Mr. and Mrs. Bert Stivers Interview

NAME: Mr. and Mrs. Bert Stivers TAPE NO. 143, DATE: August 26, 1953 PLACE: Mr. and Mrs. Stivers's home, 1102 Hobson St., Sapulpa, Okla.

INTERVIEWER: W. A. Owens Owens; I'll first ask Mr. Stivers to give his full name.

Stivers: Art C. Stivers.

O. Where were you born, sir?

S. Savannah, Ohio.

O. In what year?

S. 1880.

O. 1880. Now then, Mrs. Stivers, what was your maiden name?

Mrs. S. Ethel Irene De Witt.

O. Where were you born?

Mrs. S. I was born in Mount Vernon, Ohio.

O. In what year? Mrs. S. 1883.

O. Good. Now, Mr. Stivers, will you tell me something about your schooling?

S. Well, I went, I guess all my schooling was in Savannah, Ohio. I went as high as the eighth grade. Then I had to quit school and go to work.

O. All right. I didn't ask you to tell me something about your parents. Will you give me their names?

S. William A. Stivers. And he was born, I think, in southern Ohio. My mother's name, maiden name, was Rachel Black and she was born in southern Ohio.

O. Now where were your parents born? Who were - what were their names and where were they born? Do you remember?

Mrs. S. Squire Ebenezer De Witt was my father and my mother was Laura Anne McCoy and they were both born in Ohio.

My father was born near Ackneytown, Ohio, and my mother was born near Chillicothe.

O. Was this a farming community you lived in?

Mrs. S. Yes.

O. And you went to school in a farming community?

S. Yes, sir.

O. Could you describe the school a little bit, Mrs. Stivers?

Mrs. S. The school where I went?

O. Yes.

Mrs. S. Well, I first started to school in - at Mount Vernon, Ohio, out in the country, of course.

And then we moved from there to Savannah, Ohio, and Mr. Stivers and I were in the third grade together and we finished our schooling there.

O. So you've known each other quite a time.

Mrs. S. We certainly have. [Laughter]

O. All right, Mr. Stivers, you said you quit school to go to work. Would you tell me about the work that you did?

S. At that time? O. Yes, sir.

S. I was, went to work in an elevator where they sell cars, bought weight and loaded it in cars.

And I wasn't there but about eight months and I was about fifteen years old.

Then I was engineer in the elevator. Well, then I worked there for quite a while and I got a better job

over at the Savannah Flour Mill Company and I went to be engineer in there so I was engineer there over, for about two years, or maybe a little over.

Then I finally went to the City Water and Light Plant, and I was one of the running engineers there.

They had a chief engineer but I was only a running engineer. And that was considered about the best job in that town. My salary was thirty dollars a month.

O. How many hours did you work?

S. Well, you can imagine working night. Running the light plant you had to be there in time so you could turn those lights on in the evening and shut them off in the morning when it got light enough to see.

So it would run any place from around twelve and fourteen hours in the wintertime, for a dollar a day, dollar a night.

Then there was a fellow by the name of 0. M. Dobeschur.

He had left Savannah and my father had worked for his brother, and he came down to Spindletop, and finally him and his brother that lived in El Paso,

they drilled them a well there. And he got another fellow that used to live in Savannah to come down and pump that well for so much a barrel.

Well, there was nobody there that was really a fireman, and they were just blowing the boiler up at about one a day In that field -- Spindletop.

So he wrote back there and asked me if I would come and work for him. Well, I was a little bit dubious about the money.

So Olmer Dobeschur happened to come back just about that time I got that letter, so I went and told him and he says, "Bert* if you'll go, I'll see that you get your money, every dollar of it."

So I went. Then I got three dollars a day. Well, that was big money in them days.

O. Three dollars at Spindletop?

S. How's that?

O. You got three dollars a day at Spindletop?

S. Yes sir, three dollars a day at Spindletop.

O. On what day did you arrive at Spindletop?

S. Well, it was in January, about the middle of January of 1904, I believe.

O. About 1904.

S. Three or four, I wouldn't say which.

O. The field had been going for some time?

S. Well, it had been going for, it hadn't been going but about six months, when I got there.

I guess that was three, when I got there.

O. The well, the Lucas gusher came in in 1901.

S. One? Well, then It was - January of 1903, I'm sure.

O. January 1903 when you got there.

S. Yes, sir.

O. All right. Describe the work that you did when you first got there.

S. I was firing a boiler and pumping one well that pumped with an old fashioned steam head.

And I pumped that well all night long, and another man pumped it in day time. Then afterwhile, why, they acquired more acreage at Sour Lake, Texas,

and they transferred me over there and they had a big air plant, and they put me there as engineer in the air plant.

So I worked that a while. Then from there I went to Batson and worked there for quite some time.

Well, of course, at that time, Mr. Dobeschur sold out, and sold out to a Mr. Birmingham and a Mr. Crawford.

Well, then I worked for them and I was farm boss and I had charge of the wells. Then eventually, Mr. Crawford sold out to a Mr. Sharp in Houston and it was Mr. Sharp and Mr. Birmingham at that time.

