James Donohoe Interview - James Donohoe Interview [part 3 of 4]

Typed on a multilith masters 12/11/59 M Ross PIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL Topic: Early Days at

Batson.Name: Donohoe, James.Interviewer: Owens, William A.Place: Batson, Texas.Tape No.: 24 Date:

August 1, 1952 Restrictions: None O.- Will you tell me the

story of the discovery well? D.- Well, I- the discovery well,

I was not present at thattime, but I-- the information I have is from reliable author-ity,

reliable people that I've known for years and was in close contact with them and had dealings with

them.There was a doctor living in Liberty that had some patients on Batson Prairie.

But where the location of the well is wasa sheep- or goat ranch then.

It was a low- and the surround-ing country-- and it has the appearance

of a saucer. And at this particular point, the water would stand on the ground several days

at a time and possibly weeks. And the citizens here had noticed the gases bubbling in the water.

Well, at that time, I suppose there was quite an excitement all over Southeast Texas about

Spindletop, and Sour Lake and Saratoga and they naturally wondered if this was oil here.

And this doctor on one of his visits, who was the Dr. Lovett in Liberty,

he was- come to see his patients, and they took him down there

to this location and he seen the water, gas bubbling,

and- I'm not quite sure whether any of the gas was lit or not,

but any-how, it was very much in evidence. And he returned to Liberty

and he and some other Liberty citizens (one of them was a driller)

and they went to work to form a company. They went to Beaumont and they got the Weisses and Bass

and Pipkins and others and they formed this little company

and they secured the services of Mitchell-- Mitchell

and Little, well contractors. And they hauled the rig from Liberty and they drilled the first well

on this location. Then they drilled the second well

and the third well all right close together. Well, by that time, I suppose

that the boom came in and the second-- third well, west of this present well,

turned out to be a very large producer, 10,000 barrels a day.

Then other various companies got land here and started drilling

and Riley Number One, which was drilled by J. M.-- J. M. Guffey Petroleum Company.

And a few hundred feet south of this location of the discovery well came in a very poisonous gas

and it killed lots of animals in the way of cattle, horses, chickens and a few men was killed.

O.- Were they men working on the rig? D.- Well, it was due to the inhaling of the gas,

and it caused them to die. Then the town had-- was just a bunch of tents around the well. And then

the town moved further south, which is the town-- which is the present location of the town now.Then

the-- the-- the Paraffin and others commenced building these early tanks

and a great amount of this oil was all placed in earthen storage until pipelines,

later on, carried it to Sour Lake and Beaumont and other places. And then there was some-- later

on, there was a few companies built large, sub-stantial pumping stations here

and they was used for a number of years afterwards, but now there is no use for them.

There's only one pipeline in here,

which is the Sun Oil Company, andthey buy all the oil produced in the Batson field.And the--

the total production now in the old field isabout, I'd say, about 350 barrels.

And in the old field theaverage well is two and one-half barrels per day.

However, on the south and west side, which is much deeper, in the 5000 and 6000 area-- strata,

them wells come in there making four and 500 barrels, but settle down to paying producers,

I would say, of around in the neighborhood of 100 barrels.

Here of late there's been some good production on the west side. And about ten years ago, or eleven,

there has been a very good produc-tion on the southwest side of the town of Batson.

And-- there--there's considerable-- has been a considerable bit of wildcatt-ing

heretofore on all sides. The Stanolind Oil Company has done considerable wildcatting.

That's developing. And they now have production on the northeast side, what is known as Pish Lake.

This Pish Lake locality has seemed always rather attractive to the geologists

due to the fact of the nature of the surrounding

area and salt flats. And in early days, it--long before, maybe before the white man was here,

it was Indian headquarters and you can see very much evidence of them now still at this

time. It appears that that might have been a place to come and get-- make their salt.

Then on the south side of the field, there's been some deep tests made there, some four or

five miles south of the town of Batson and the field. And they have-- have not had any

large production. In fact, the wells have pretty near all proved to be

dusters*The large companies, the Gulf, the Texas, the Humble, the Paraffin, the Stanolind,

own a vast amount of acreage surround--all surrounding this salt dome.

And they're-- I would suppose it would generally appear, that they're holding it in reserve,

which later will be developed maybe. And the--

the considerable deals have been closed in this way, that people have bought surface rights,

but all of the minerals have been reserved. O.-

Now, sir, I'd like for you to tell me about your own part

In the development of this field. D.- When I first came to this field I went to work

for the Ninety-nine Pumping Company owned by Prank Birmingham, Colonel Crawford, and others.

