Bill Ingram Interview - Bill Ingram Interview [part 4 of 4]

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He thought they were all murderers and everything else. It's a great life if you don't weaken.
(LAUGHTER) B.- (LAUGHTER) Did you know any of these people
here that had town lots --- I.- No, no ---
B.- --- that got a little money out of those? I.- No, I didn't know them, because I was
kep - you know, on the outside. We had a camp - I lived in four different camps before I
ever moved to town. They'd just played out, why, they'd just move me up and take on another
one, see. I was the last district foreman they had in this field.
B.- Well, how were these people fixed out here before the oil came in? Were they as
poor as they were around Rising Star? I.- Oh, yeah, worse,
B.- Small farmers, I guess. I.- All the people that had anything at all
was the men that owned lot of cattle, you know. They's some few that owned a lot of
cattle You'd meet some of 'em, the landowners were
awful nice, and some of 'em wasn't, you know. I drove up to a house over there close to
Caddo one day and asked a fellow if he'd sell me a drink of water. And they wouldn't even
sell me a drink of water. He said, "There's a tank right over there you can git a drink
out of." - where cattle and everything else, you know. They had a good well of water cistern
of water, But they wouldn't even -- they were so afraid of the oil field people, they wouldn't
even sell me a drink, I told him, I says, "Hell, I don't --- "
B.- That was Caddo? I.- Just close to Caddo, I says, "Hell, I
don't want you to give me the water; I'll pay you for it." They told me I could git
a drink over there, God a mighty, I wasn't used to that kind of business. Lord,
B.- Well, when they came into the money, what'd they do with it?
I.- Well --- B.- They buy more land, or ---
I.- No, they just blowed it off. Some of 'em kept it, but they didn't -- it didn't do a
lot of 'em -- I'd say eighty-five per cent of the people just spent their money. They'd
never had any, see, and they didn't know how to take care of it or nothing. They just blowed
it in. B.- Well, what'd they spend it for?
I.- Just -- Lord, that's a question I don't know, what they'd do with it. But they'd git
shed of it, B.- Well, if a man had a couple of producing
wells in this field, around 1919, how much would he get out of it altogether, before
it quit producing? I.- Well, I don't know. See, some of those
wells hold up a long time and some of 'em didn't hold up so well. Now the company had
one well come in right out south of town here, made 17,000 barrels.
And it made that for quite a long time and that produced there for years and years. That
belonged to a fellow by the name of Stoker. Well, Stoker don't live here; he lives at
Abilene or somewhere. I guess he's got pretty near every dollar
he ever got out of it. Lot of people like that did. Now that's like that old man from
Necessity - the company drilled one well and McCauley Number One was a gas well. Didn't
make enough oil to ever fool with, but it made lots of gas. They used it for drilling
purposes, you know, and fuel for the whole field around here. And they drilled one well
over there, come in makln' - oh, Lord, I think 13,000, 14,000 barrels. I know the first three
months I had it -- I can remember that -- my pipeline pumped 75,000 barrels a month. That's
lots of oil. B.- Uh-huh.
I.- 'Course, now who got the money, I don't know. It was where
McCauley lived or what; where they got it I don't know,
B.- Well, those same people that owned the land then mostly own it now?
I.- No, no, it's been sold, changed hands. Land here that used to go by one name, ain't
none of these little leases the same thing. Different people buy it up, you know.
B.- Well, is the population less than it was? I.- In the country it is, lots less, I don't
know -- they come to town-- why. Lot of people's just left the farms for the town, for what
purpose I don't know. B.- Well, are they living on the oil royalties?
I.- (LAUGHTER) Now, brother, you got me. What they live on, I don't know. I just don't know.
Oh, most of 'em got a few cattle, things around, you know, but they, just a lot of 'em quit
their farmin', sold their cattle, and come in here, and how they live -- I guess just
day labor, all I know. Just takes about all my time to tend to my own business.
B.- Well, I was just wondering what impression you had, whether they were better off than
they were --- I.- No, no, they ain't. They're not as well
off, They's just lots of people not as well off now as they were when I came here in 1919.