O. Which Sharp was that, do you remember? Was It Walter or Jim?

S. Walter.

O. Walter Sharp, yes.

S. And - because he had charge of the Texas Company. And then, after Mr. Sharp came in, they called it the Ninety-nine Pumping Company.

They said that was one to being perfect, and that was the reason they named it that. Then there was great to Wildcat. And they drilled several wildcat wells and we pumped several wells in Batson.

I don't remember just how many we had, but quite a bunch of them. And I had charge of those things.

Then afterwhile, the Ninety-nine Pumping Company - Mr. Sharp, I think, passed away, if I remember right - and then we organized a company and we called it the Margay Oil and Gas Company.

Well, by that time I had acquired some interest in the company and was still the general superintendent there.

And then later, we branched out to go to Oklahoma - Tulsa, Oklahoma.

And we called it the Margay Oil Company. And I was still superintendent, and vice-president.

Then later, Bert Bedeff of Texas came in, wanted to expand, and we called it the Margay Oil Corporation

and I handled that for a number of years and had charge of the three states, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

O. During that time, did you make your headquarters in Tulsa?

S. Yes, sir. The headquarters and the head office was in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

O. Yes.

S. And, do you want the building?

O. Yes.

S. In the Roberts Building.

O. In the Roberts Building in Tulsa.

S. Tulsa. And of course, they changed their offices from time to time and moved to other buildings.

But we had grown at that time to be quite a large concern. And I was with them then for about between thirty-five and forty years.

O. Most of the latter years in Tulsa?

S. The latter years I was In Kansas, yes, sir.

O. Kansas.

S. Yes, sir. And they finally sold out everything to the Sahara Oil Company, and that means leases,

pumping equipment and everything else and then there was no more Margay Oil Corporation.

So now I've retired and have been for about four years.

O. All right. Now I would like to go back to your early days at Spindletop.

I'd like for you to give me a description of your trip down to Spindletop.

How did you go, what did it look like when you got there?

S. How I went there?

O. Yes. S. Well, sir, I taken the train out of Savannah, Ohio.

I left there at 3:50. I'll never forget that, 3:50. That train on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad went through there at 3:50

for years and years. When I was a young boy going to school and I was going to school in an eight-room school house;

had four upstairs and four down. And I sat in the corner room there where I could see that train go over an upgrade of about two miles to Reeseville, Ohio.

Then I said if I ever got big enough I was going to take that train and go West. Sure enough, that's the train that I left on when I left there. And there

was a big snow on the ground when I left and down a little below zero.

Of course, I hadn't traveled much, and I got to Cincinnati and changed to the Queen and Crescent route.

Got the Queen and Crescent route from Cincinnati to New Orleans. And I went to sleep in my seat and that night I woke up and there was an older white man sitting beside of me.

And I looked out of the window, and I could only see spots of white outside the window.

I said to him, I said, "Well this snow's melted off awful funny." I said, "I only see white spots now and then black spots."

And the old man laughed and he said, "Well, young man, where did you get on this train?"

I said, "I got on at Cincinnati."

And he kinda laughed and he said, "Well, he said, "I'm going to tell you that is not snow that you see, that is cotton."

And I was passing through cotton fields and that was in southern Tennessee. I got to New Orleans and our train was late.

I missed the connection on the Southern Pacific Railroad going towards Beaumont. I had to lay ever until the next through train went which made me stay over there about eight or ten hours.

So I went down around the wharf and in there, watched them unload boats and stuff like that, and passed the time away until our train come through.

So when the train got ready to leave I took the Southern Pacific to Beaumont. I bought my ticket up there before I left, see.

And the conductor come along and he says,"Young man," he says, "do you know where you are going to?"

I said, "Yes, sir, I'm going to Beaumont, Texas."

"Well," he said, "You don't know nothin' 'bout that, do you?" And I said. "No. sir."

"Well," he said, "I'm goin' to tell you somethin', you're just puttin' your sign on your death warrant when you go there."

Well, that was very encouraging to me. And so I said, "Well, what's the matter?"

And he said, "I'm goin' to tell you somethin'." He was the conductor on that train. Very nice fellow, seemed like.

And he said, "Don't you drink any of that water, because if you drink any of that water, it will give you what they call the 'Beaumonts' and," he said, "it'll just kill you, that's all."

I went to Beaumont and I didn't forget that man's words, and I just wouldn't take a drink of water for over thirty days. I drank coffee, soda pop or something like that all the time to take the place of water.

Well, where I was working at night, I had two boilers in there and between the two was set the little boiler feed pump

and the little pistons got to leaking the water as it fed the boilers. And I went In there to tighten those up. That water come out and hit me on the wrists.

Oh, it was cool And I said, "Well, die or not, I've got to have some of that water."

I reached down there and put my mouth over the little valve and I just drank all I could hold. After that on, I always drank water and it never hurt me. [Laughter]

Now, possibly that's all, I don't know, unless you want something else from me.