I worked for them quite a number of years. Then the Adabel Oil Company

purchased their holdings and I continued on with the Adabel Oil Company. And about the year--

I'd say about 15, 1915, John Cashin and James Antilly and myself

bought the Higgins Oil and Fuel Company's lease on the east side of the Batson field.

And we continued to operate that for a number of years, and during that time

we accumulated other holdings until we had a very good production. And there was-- company, after

a time, Mr. Antilly sold out to Cashin and Donohoe. Then the Camp Oil Company

and the E-- and the Cashin and Donohoe Company was consolidated,

and we called it the East Batson Oil Company,

composed of John Cashin, H.G. Camp, Ed Holenfield, Will Greeves and myself. And that was operated

for years up until shortly after the death of Mr. Cashin, whose death occurred in June, 1934.Well,

after that time, along about this time of the year--this month, the

owners of the East Batson Oil Company decided that what two companies was doing

in the well operations, one company could do all the operations. And so, so to speak,

we- we bought ourselves out. The Cashin estate and myself hadholdings--_____________[ill.]

in the East-- in the Bat-- in theAdabel Oil Company and they bought the holdings of the East

Batson Oil Company and the East Batson Oil Company reserved the royalty. The Adabel Oil Company

operates at this present time. I have been associated with the Adabel Oil Company

in the way of a stockholder and as an employee and one of the officers,

and still continue so. And that property is-- is what would be called the shallow part

and has proved to be very profitable. O.-

That is a very good outline. Now, I'd like for you to go back and fill in

the personal details as far as you're concerned. D.- When I first came to Batson and went to work,

as a fireman of a boiler and pumping four wells for the Ninety-nine Pumping Company,

I continued on with that for a few months. Then, later on, the Adabel

Oil Company bought the Ninety-nine out and I still worked-- remained in the Adabel's employ.

And then I went to work as a pumper and that work consists of

keeping therigs up, keeping the stuff ___________ [inaudible], and watchingthe well, the rig, and

guaging the tanks and reporting production. And whenever a well needs pulling or goes off,

why, you report it to the superintendent. I worked at that work several months. Then,

later on, I went to work in what they call the roustabout gang.

Their work is pulling wells and changing the cups and pulling the tubing and laying

pipelines and doing general work on the lease. Then, after some time, I was placed as a foreman

of the roustabout gang and I was in that employ for several years. Then after that,

I went-- when I-- whenthe Cashin and Donohoe Oil Company was formed, I went on thatwork for them.

My work then was mostly supervising work and foreman, just like that. And at times when the--

Mr. Cashin was gone, why, my work was superintendent of the lease. And--uh--

what you might term, I guess as general foreman whether it was foreman or whether It was

handling a number two shovel. O.- You had to do all sorts of things?

D.- Yes. All sorts of things. And we had to look after itthat-a-way. Well, that-- that

arrangement continued for several years and then I-- I-- there's one thing that I have always felt

might be good about-- that Mr. Cashin and I were in part-nership 25 years

and in that time we never had a run-in and when we was setting up the estate, setting-- that the

Certified Public Accountant

said, "This is very unusual." I-- he says, "The average life of a partnership, of a corporation,

is about seven or eight years." And he says, "You have went way above the average,"

which has always been a great satisfaction to me since Mr. Cashin has passed away,

to know, to feel, that we all got along so good. O.- Now, I'd like to go back and ask you some of

your-- you've mentioned the good times that you've had. What about some of the tough times you've had

while you were working? D.- Well,

the-- the-- some of the tough times which we had when we was working.

For instance, a fire would break out in the oil field. Well, we all had to fall out of

bed and go fight the fire, had to fight all night and try to save the property.

Then, if a well was giving us trouble, why, we had to stay with that well, a drilling well, anything

of that sort that required constant attention. If you didn't get to bed in 36 to 48 hours

it wasn't unusual lots of times. And then, if an oil engine or anything of the kind was

giving trouble, you had to stay with it and keep it a going until it was op-erating in good order.

And now the-- I might add this, that when the-- when the wells was all pumping and

work was all done,

why, our rest period and good times you could always find us around the water keg in the shade

trying to be as com-fortable as possible. O.- Did

you tell many stories there around the water keg? D.- Well, I-- that was the place for all the

stories and some of them wasn't any too clean. O.-

Do you remember any of the good ones the fellows told around there, though, that are

halfway clean? D.-

Well, there was so many characters at that time that we all had someone to make a story on.