They've got shed of about everything they had, see. You take this
Fincher lease down here. It's still operatin', makin' fifteen, twenty barrels a day. Used
to make quite a bit of oil. Well, that's divided up between so many different heirs till there's
none of 'em git enough to do 'em any good, you see, because there's such a little royalty
there. But they sold out, moved off their place. Old man workin' here on the police
force at night. I don't know where the rest of 'em is. But they used to have a few cattle,
and they ain't got it now. Why they quit the place and sold the cattle -- that I don't
know. But the people in the country as a whole are not as well off as they were here when
I came here in 1919.
(BREAK) You take this field right over here in this
Necessity town site. We drilled a well there, called it J.S. Crowley,
A-1. Shot that well, just a little showin' of gas. We shot that well with --
I don't know something around 300 quarts of nitroglycerin and that well come in makin'
5700 barrels, when there wasn't a showin' of oil in there till you shot it. Well, it
produced there -- oh, flowed for I guess a year. But it just kept droppin' off and off
and after you put it on the pump, it didn't pump for over six or eight months till it
just played out. That's the history of a lot of these wells in this country, you know.
Back over north of there, we drilled down around 3,600-3,700 feet; shot one with the
biggest shot of nitroglycerin I ever seen shot 800 quarts.
And that really jarred the ground. We run way back out of the way, you know. And they
wasn't ever no more oil in that well than there is in your hand right now.
B.- How far was that from the other production? I.- About a mile and a half. So we drilled
another one right close to it, and about the most production we ever got out of it was
about three barrels a day. You just don't -- one loca- tion don't condemn the other,
you see, B.- Well, now, is that typical of oil country,
or just of this country? I.- Just this country. In this black lime
stuff it's that way. That's the reason so many of the major companies got out of here.
Now there's a few, small companies and individuals, drillin' around here, once in awhile got a
pretty good well here. But the major companies quit it because it
just cost too much to, to drill a well -- too many dry holes.
B.- Well, how did they make these locations? By geology?
I.- Yeah, most of 'em are. But that don't work every time. Just like I's tellin' you
about that well over in Stamford there, never got a thing in the world out of that field.
B.- That'd been located by geology? I.- Yeah, he said he just knew that they'd
git a well off there. Well, they never have got a well there. Ain't
a well in a mile or two of that place. B.- Do you hit the same sands?
I.- Yeah - oh, it varies a little. B.- Does the log look very much like these
others? I.- Pretty much the same, you know. When you
git down to a certain depth in this, you hit a granite rook that you just can't hardly
drill through it. "Course I believe in this country if you'd go down deep enough, you'd
git a well most anywhere. But Lord, they can't hardly afford to take chances, you know. You'd
have to go so deep for it. We went as high as 3,800 feet around here in several wells
and not git a thing in the world. There's a formation down there -- looks like granite
-- and you just can't hardly drill through it. 'Course these modern bits they got now,
these rotary bits, rock bits they call 'em, you know, they go down to it; but it costs
a lot of money to git through it. Lot of times you go all that depth and you ain't got nothing
when you git there. It's just too un -- it's scattered; it's too uncertain.
If things could be in -- I call it crevices. We had a well come in over there on S. E.
Beyers. Another man had that district, and, uh, it flowed -- oh, I guess 3,000 or 4,000
barrels when they first drilled it in, and then it quit. Got down and they set a packer
in it. Well, it flowed out about four barrels a day. Well, they pulled that fellow out of
that district and give me his district and the one I had. So I went over there and looked
at it; fellow was lookin' at it, and I said to him,
"Mr. Gardner, let's pull that tubin' out of that well over there and clean it out and
see if it'll make something. It ought to make more oil than what it's doin'."
"Well," he says, "you're gonna git in trouble when you start foolin' with that well."
I says, "Well, can't do no good like it is." Went over there and the boys pulled the packer
in two. So they sent me a driller over there who didn't know as much about drillin' maybe
as you do. I know he didn't know very much. I don't know
what you know about it, but he didn't know very much. Well, sir, first thing, he whipped
his line off. Well, then got hold of that, got it out.
Went back In there; we got this out; run the measuring line; had eighty feet of cave-in's
in the hole. Cleaned it out; put that well Into pumpin' and it flowed -- and the old
man, old man Mollet was a peculiar old man. He didn't think
a well'd make the same every day; it had to vary a little. Well, that well was makin'
445 barrels, 450 just every other day, just never give a bit of trouble in the world,
just pumpin' it. Well, we changed superintendents, fellow name of Brookwell taken over.
He says, "Bill, I'm gonna show you how to git out of that well over there."
I says, "Brookwell, you better let that well alone."