O. Yes. I want some more from you. You arrived in Beaumont. Where did you stay there?

S. Where did I stay? I went from Beaumont out to Spindletop and I stayed at Spindletop with the man and his wife that I was working for.

And I got at that time -- I might have misinformed you a little bit ago -- I got seventy-five dollars a month, room and board.

the other boys that paid their own board was paid the three dollars a day. So then I worked there and they give me my room and board and seventy- five dollars a month.

Well, of course, I saved the money. I didn't spend any money to amount to anything.

The first year I had seven hundred and some odd dollars saved up. I went home with that all in my pocket.

That was a crazy thing to do but I did. And when I got back up there among the younger folks that I knew before, I had - I'll never forget that -- six twenty dollar gold pieces that I carried in my front pocket.

I'd jingle that and take it out and show it to some of those boys that was there and I expect If I had one boy,

I had a hundred, that wanted me to get them a job at Spindletop but I couldn't do that.

And the old fellow that I worked for, the chief engineer in the City Water and Light Plant at Savannah,was a very religious man.

And when he found out that I was -- at that time then I had raised up to one hundred and twenty-five dollars a month -- and I went back and I saw him and he wanted me to get him a job at Spindletop.

His name was Eli Pearson and he was pretty well up in years but he was very religious and Spindletop was a tough place and I said, "No."

I didn't tell him that I thought to myself, "I can't get him a job there because that would not be right.

He's got a good home and getting old and he's too religious for a place like that." So I didn't get him a job.

But every night before we started the engine on that light plant he would always motion me -- when I first went I was fireman there - always motion to me and

I would come and stand in the door and he would offer a short prayer before we started that engine.

And he was a very fine mechanic. And then later, I got to be one of the running engineers and we never had

that motor to stop on us but once. That was on me.

It was an oiler on the crank, a stationary oiler and had a pipe and of course, you filled it there.

That come loose. It took me about five minutes to set it back and start the engine out and that's the only time that engine was ever stopped to my knowledge while we were on duty.

But there is something a little funny with that one night him and I were both on. They was great big doors there, and you had big coal chutes out there and they had a big two-wheel truck.

You had to come in, wheel this coal in from these coal bins out there in the truck.

But it held about a thousand pounds but it wasn't hard to push because the wheels rolled easy and you pushed it in, in front of the boilers and shoveled it out of there.

Well, we sat down -- these doors were about twelve inches wide -- the wall was that thick.

We sat down on one side of the door, he did and I sat down on the other -- sat down on a chair and leaned back in the chairs and we both went to sleep.

And when we woke up, we woke up almost immediately together -- we both jumped up and the electric wires had just little red lights, little red wire in 'em.

And, boy, we throwed everything in that boiler room in the boiler old kindling and everything else to get that fire started, but the motor, the engine didn't stop.

And that's the only time that I know of any accidents that happened around there and they wasn't accidents anyway because there was nothing serious that happened.

O. Let's see, you went back to visit in Ohio at the end of that year ?

S. How's that now?

O. You went back home to visit at the end of that year?

S. I went back practically every year, as long as I stayed in the South and my mother lived, I always went back, every year to visit

there

O. All right. I would like to ask you a few more questions about your living on Spindletop while you were there.

What kind of house did you live in?

S. In a, just a what you call more of a shack. It's built out of one by twelves, and a floor in it, and stripped cracks on the one by twelves and with a tar paper roof.

O. How many rooms did it have?

S. Three.

O. How many members of the family were there?

S. The man and his wife and one small child. They run a boarding house and one room let out.

And I had one room in there and they kept the other room.

O. All right. How many hours a day were you working?

S. At that time? Twelve hours a day.

O. What did you do for amusement?

S. There wasn't no such a thing as amusement. There wasn't no amusement around there that amounted to anything.

It was work. If you wanted any amusement you had to go to Beaumont.

And there was mud Lots of times if you went you had to go in a wagon.

Of course, they eventually got hacks in there. They were going backwards and forward. But it was pretty expensive.

There was no amusement. I didn't have any. I just stayed there and worked.

O. Yes. Well, there were saloons and gambling houses at Spindle- top when you first went there.

S. Saloons and gambling houses -- every other door, almost. They were just thick.

O. Yes. That was on Spindletop?

S. Yes.

O. What did you do about church out there?

S. I don't believe there was a church there, until way later, then there were churches built, but not at first.

When I went there was not a church there. Saloons, gambling houses, pool halls, grocery stores, and dry goods stores, and fruit stands - that's about all there was.

And If you had any amusement, you met some of your friends up there and bought them a cold drink, or if you were a drinking man you bought them another kind of a drink.

But I never was a drinking man. I never drank.

O. So you stayed away from the saloons?

S. Yes, sir. I stayed away from the saloons. My drinking was soft drinks, soda pop.

O. All right. When you went to church, you had to go into Beaumont then?

S. How's that?

O. You had to go to Beaumont to church, or did you --

S. No, I didn't. Because I didn't have time to go to Beaumont to go to a church.

I had to work all night. I had twelve hours at night and then when I got some sleep, it was time to go back to work.