Now, I might relate to you just one little incident that it had us all worked up about it,

which was a true happening. There was a man-- we had a man pumping for us by the name of Ross,

and we had another one who was a fireman by the name of Harkum.

And I come into the blacksmith shop; and Ross was a man that stuttered.

And I--he come up to me and he said, "Donohoe, did you hear aboutHarkum?"Well,

that put me uneasy. I thought maybe that he was hurt something seriously, you know. And he said--

I said,"No, what's the matter? What's the matter with him?"And he says, "Harkum's had bad luck."I

says, "What kind-- what was it?"He says, "Ki-- ki-- ki-- ki-- kinfolks c-- c-- come."

O.- That's the sort of thing that would go on around there?

D.- Yeah, that's the usual story. O.- Did you ever have any stories about how oil

was located,how people would use various devices? D.- Yes, we had-- we had what we called

the oil smellers and oil witches. O.- Well, what was an oil smeller?

D.- Well, an oil smeller was a fellow that went around

and had one of these mineral rods, you know, and he claimed that he could--

this instrument, when he passed over certain ground, that he could tell whether there was oil.

And that proved to be and was a sort of a joke and a laughing stock, lots of them. And then

the-- usually, lots of them would say, "Well, now about oil--" They had oil indications in the land,

surface.And oftentimes when they had-- I have known at the time

where there would be seeps of gas in this locality and then they would put a tube down in the ground

where the gas was coming out and would light it. Sometimes it would light and-- most of the time

it would prove to be vegetable gas or something of that kind. But there was right smart of that

at that time. That was very much-- then as time went on, why, the seismograph

and deep gravity machine come into general use#

O.- Yes, sir. D.- And the information I have from them

is that you can-- they can tell you where the possibilities of the vegetable oil,

but they don't-- they can't tell you that the oil is there. But--in other words,

they can tell you where is the prospect-- best prospect to spend your money,

to chance it, to make a produc-tion of it, O.- Do you think that oil field

workers are fairly superstitious people? D.- No, I-- I-- in view-- I suppose you mean

the men in the field or the-- O.- Yes, the men in the field,

working around the rigs and soon. D.- Well, no. As a rule they're not.

They're not so very sup-erstitious. However, of course, there's some,

O.- Yes, sir. D.- But I would say as a whole

that they're not so supersti-tious. O.- Do you think that's because they

work with machinery a great deal and they're accustomed to truth?

D.- Yeah, that's it. They're-- that-- I would say that was --being experienced with machinery

and some of them, you know, developed into very good machinists and very competent

men.And you take-- you take the average man that works in the oil field,

that tries to do something, he proves to be competent and he is the man that later on,

that is now the head of these oil companies. O.- Yes, sir.

D.- Which is the case now. O.- Yes, sir. That was one of

the questions I mean to ask.You yourself went to the sixth grade. Many of the other people

I've talked to went only to the third or fourth grade. How was It that those men were able to

make such an advance in the oil business? D.- Well, now, when-- oh-- at that time,

the oil business was new, so to speak,

and-- It was a remark, I've heard it said, it took a weak mind and a strong back to do the work. But

the people In the oil business at that time,

they didn't have to have the education that they do today.

In other words, it wasn't-- the operations then wasn't scientific like it is now.Now,

we done things then in the oil fields and in drilling wellsand everything of that sort

that people would laugh at us now If you'd want to do that kind of work, in that way.

O.- They'd call it primitive, would they? D.- Yes, very, very, primitive. And they--

the men of that time that was very limited in education,

they realized that they had to apply themselves to get anywhere and

long and faithful service went a long ways with these companies.

O.- Yes, sir. D.- And, in other words, that they--

what they knew about the oil business and what they later had to come in contact with,

their knowledge was the experience in the college, the school of hard knocks.

They learned by actual experience

and I have- I have noted at that time that I knew men was drillers that could not keep a log

of their drilling well and they would hire their roustabout-- or their roughnecks

that had an education to keep the log book for him and his makings. But for him to do it,

he couldn't have done it. And them men proved to be very good men in the work.

And when it come to knowing drilling a well, or pumping a well or anything,

they knew thoroughly and I would say that they-- whenever anything taken place

in the experience of a well, it was something that they remembered. They had to depend on memory.

And them men later on become the managers and

superintendents of the large companies of today. O.- Well, what do you-- how do you account for

the difference between success and failure? What Is the thing that made the difference

between the two for these oil men? D.- Well, the difference of success and failure

was very much

James Donohoe Interview - James Donohoe Interview [part 3 of 4]

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