He says, "No, you're one of those fellows believes in lettin' well enough alone."
I says, "Yes, and I think it's still a good idee."
Well, he wouldn't listen to me at all. He just went on. Put this barrel right down at
the bottom, gas was botherin'; he couldn't pump, he couldn't pump nothing. And he couldn't
keep the thing, you know - it wouldn't flow either, because he couldn't keep the load
off of It, see. It was all above. Well, it pulled out of there. Put in a string of three-inch
tubin'; thought that'd work. I tried to tell him. Couldn't do no good.
Finally sent a fellow over there, runnin' the tubin'. I told him, I says, "Dempsey,
that well'll come out on you and you need to be expectin' it. It'll just bust out of
there and go over that derrick and you can't hear it. It'll
be there before you know it. Now you better be careful goin' in the hole with that string
of tubin' with the tubin' catcher on it ." Well, he knowed too much, too. So he went in the
hole -- Bang! it come. Well, then he had to string up five lines to pull it loose knocked
a hole in that pipe. Water broke in on it. And Lord a mercy! We pumped 400-500 barrels
a water out of that well to git thirty or forty barrels of oil. That's what happened
with a good well when a fellow just wanted to show another one up, see, and didn't know
what he's doin'. Well, I had fooled with it and I knew. Any time that you put your workin'
barrels below eighty feet of the bottom, it just wouldn't pump. The gas'd work on it,
so that you'd just keep - your pump, you know, up to where they wouldn't hold. They just
wouldn't pump, Gas'd bother you, just nothing but gas would come through there. So finally
they just plugged that old well. And a fellow come up to me, asked me, he said, "Bill,"
he worked for the Warren Company -- "What about that Beyers well?"
I says, "Well, Mr. Gracey, if you want to set a string of pipe in there, set a string
of five-inch right down there." Well, he talked with the company, told 'em what I said about
It, They decided then they wouldn't buy it. So the company sold this well to a salvage
man, you see. He wasn't to sell it; he was to pull it. They wouldn't let him, see. 'Course
the company itself, but that was just the officials here, you see -- the company didn't
know that, about all that. So they made the agreement that if they sold him the well that
he should pull the pipe and not sell it to nobody and let 'em produce it. He pulled that
pipe out of there and there's a hole you could stick your fist in where that water was cornin'
in. Well, that Gracey was the sickest man. He says, "Bill, I just want to kick myself
100 times." And I says, "Mr, Gracey, I knew what happened
there. That well wouldn't even make a drop of water at all till they busted that casin'.
I had to work; I couldn't pop off; I had to keep my mouth shut. But I knew what was goin'
on, what had happened. Lookin' right at it anyway." You see a lot
of the company's losses, lots and lots of money that they don't know what causes it.
We had one man here was so crazy. Had a well way back over here. Well, he decided to plug
it. He sent an authorization to pull it, pull, plug, and abandon, see. Poor old gang pusher
didn't know any better. He went over there and pulled this well, fixed the tubin' all
up in good shape and that well was makin' twenty-five
barrels a day. And durn if he didn't want to can it.
Turned right around and marked that off the books, you know. He wouldn't let that production
go in there. Plugged that well to keep hisself in the clear. That's why I say you will find
more different characters in this oil business -- it isn't that way now, 'cause you've just
got to know it. They've got where they keep up with it a little better. I know poor old
man Mollet told me, he says, "Bill, the company's lost a many a dollar tryin' to make a production
man out of some of these damn fools." (LAUGHTER) I says, "You're right." He says, "Now, Bill,
I'll just be honest. I never was fooled by any man bad as I was by Gardner." I says,
"Listen, Mollet, you ought to know that fellow didn't know nothing. Jesus Christ, a man just
work in an office all time, use a book and a pencil. You got to git out here in this
field and learn this yourself or you don't know it." Been lots of good wells plugged
in this field. Just for a fellow to save his job, see. He'd recommend a thing to do, and
then the company'd think that was right and go ahead and do it. Find out he was wrong,
he never would correct It. B.- Wasn't that loss of money to the landowners
as well as the company? I.- Landowners as well as the company. Had
a well on the Jay Harrigan lease over here - you could pull
the tubin' out and just listen and you could hear the water hittin' the casin' down in
the hole, see. To my superintendent I says, "Gardner, you ought to set a string of pipe
in that Harrigan Number Two over there. You ought to keep it out. That's a good well if
you'd cut---" "Oh, Hell, that's cornin' in from the bottom."