And I didn't lose no time. I worked all the time. No, I didn't get to go to church while I was at Spindletop.

O. Did you have any accidents yourself at Spindletop? Did you get hurt at any time?

S. No, sir.

O. Narrow escapes?

S. I had some narrow escapes.

O. Could you tell me about some of those?

S. Well, I'll tell you I didn't have much at Spindletop. The water, the boiler feed pump quit a time or two on me and the water got a little bit low but I never had no accidents at Spindletop but one time I do remember.

I went over to oil the steam head that was on top of the well that pumped the oil out of the ground

and the derricks and wells were so thick that we didn't hardly go in there unless they would have some other fellow working there to watch us all the time.

And if he went in I watched him, and if I went in, he watched me. Well, I went in and put some oil on it and just getting ready to start back.

And that gas was very deadly gas. Well, that knocked me out and I just fell.

Well, he caught me, then. Run over to me, grabbed me round the waist and shoulders and drug me out.

And as my feet drug on the pieces of boards and everything else round there, I thought I was in an airplane.

And I thought, "Oh, my God, I'll break my legs," because I thought my legs was hitting on these derricks while I sailed in an airplane.

But I was unconscious from gas. And that's really the only one that happened there.

I had been knocked out later several times by gas, but not any more I don't think at Spindletop.

Then at Batson one time we had a bunch of wells there and we was working on that.

All of my men was busy, my roustabouts, the men that pull the wells, pull the rods out, change the Cottrell, pull the tubing when they wasn't pumped.

Well, I had one well that I wanted to get on. I took one young man over there with me and I run the engine and was pulling it by myself and he was tailing the rods out, laying them down on the walk.

So I tell him to pull it out so that

hook could come right on down to what they call the headache post, then I could grab it and unhook it when I reversed my engines and it would go up.

This time it missed, he pulled it too far from me. Well, I thought he would know enough to pull the reverse lever and just let me right back down.

His name was Fred Henderson. So I said, "Fred, pull that reverse lever and let me down." I would have dropped from the hook, but the flow line went out about that high, and it was too high, and I was right over it.

So I was afraid to hurt myself and I thought he'd pull it. He got excited, run clear back to the engine room

which, those rigs were sixty-two feet long. He run back to the engine room. I had the throttle wide open because there was a [unintelligible] steam, I just handled it with a reverse lever, and he shut that throttle off.

When I stopped, I stopped and stepped off on the last girt underneath the crown block, seventy-two feet in the air I If that engine had a pulled that line as much as one foot more before he got stopped,

it would have pulled my hand through the crown block and I'd a'fell to the floor and it would have killed me, I suppose.

But after I got off that hook and was on the side of the derrick, I was so nervous that I did not think that I could ever hold on to that derrick,

so they finally had to come up there. I did hold on, and they come up there and helped me down and I come down the ladder.

And I said to myself, "That's all the derrick work for me," and I never liked to climb a derrick afterwards. And. I just quit climbing. I wouldn't climb them.

And, I believe that's about the main Interesting parts of that.

O. All right. Oh, you didn't tell me what a headache post is. I'd like to know that.

S. Tile headache post is a post that is six by eight and it's about ten feet long.

And it sets up right on the derrick floor on the main sill of the rig and goes up and when the beam is working and at its longer stroke,

it misses the top of that headache post about four to six inches. So if anything should happen out there that would break,

that beam wouldn't fall in the derrick but would fall down and hit that headache post and stop it.

That's what would keep it from falling on you when you was there at the throttle running the engine.

And that way then, if you had to, wanted to put the pitman up -- lots of times you put the pitman up -- and that throws the end of the beam down on that headache post and you could put your rods or anything you wanted to on that and it would hold it.

O. All right, back to Spindletop again now. Can you tell me about fires that you saw there?

S. Fires?

O. Yes, sir. S. Well, sir, one night, I better not call that boy's name, I don't think. Would you?

O. Yes, I think so.

S. Well, one night there was a boy that was working there in Hogg- Swayne's Spindletop that came from the same town that I did and I went to school with him.

But he and I were not working for the same companies. He went to sleep in the engine room, so they tell, and upset the lantern.

We had lanterns, which was very, very dangerous. We should have had flashlights.

All right, he upset the lantern and the thing caught on fire and burnt Hogg-Swayne up. And of course, that boy was never able to get another job in Spindletop as long as I knew anything about it.

O. You didn't give me his name.

S. Uh?

O. You didn't give me his name.

S. His name was Forrest Bottomfield.

O. How do you spell that last name?

S. B-o- double t-o-m-f-i-e-l-d, Bottomfield, and he was an undertaker's son from Savannah, Ohio. And then eventually, he went on back to Savannah, Ohio, and went, I think, into the undertaking business.

Then there was another boy by the name of James Donohoe. He had wrote Forrest Bottomfield for a job and Forrest told him to come on down and he would get him a job or give him a job, I believe he said.

