend it only that $3 a week. That's all I had to do, there wasn't anything else. Had enough clothes to do me while I was out there. So I didn't spend any money. Do my own washing; I didn't have any laundry done. Either do your own washing or go dirty. There was no choice there.
  • K.- There wasn't a town that was built up then at the scene?
  • R. - No, no, there wasn't.
  • K.- No store of any kind.
  • R.- No. Just eating joints was all. And I didn't see any gambling joints in there too, I guess they were all in Beaumont there wasn't any out there. I didn't go to Beaumont, five and a half miles from Beaumont.
  • K.- Well, that five and a half miles wasn't easy to travel then either?
  • R.- No, you usually had to walk often times if you went in there. Roads, dirt roads were terrible, you know. But down the railroad track, walk in the railroad track was the easiest way to get in.
  • B.- What were your working hours? You have a 12 hour shift?
  • R.- Yes, 12 hours.
  • B.- Well, that didn't leave you very much time to walk in to Beaumont.
  • R.- No, I didn't have any business there I didn't want to go, I didn't have any business there no how. I don't know, I was the kid that never wanted to go.
  • I just stayed out there and worked.
  • B.- Did you know the Sharp brothers at Spindletop?
  • R.- Yes, I knew Walter when I saw him, I seen him a good many times.
  • B.- You never did work for him down there?
  • R.- No. Fact, they had some rigs running right where I was working. Right, right at us. That's the reason I saw him.
  • B.- Then you left Spindletop and went where?
  • R.- I went to LaVaca County and run a cotton gin.
  • B.- Uh-huh. And then when did you come back to the oil field?
  • R.- I went to Batson, then I went to Batson.
  • B.- That would be about 1903?
  • R.- 1903.
  • B.- Well, now what did you find at Batson?
  • R.- Let me see. I went to Batson in 1903, early in 1903, and the boom going on then. They had just started it, it hadn't been going very long. But it sure was, sure was in a weaving way though.
  • K.- Different from Spindletop?
  • R.- Yes, had a lot more gas there than we did at Spindletop. It wasn't any more poison but there was so much of it, you know. That old Riley Number 1 at Batson that came in, why it killed everything on the wind side of it, as far as every living thing on the wind side of it. And then old horses and stuff was still out there when I went there. And still there they were lying out there where it had killed horses, chickens, pigs and stuff like, was still laying out there where it had killed,
  • killed everything. Oh, it was terrible, that gas down there. Wells all flowed, you know. Did at Spindletop too, but this was awful poisonous, an awful lot of sulfur in it, you know. It just settled down like blue smoke down in, in the piney woods. You can see it. You, you could pretty soon find out what, when you saw it and know what it was, and go around it, you didn't go into it. Wasn't so dangerous because you, it was just like fire, you could see it, and you wouldn't walk into it, that's all. You knew you couldn't run through it. You couldn't run through it across this street to save your life without falling. It would just knock you down unconscious, just that quick.
  • K. - Well, did you have any trouble with it while you were working on the rigs?
  • R.- No. No, we, we never had much trouble that way, some.
  • K - You stayed on the right side?
  • R.- Yes. And watch it and stay on the wind side of it, you know. Oh, had some trouble all right, but not too much.
  • K.- Well, did you go there as a fireman?
  • R.- Yes, I did.
  • K.- Why did you happen to go to Batson?
  • R.- I wanted more money.
  • K.- Good reason.
  • R.- Then I went, worked there and I went to Saratoga. And then I went to drilling pretty soon after I went to Saratoga. I never did ask for a drilling job till I got over to Saratoga. And then a night job opened there and I asked the boy. And I
  • got it just like that and I went to work. And they had three rigs there, three rotary rigs, the Gulf did. I run one of them nights, you know. And in about two months they shut them all down. They shut every, all three of them. Nothing to do, laid us all off. Well, I stayed around the house about three days there and they come and wanted me to go to work on a wildcat back in the piney woods down there, daytime. I don't know why they didn't put these old, other old drillers on there daytime. I hadn't been drilling long. You know it takes time, even today. They put one of those old drillers on nights behind me. Well, I got a well out there in that wildcat, and drilled a well and got a well. Well, it wasn't long then when they, I got, when they got in trouble with a job somewhere, drilling with a rotary rig somewhere, why they sent for me. And I'd have to get them out of trouble with a fishing job. If they couldn't get it, they sent for me.
  • B.- Now you were, you went from firing to drilling?
  • R.- Yes.
  • K.- Well now, were you with Gulf all the time you were in Batson?
  • R.- Huh?
  • K.- Were you with Gulf Company in Batson?
  • R.- All the time. Yes, all the time with the Gulf except at Spindletop. I wasn't with them there.
  • K.- Yes.