He came down and that was at Spindletop. And, so then, Forrest did not have a job for him and couldn't get him one and this James Donohoe had a round trip ticket, so he said, "Well, where is Bert Stivers at?"

He said, "Well, he's at Batson." And of course, you had to take the train out to Saratoga and then take a hack from Saratoga to Batson, or you had to take the Southern Pacific from Beaumont to Liberty and take a hack from Liberty to Batson.

And he said, "Well, I ought to go over and see him before I go back." So Jimmy Donohoes James Donohoe, rather, came over to see me.

I was very busy at the time he come over and doing lots of work. I was shipping a rig out of Batson, Texas, to Humble, Texas, and I was loading her on a car.

Those rigs had two fuel tanks for them, about twenty-five or thirty barrel tanks. Well, I had loaned one of those tanks to another fellow there in Batson to put up because he didn't have but one tank at his pumping -- where he pumped those -- well, the boiler, fuel tank.

And so Jimmy Donohoe had arrived that very day and he and I were talking and I sent my roustabout crew over three different times to tell him I want that tank and disconnect it and get the fuel oil out of it. They sent them back every time and wouldn't give it to them.

I said, "Well, come on, we'll go over there. I'll get that fuel tank."

James Donohoe and I went over with about four men and as quick as we got over there, I told that fireman, I said, "Now I've got to have that tank to load on a car to bill out tonight from Saratoga to Humble and that's our tank and I'm going to take it."

He blowed his whistle for his boss.

Well, his wife was sick, but he come right on down and when he come around the boiler, I had my men disconnecting this tank and he throwed down a forty-five pistol and he said, "Look out. I'm goin' to shoot."

Well, my men, they just went both ways from that tank. And I said, "Well, wait a minute. If you're going to shoot anybody, it's me not them men." and with a few words that I wouldn't want to repeat right now, I kept right after him.

Walking up to him and saving these words that I will not repeat now, it's not - I told him, I says, "You're going to shoot nobody, that's my tank and I'm a'taking it."

There was an old slush ditch right around. He was backing up and I was walking forward. He fell in that, fell down when he stepped in it, it was mud, fell down and dropped his pistol.

I jumped down and grabbed the pistol and then what I said to him wouldn't do to repeat.

And when I got through with him I took the pistol and handed it to him with the -- I held the barrel and I handed it to him and I said, "Take this gun, it's yours, but you get out of here and go for home."

He took the gun and went home. I took my fuel tank and loaded it on the car at Saratoga and shipped my car that night.

O. What was his name?

S. I don't remember his name, but he had charge of the lease where they had the fuel tank. It's a wonder that he hadn't a'killed me, but he didn't.

I don't know, I guess the good Lord just helped me out. [Laughter]

O. Well, back to Spindletop again. You didn't describe how the fire looked to you.

S. Oh, I didn't. Well that fire now, back at Spindletop. After this boy kicked the lantern over and set the fire, it burnt it clean," thousands and thousands of dollars worth of stuff was burn up, and it was just almost entirely wiped out.

And, of course, those days there were no trucks. Everything was hauled in by teams. Well, they immediately started on that and I got pictures of it.

Two weeks after the fire was happened, it was nearly one-half built up. You could not imagine that they could build that stuff that fast when they had to get that stuff in by team like they did.

But teams was thick, they were expensive but they was lots of them. And I have seen the time that it would cost you twenty-five dollars to get from the -- I believe one man I knew of, I don't know his name, paid fifty dollars to ride on a road wagon from Beaumont to Spindletop.

The mud was terrible but he gave that teamster fifty dollars to let him ride on that wagon to Spindletop.

He had money and he wanted to invest it, see, and he was out there looking for something. Now that's just it, money was nothing at Spindletop. It just went like water.

They just spent it for everything and everything was high. At that time oil was selling at three cents a barrel. Sold many a barrel for three cents at [unintelligible] but the oil wells were big.

O. Did you have a question, Mrs, Stivers?

Mrs. S. I was just going to tell him to describe the fire, how it looked. How did the fire --

S. Originate?

Mrs. S. No. How did the fire look while it was burning?

S. Well, to look at the fire, I can't hardly describe it to you, because it was immense. Black smoke from this oil, and rigs, and every- thing, going up till it just looked like an inferno of some kind. It was just terrible. But I don't think that there was anybody burnt to death but it was a terrible fire.

O. Were you working on the Hogg-Swayne tract yourself?

S. I was working on the Pine Island.

O. The Pine Island tract?

S. Yes, I wasn't working in the Hogg-Swayne tract but it was only just a little distance from the Hogg-Swayne to Pine Island.

O. Did you see Governor Hogg out there?

S. No, I don't remember him. I might have saw him but I don't remember him.

O. Yes, sir. The next move from Spindletop was to Sour Lake, wasn't it?

S. Yes, sir.

O. All right. For whom were you working at Sour Lake?

S. The same people.

O. The same people. Where did you live?

S. At Sour Lake? I lived in another little house as the one I described before that was built out of one by twelves, and strips, and the floors and the tar paper roof.

That's where they lived and we all -- the men that worked in their plant, boarded with them, but we had another little house built of the same material over there that we called a bunk house and we slept in the bunk house.

O. How long were you at Sour Lake? Do you remember?

S. I don't remember exactly, do you?

Mrs. S. No.

S. But I was there, I'll say, couple of years, anyway; or a little longer.

Then after the air plant shut down, well I and Mr. Birmingham and a fellow by the name of Clay bought a lease there and we run it for a while. Then we finally sold it out and I went to, from there to Batson.

But before I sold that lease out I was drilling a well, because we had a pretty nice little house in Sour Lake. It was a weather- boarded house, nicely built, three rooms. I and my wife was married there.

O. Oh, you were married there?

S. That's when we went back from Batson to Sour Lake.

O. Yes, sir, I see.

S. And I was drilling a well there and the drill pipe got stuck. And I was pulling on it. My partner was setting on a nail keg over there on the derrick.

Now wait a minute, I've got that just a little wrong. I was drilling and when I got stuck, my partner was not setting on that nail keg, that was another time.

He was out here a'watching the derrick. I was outside the derrick by the side of the engine, with the engine on a draw works on a rope that sets right by the derrick.

And I told him to watch the derrick and motion to me if it looked like she was weaving too much. Well, he didn't notice it, I guess. And I pulled that derrick down.

It fell all over me, all around me, on top of me - all I could do was just fall down flat and I then I come crawling out from under there but I never even got a piece, never hit me.

My wife, of course, was in the house which was only, not over seventy-five feet from that derrick; and she run out the front door screaming and a-hollering, of course.

But I come out and I told her I wasn't hurt. So we finally had to build that derrick back again.

O. All right. In Sour Lake this house was located on the field, I take it?

S. Yes, sir, that was located in Cannon tract.

O. In Cannon tract.

Did you go to Batson as soon as the field opened up there?

S. Let's see. Yes, it was just about, wasn't it?

Mrs. S. Just about.

S. Just about when it opened up.

O. All right. I would like to ask Mrs. Stivers some questions. Since you came to Batson, what was your marriage date?

Mrs. S. June 13, 1905.

O. 1905. You came right on to Batson. Were you married in Ohio?

Mrs. S. No, we were married in Saint Jo, Missouri, at my mother's sister's.

I was visiting there when we decided to get married so he came from Batson and we were married and went right back to Batson and went to housekeeping.

O. Well, I'd like you to tell about your trip back to Batson and the kind of house you set up there.

Mrs. S. Well, we had a very nice trip down. Of course, we went by train and we stopped in Beaumont.

And bought our furniture, what little bit we had at that time, and our dishes, and everything that we thought we needed and we went to a four room house.

And Mr. Stivers said he thought he had it just real nice and clean for me. And when I got there I couldn't unpack a thing until I had cleaned the house all over.

It was just what they call a shack but they had four rooms and I kept one room for Mr. Birmingham and Mr. J. I. Taylor when they wanted to come out from Beaumont to look at the field and visit a day or two and one room for supplies and the other two rooms we used for our living quarters and of course, it wasn't much of a place.

But I was just thrilled to death to get to Texas because I had never been out of Ohio and had always wanted to go some place. And so when I got there I was just very much pleased, except with the house.

I had hoped to have a nicer house but I soon saw that everyone else was living in the same kind of a house so I didn't mind that so much.

And we started up a Sunday School and we had Sunday School every Sunday and we finally got a preacher to come out every once in a while and we'd have preaching.

And we had a lot of nice friends there and had a very good time.

Of course, I had to buy boots to wade in that mud and I would go out with Mr. Stivers and we had a pony and a buggy and we lived there almost two years and then we moved to Sour Lake where our first son, Ovid De Witt Stivers, was born.

O. All right, before we go to Sour Lake, I've got some more questions to ask about Batson. Would you tell me exactly what furniture you bought for your house and about what you paid for it?

Mrs. S. I don't believe I can remember how much we paid but we bought one bed and a rocking chair and two dining chairs and a set of dishes and some stag handled knives and forks and I still have some of those.

And some of the dishes that we went to housekeeping with, I still have a few of those left. But the dishes were -- they only cost us about fifteen dollars, I think it was, for the entire set of a hundred pieces.

And of course, we didn't have any curtains until after I went out to the house to see what curtains I would need. Then we put up some lace curtains and made the house look liveable.

And the table was already built in the house so I didn't have to buy a table, and bought one stand for the living room, a little center stand, you know.

And that's just about all. Of course, linens and things like that that we needed.

O. Pine floors?

Mrs. S. Oh, yes. Bare floors, pine.

O. And a wood cook stove?

Mrs. S. Yes, a wood cook stove.

O. Where did you get your wood?

Mrs. S. Oh, we could pick it up most anywhere.

And then when we needed quite a bit of wood for the wintertime, why, we didn't have much of a winter but we'd have about two months, we'd buy wood from someone who cut wood and sold it.