  • R.- But I went to work with the Gulf at Batson, sure did. Stayed with them then all the time till--. I went to work for them, I, I don't know what date I did go to work for them. But anyway I worked the whole time for them there.
  • K.- But not early enough--
  • R.- As I remember it, I don't think I worked for anybody else but them. If I did, I worked a very short time. But I went to work for them mighty quick after I went there anyway. And then I stayed with them all the time till 1919 in Electra. I quit and went to work for myself. But in the meantime I come to Electra.
  • Why they, well one job led to another and finally couldn't make a go up in Electra and I come up here. And I got it going and they wanted to send me to Louisiana, soon as I got it to going, you know. I said no, I ain't going to that mosquito infested place. Then they wanted to send me down to Corpus. They had drilled three wells down there and they blew out and traded their rig in. And they wanted me to go down there and drill a well down there.
  • They figured I could drill one of those wells, and wouldn't blow out for me. Because I never had let one get away from me. That's one thing I never had done. Never let a gas well get away from me all the time I was with them. All the other drillers did, most of them did. So I said no, I ain't going down to the coast. I've been down to the coast long as I'm going to be and I'm not going to be at the coast anymore.
  • Then they wanted to send me down to Old Mexico. I said, "Can I take my folks down there?" "No, no place to take your folks." "Well, I'm out, I'm not going there either." Then they put me in as assistant district superintendent over this whole country over here. Give me an offer of drilling then. (?) Well, I did that until 1919, when I got me a rig and went to contracting. Went to drilling again too. Drilled myself.
  • B - Well, what did you find business like down at Batson during the boom?
  • R.- Mud just as deep as you could wade through all the time, Flies, mosquitoes, and more saloons and gambling houses than you ever saw in the world. Wild women, I never saw such a wild place In my life. Course I didn't stay uptown. I stayed out in a tent out at the rig, I wouldn't stay uptown until we got so much gas down there. We had, we got run out and had to go to town then. Couldn't sleep down there our tent was isolated there for a long, long time, you know, Foggy gas was in it, couldn't even get close. Wouldn't let us stay there till the gas, the well quit flowing, you know. And then back and get in the tent. (?) But I never went back down there anymore then. I stayed up in town there in Batson. I was way back there, but it was the wildest place I ever saw.
  • B.- There wasn't any effort made to enforce the law at all?
  • R.- Oh no. No, you could look down that street anytime of night I believe you wanted to and could see gun fire. Somebody shooting and shooting somebody too. He, he's shooting at somebody.
  • B.- Well, who were these people shooting at each other? Were they workers?
  • R.- They were gamblers.
  • B.- Gamblers?
  • R.- Yes, most of them were. Well, the workers, a lot of those workers gambled, you know, too. Because that's where they was getting their money, you know, out of the workers. That's where they were getting their money.
  • B.- Yes, I know but who was getting shot?
  • R.- The workers, gamblers too.
  • B. - And nothing was ever done about it?
  • R.- No. I know I, I went to work one morning, got breakfast and went to work one morning and I heard some shooting when I first woke up. There was four men laying out there, just about 300 feet from where I ate my breakfast. Where they had been shot, blood was running along down just like a stuck hog, you know, down, down the ground there.
  • K.- Weren't there any officers there at all?
  • R.- Yes, but they didn't do anything. Just like I told you a while ago; they didn't enforce the law. It never went to the county at all. The case never did, they arrested a man; it never did go to the county. And all they'd do to him, they'd chain him to a tree out there, one of those pine trees. That was the jail. That's all they'd do. Had no jail.
  • B.- Well, that was just. Had there been any town of Batson before the oil came in?
  • R.- I don't know how much Batson was then, I believe there was a post office there, before we went there. And it was about a couple of miles out in the prairie. This, this oil field was down in the woods, never was anything there but a bunch of piney woods, you know, previous to this far as I know. I didn't even see any of the old farm houses in there anywhere at all.
  • B.- So there hadn't been any police department before the oil came in?
  • R.- No, no, it was a terrible road to get in and out there too.
  • Awful to get in there. Pretty bad job to get in there. You'd have to take some of those hacks to get in there, and it took you several hours to get in or out anywhere. It was bad, that's all.
  • K.- Pretty heavy brush in there?
  • R.- No, just big pine trees.
  • K.- Just big pine trees.
  • R.- Yes, big trees,
  • K.- A good many of those.
  • R.- Yes, lots of them, you bet. Good a pine timber as you ever saw. Good saw timber, big pine trees. You could cut 100 feet out of one of those pine trees before you got to a limb. Raised in the pine woods. Cleared off a place there to drill a well and he had to get a lot of timber out of the way. The timber would be ten feet high after you got it cut down. You'd have to burn it up to get it out of the way.