But usually we could get most of our wood just around the place because we were right close, right in the piney woods and the black bear and the deer was all around us.

O. Seemed pretty wild to you?

Mrs. S. Oh, it looked wild, it really was wild. And they used oxen so much for hauling the heavy loads because they could go places where mules couldn't go.

And the oxen at night time were just turned loose and they would just lay around peoples' houses and sleep and one night I was sitting up with a sick baby and was coming home at one o'clock -- another one of the neighbors came in to relieve me at one o'clock and I was coming home to get my rest -- and it was a real dark, stormy night and when it lightninged, I was standing right in the midst of a bunch of those poor old, tired oxen but I just screamed like a panther.

[Laughter] But the poor old things were so tired they wouldn't have hurt me.

But it frightened me when it lightninged and I was standing right in the midst of them. But I wasn't long in getting into the yard.

O. All right, this is very good information. Where did you buy your groceries?

Mrs. S. Well, there was a man that came around with all kinds of vegetables in a little wagon and I would buy my vegetables from him, and he also carried some canned goods.

Then there was another man that built on a big hay wagon. He built a screened room, screened room and he set up a meat market in that and he drove all over the field and we would buy our fresh meats from him.

And he carried an ice box to keep his meat in. And we had just a regular ice box. We bought ice every other day. The ice man would come around.

Then when we wanted more groceries than these men carried, we would go to Batson, but I was always afraid to go into Batson for it was so, so many saloons in there and I never would go alone so I would always have to wait until Mr. Stivers could take me.

But before we left it calmed down a little.

O. Did you ever have any bad experiences yourself when you went into Batson?

Mrs. S. No, I never did have.

O. Some of the women did have?

Mrs. S. Oh, yes. Some of them had.

O. Can you remember any of those experiences?

Mrs. S. I just don't remember anything at the time, at this time now I just don't remember. But there was quite a few that had experiences, some very bad experiences.

During the time we were there, there were a lot of people shot and killed. But I didn't know any of them, they were transients, mostly.

O. Did you go to a funeral in Batson or not?

Mrs. S. Yes, I went to one. I don't remember that I went to more than one funeral. It was the funeral of this little baby I was sitting up with and we had to go to Liberty.

There was no cemetery at Batson and these people were Catholics and there was no priest in Batson.

So we took the baby in a hack and I carried the little casket on my lap in the back seat and it was only about nine miles, but we had to take a lunch because the roads was bad and it took us a long time to get there.

And we carried our lunch. and after we found a priest and the baby was buried, then we ate our lunch and drove back. It took us all day to drive it because the roads were very bad.

O. Did you know of any buryings of people out on the prairie, there?

Mrs. S,. No, I don't remember of any at that time.

O. Do you know what they did with the people who had no friends or relatives -- the ones who died without friends or relatives, there in Batson?

Mrs. S. Well, they just buried them most any place. They would just dig a grave and bury them. And as I remember, there was no markers set up, or anything.

O. Could you tell us anything about that, Mr. Stivers? Could you give us any more information about the burial of people who had no friends or relatives?

S. Well, the only thing that I can tell you about those who didn't have no friends or relatives and got killed -- but they were always murdered -- they wasn't killed on the field -- that is, in the work, so much.

Those that were at work and got hurt or got killed, they knew something about them.

But the others were more a transient -- and if they found them, they just took them off and buried them any place; just in the ground, with no funeral no nothing, just a group of boys would take them out and bury 'em.

And at Batson there, to give you a little idea of how really over-populated it was -- they would run the gas out from these big wells and run it out a ways off the field, where it wouldn't be any danger and put a pipe about twenty feet long, some guy did, and they would set it on fire to burn it to keep the danger away.

I have saw as many as a hundred and fifty to two hundred men lying around that fire in a big ring at night, asleep.

O. Why did they go there? Why did they sleep around there?

S. There was no other place for them to sleep. They couldn't get no other place.

O. Was there any warmth from the gas?

S. Oh, yes. Yes, that would make it nice and warm, laying out right on the ground; but of course, they had to sleep there, they couldn't sleep no place else.

But of course, saloons -- that was one of the main things.

Saloons and stuff like that was built up on the main street of Batson but so many times it was so muddy, you couldn't hardly get through it.

And it was so overpopulated and so many -- I expect you want this, but if you don't, you can cut it out -- so many women, lewd women, bad women, come in there, see.

And I have seen them cross from one side of the street to the other, and go up above the old Crosby Bar that was in Batson.

They wouldn't have one ounce of clothes on in the world -- just like you come into the world.

Right across through the rain and through that mud and up the stairs. Of course, drunk, I suppose or drinking.

It was a tough place. And I believe that I don't know how many I would say that I have saw, but I saw a number of them that was killed and killed on little, old roads. There wasn't no roads, there was country roads, trails.

They just was killed and somebody would find them when daylight come, and they might lay there all that day and in hot weather.

I remember one in particular that laid there and finally about four o'clock in the evening, they went up to a -- before they could get a any coroner out there -- they went up to a rooming house there and got a sheet and spread a sheet over him, but you had to turn out of the road to get by that man.

O. He'd been shot?

S. He'd been shot -- murdered.

So many people lived in just tents. And of course, maybe somebody just in there, some man just in there by himself, and they'd find him the next morning dead in the tent.

Maybe he'd been hit in the head with a gas pipe. Maybe he'd been shot. But he'd been murdered. He'd had a little money on him I suppose, and they took it.

Well, maybe they wouldn't know nothing about that man -- who he was or nothing. The coroner would come out and say -- make his, whatever he had to do see, and pronounce what it was.

First thing you know he would just go on out there some place in the woods, edge of the woods some place, and dig a hole and just bury him.

No coffin, no services of any kind or description.

O. Were you there when the Rangers came in?

S. Yes, sir.

O. Could you tell me something about that?

S. Well, the only thing I can tell you about the Rangers is they didn't stay there all the time, they would come in and out.

But now I'll tell you, when they would come in, they would clean up the place, and it would look pretty decent for a while. Then, the first thing you know, gambling, and women, and everything else, and saloons, and it would be right back to where it was before.

The Rangers would come again and they would clean it out again, arrest them.

And of course, if they arrested a man in Batson and they went up, we'll say and arrested those women; all right, they would pay about a ten dollar fine and away they would go again.

And they just had them set, see. This old judge, I forgot his name, but he would just get his money off of them women, see, and their jail was a big tree with a log chain around it.

And then they would lock them to that tree and it was out in the open. That was the only jail they had at that time.

O. Women locked to a tree?

A. Yes, the chain was locked to a tree, then they would bring it and lock it with handcuffs or something, around your leg or arm or something, and you were chained to that tree.

That was the jail.

I've seen them back of that Crosby saloon maybe a tree here and a tree here and tree here and there'd be maybe five, six, seven, or eight men or women chained to that tree. They wouldn't hardly ever chain two to one tree.

They would get them far enough away so that they couldn't get together, but that was the jail.

O. Did you see that also, Mrs. Stivers?

Mrs. S. No, I never did. That was before my time.

S. No, she didn't go at that time.

O. It had cleaned up some by the time you got there.

S. I'd see that because I had to go.

O. Well, actually, there was no bad living on the fields? You were right out near the fields?

Mrs. S. Yes, we were right out in the fields.

S. No, there was nice people out in the fields. Parts of it, of course -- some parts you would get into were bad. But then the majority of it was nice people.

O. Because they were working people.

S. They were working people. They worked, they were just good, honest boys that come in there like I was when I went down there, just a good country boy, I might say.

All right, they didn't think about those things. They didn't want to rob people or tear up everything. All they wanted was to work and get the money.

O. Can you remember the names of any of the gamblers in Batson?

S. No, I can't. I don't remember the names of any of them because I didn't associate with any of them fellows. I might go into a saloon and did lots and lots of times because I'd have to look for somebody.

Where you have to find them, you find them in a saloon. Wouldn't be much use to go any place else, if you wanted to look for somebody -- go to the saloon and look.

Some of the men or somebody like that, see, well, I'd go to the saloon, and you'd find them round there some place.

And at times, I did, once in a great while take a glass of beer. But then, I never drank it to excess. It would only be maybe one in a day and maybe two or three a year.

O. And you never gambled there either?

S. No, sir. Not like that.

O. Well, there was a great deal of gambling going on?

S. Oh, gambling'd go on every place.

O. Was there any gambling out in the fields?

S. Yes. Crap games and poker. They'd get in a tool house or some place and gamble.

Now, one time I had -- I was sleeping in what I called the office, one room off the warehouse. Well, I had hired a fellow that I knew for a long time to fire the boilers because the boilers were setting right there close.

"Now," I said, "I'm going to hire you," -- he come from the other field and come in there, see -- I said, "because I know you, and I want you to watch me when I am asleep as much as you watch them boilers.

And I'm going to tell you one thing, if I ever catch you sleeping, or nodding on this job, you're off, you're going right then, because they're killing too many people around here and I don't want to get killed."

At that time I had to have lots of money in my pocket all the time. Because there were too many strangers, and we had to pay those things, see, when I had the work done.

And so, I guess he never did. But I had gone to bed this particular night and the other boys had a bunkhouse over here just fifty or seventy-five feet from that and one of them come in there and woke me up.

His name was Jim Nebbe [?] He's dead now. And he said, "Bert, you got any money?"

I said, "Well, a little, what do you want?"

"Well," he said, "We was a'playing a little poker over there and," he said, "you know, the law come in and got us and fined us twenty dollars apiece."

It wasn't the law, it was just another bunch of kinda highjackers come in and posed as law, and I had to give them, I give them a hundred dollars - they had twenty dollars between them left.

And so I give them each one, twenty dollars apiece and they went out and give it to them fellows and that's the last ever heard of that.

There wasn't no moral, there wasn't no court, no nothing, they just took the money and away they went.

End of Tape