  • K.- To have room for your rig?
  • R.- Huh?
  • K.- To get room for your rig?
  • R.- Yes, to get room to drill a well. Then we didn't get any more room than we just had to have, you know Those big trees didn't bother you much, you know. There wasn't any undergrowth, too much undergrowth around It, because they were too thick to be much undergrowth around it.
  • B.- Then you went from Batson to Saratoga?
  • R.- Yes, went from Batson, moved our rig to Saratoga.
  • B.- And how far away was that?
  • R.- That was five and a half miles.
  • B.- Is that the same field, same boom?
  • R.- No, No. We moved an ox team, ox wagon. I know we all walked though. We never rode at all. Had a corduroy road made out of pine poles, from Batson plumb on over to Saratoga. And the roughest thing you ever saw in the world. You couldn't ride, even as slow as the ox drove over it. It was so rough you couldn't ride. It was so much easier to walk. And I've seen that. There's a bayou just east of Batson and one just west of Saratoga, and I've seen those bayous just together from one to the other.
  • Solid water from one town to the other. Just a solid water from... Kind of level country, you know, and water all over the country. It rains down there sometimes, I've seen it, I've left home in the morning, you know, a tub setting out in the yard. And come back that evening, night off the shift and the tub would be full of water. Rain a tub full in a day. We worked all the time in the rain. Just like, we never did stop when it was raining at that time. If you had a slicker, all right, and if you didn't you just got wet.
  • B.- You just got wet.
  • R.- Just got wet, worked just the same.
  • B.- Winter or summer.
  • R.- In either, didn't make any difference, just didn't stop.
  • K.- Well, there's pretty heavy annual rainfall down in that part of the country.
  • R.- Yes, really, really heavy. Now especially at this time of the year when they have the tropical storms going down on the coast, you know. And that's when they have extremely heavy rains.
  • K.- Well, did that ever interfere with your drilling?
  • R.- No, not unless the water got so high you couldn't dam it up high enough to keep it away from your rig, out of our mud. Otherwise we just kept on just the same, right on. I drilled some wells that started raining, started raining when we started the hole and it was raining when we set casing and finished up. Never stopped day and night. It rained day and night, never did stop. Of course it didn't rain just hard all the time, but it rained all the time. It never did stop. And of course, there was lots of hard rains too in the meantime. Water everywhere.
  • B.- Now you were drilling at Saratoga?
  • R.- Yes.
  • B.- And at Batson too?
  • R.- No. I did go back to Batson and drilled some. After Saratoga I went back, walked back and fired at Batson, and drilled some over there, but not much.
  • K.- Then you did some running around for Gulf, and fishing jobs about that time?
  • R.- Yes, that--
  • K.- Or did you go to Pine Island first?
  • R.- That's before. Well, no I went to Hackberry Island before that on a fishing job in Louisiana; that's what I went down there for. And they had some wells down there, and I went down there and did some fishing jobs down there. Then they had a sand they thought had a show in it, and I tested that too, you know. They didn't have anybody down there, I guess, that wanted to go down there; I guess, or something another.
  • K.- Well, they probably thought you could do the job.
  • R.- They thought I could feed those mosquitoes. That was what was the matter. They didn't mind feeding me to the mosquitoes.
  • K.- You had plenty of mosquitoes at Hackberry Island then?
  • R.- Yes, you bet. There was a lot of them there. But Pine Island had more mosquitoes than any place I ever was in my life. The were more there than any place. They just, we had to wear nets and slicker right in July there, June and July just hot, just hot as could be. We had to wear a slicker and net and long knit gloves. Now that's the only way you could work. We didn't have any mosquito fans then to blow them off, you see. Later they put big fans on those rigs and blow them off, you know. But we didn't have that. We just had to let them have their eat. We had to feed them, that's all.
  • K.- Sounds almost like a tall tale.
  • R.- And they wasn't the kind that would run off either. When they'd sit down you could take them by either one of their legs and pull them off. They wouldn't fly at all. They were busy, interested in getting something to eat. And they didn't sing either. That kind didn't sing. They were mosquitoes that, they'd had a storm in there the year before. Put that brackish water all over that marsh in there, that salt water. And that made it brackish and that's what those mosquitoes were from. They're the worst when it happens like that. That's when they have real bad mosquitoes.
  • K.- But no warning sign when they attacked?
  • R.- Oh, no, they'd just come ring on and sit down and they'd
  • go right to boring, drilling just as soon as they'd get there.
  • K.- You getting tired? How long did you stay at Pine Island?
  • R.- Oh, about two months I guess. Still drilling on my well then when I left there.
  • K.- How'd you happen to leave there?
  • R.- They sent me to Electra.
  • K.- That's when you came to Electra?
  • R.- They sent me to Electra then. I wouldn't go any more then, That's the reason I'm up here.
  • K.- That was in what year that you came to Electra?
  • R.- 1913.
  • K.- 1913.
  • R.- Uh-huh.
  • K.- How did you happen to come, how did they happen to send you to Electra?
  • R.- Well, John Fisher told me they sent three rotary rigs up here and been up here three years ago. And said they had never been able to complete a well with them. It was too hard, they couldn't drill it. It was too hard for a rotary rig and they was drilling them with cable tools. And the Miller lease where they had them at that time was in the red $35,000, And said it looked like it never was going to get any different. Said it just cost them so much to drill them with cable tools and it took so long to drill them. And get so few wells completed that they wasn't getting anything, water or anything.
  • K.- What direction from Electra was the Miller lease?
  • R.- Northeast.
  • K.- Northeast.
  • R.- About two and a half miles. He believed it could be drilled with a rotary and wanted me to come up and see what the trouble was. Like to find what the trouble was to make it go. So I came up here. First hole I had, had one rig setting out in the field and out there at the Miller land. One out in the field on a job where they was setting seven inch pipe, and twisted it off 700 feet down and there it was. And had to pull it out and had that 700 feet of pipe down In the hole down there.
  • So I went out there and I just put on a bit and drilled on a sidetract there. And I never tried to fish it out or anything, knew I couldn't. Sidetract was setting out the spring on the outside of it. Completed the well. And I went down in another one and completed it. And pulled the other two rigs out and put them to work. And besides, had a couple of contractors in there too helping. And then in six months' time we had sixty wells completed on that job. Didn't have any bad fishing jobs, no trouble. The easiest drilling I ever saw in my life.
  • Anybody could drill at that, just anybody could. Just shut the well down and never could get stuck, just stay there. Just go and start to drilling and they did. So much different from South Texas. You couldn't even shut down there to pack your pump. You had to come out of the hole if you had to pack a pump. You had to come out of the hole if you had to pack a pump. If both of them happened to go down had to get your pump shaped and then run it back in the hole. If you didn't you'd get stuck. You just had to continuously keep circulation down there. Not so up here. You could----
  • B.- Now what was it, sand down there?
  • R.- Yes, that's right; sand, quicksand. Just like in the river out here.
  • B.- Yes. Well, you didn't have a rock bit then did you?
  • R.- Yes. I ran the first rock bit that came, that they sent to Saratoga, Hughes Rock Bit. I ran the first one in there. But we didn't want to run them on hard shells, you know. Didn't have too many of them down there. And it made that all right now. And yes, we run rock bit. I run rock bit long before I come up here.
  • B.- Do you remember when you ran that first rock bit?
  • R.- No, I sure don't. I just sure don't remember what year it was in at all.
  • K.- Well, do you remember where?
  • R.- At Saratoga.
  • K.- At Saratoga.
  • R.- Yes, it was Saratoga. But I don't remember what year.
  • B.- And you were using rock bit at Electra?
  • R.- Oh yes. We used them on the hard shells, you know. We never got to use them until just a few years ago from top down to bottom. And have to pick up the pump to keep it clean
  • B.- You had to pull your drill pipe and change your bit?
  • R.- Everytime we had a hard shell, we couldn't make it with a fish tall. Go through it and then come out again, you know. We had a different type of bit than we have now. The type bit we had now, then would be a little hard to keep clean even now in shavings. But we got better pumps now, lot better pumps. We had small pumps and it would just ball up. You couldn't keep it clean, couldn't make any hole with it.
  • K - How deep was that well there at Electra on the Miller lease?
  • R.- That--
  • K.- Approximately what?
  • R.- 1600 foot stuff at the post hole They're still producing too. That lease is still making over 100 barrels a month, day, that I drilled there in that time, that long.
  • K.- Did you drill more out in that area or did you move?
  • R.- Oh no, I drilled the first well down south of the railroad track that produced below 800 feet. I got the first oil south of the railroad track off-setting Mrs. Jennings' land.
  • K.- Off-setting Mrs. Jennings?
  • R.- Yes, uh-huh.
  • K.- When was that? That was--
  • R.- That was in 1915, '14; '14 I believe it was. Either '14 or '15 I drilled that well down there. Wildcat, you know.
  • K.- Yes.
  • R.- I went down there and drilled that thing.
  • K.- That worked up into a pretty good field though, didn't it?
  • R.- Oh yes. That field connected all the way from north of Electra all the way through there plumb to KMA, plumb down to Archer City and down below there. It's all a pool now except some few skips you know in dry places in it but--
  • K.- Well, didn't they have several shallow sands there?
  • R.- Oh, yes. They had lots of shallow sands. All the way from 200 feet down. Not