They pulled that pipe and went ahead and pulled that well out.
Plugged the whole lease of the old man, and by gosh, you could've stuck two hands that
way where that pipe was busted. See, them days pipe was hard to git here. They'd just
use any kind, this old Lapwell pipe and everything else. And they'd -- most any pressure would
bust it after so long a time, you know. B.- Was that broken from gas pressure?
I.- Well, no, most of it come -- well, it was gas pressure and, uh, they used these
tubin' catchers to keep from droppin' tubin', and some fool'd hit it too hard and the tubin'
catcher'd trip and catch the whole string of tubin' and that thing'd bust out your tubin',
a hole in your tubin'. They got tubin' catchers now that won't do those things, won't catch
so hard. And a lot of 'em they used to have - you could just drive those things right
through the hole in the casin'. Some of that pipe would bust and you wouldn't know what
makes it bust. You take a string of tubin', a lot of this old Lapwell tubin' - it'd bust,
and Lord, it'd be the hardest thing in the world
to find out the leak in your pipe, because it'd just flap right back when the pressure's
off. It'd just seem like it was right back together, and you'd have to git a certain
amount of pressure on it to ever see it open up again.
B.- We have better steel now. I.- Yeah, everything's better though. Lord,
that old pipe then was bad. They used to use this old just straight tubin' and it'd break
off right at the thread, you know, and drop and jump a well. I've seen lots of wells jump
that way. Now they've got this upset stuff, you know, and it's thick where it screws together,
and it don't do that anymore. Got different pipe, good steel. 'Course, I guess the company's
lucky to be operatin' like they have, come up like they did.
B.- All that new equipment costs more money. I.- Yeah, oh yeah, costs a lot more money.
But you can put out a well now in a third less time than you used to could, you know,
and lots deeper. Sometimes it'd take six months to put down a well, a long time, if you had
any hard luck at all. B.- Well, how much does it cost to put down
a well In this country? I.- I don't - they used to figure about $65,000
here. That's with good luck, time and everything. It'd cost a lot more than that now, I imagine,
because with all these new pipes and everything. 'Cause see, the labor wouldn't cost so much,
but your equipment costs so much more. B.- You mean the labor doesn't cost as much
as It used to? I.- Well, uh, labor is higher, but your time
you make puttin' it down is what saves. B.- Your machinery ---
I.- Your machinery - see, you're livin' in a machine age now in this oil field. They
go right on down with a well now, with the big machinery they've got. My God, though,
like you used to, why you'd have to break all that stuff out with your tongs, just turn
it round and round by hand, you know. Well, now it's just all done with machinery, just
in, oh - half a minute you've got it unscrewed, don't you see, and set back. That's when you
make your time. Still takes about as many men but they turn off so much more work with
the equipment they've got. B.- But the wages are more.
I.- Yeah, oh yeah. B.- When you began work, you got $3 a day.
I.- $3 a day, yessir. I pumped -- the first, the second pumpin' job I's on, I got $100
a month. They thought that was big wages. I worked twelve hours. That's where we had
the big station. B.- Well, that was, uh - when was that?
I.- That was back in 1909, along there, 1910. B.- Was this a bad salary?
I.- No, not so bad; but we'd git $90 for the other work - $3 a day.
Finally they got to givin' a little over-time. You could make most of 'em. It used to be
just a fight between the pipeline department and the production, and the drillin' department
and the production. But they don't do that anymore.
B.- Now what were they fighting about? I.- Oh, just each fellow tryin' to make his
show up better than the others, you see. Was no accommodation one another, and hell, after
the whole thing was said and done, it just went out one pocket and put it in the other.
It all went to the company anyway. But people didn't used to co-operate with different departments.
They don't have that - they still have those different departments now, but they co-operate
with one another because it's all the same thing anyway, you know. It's necessary to
have that, too, because if you put it all under one man or something, why it wouldn't,
it just wouldn't work, B.- Well, you have to have departmental organization.
I.- Yeah, just -- during this boom here when it first came up, used to all the meat out
of Eastland County for these camps, hauled out by wagons, take it off cold storage and
bring it out here and I've seen it -- it'd be, when it'd git out
here it'd stink so bad you -- make 'em throw it down in the trash pile and burn It up.
Git stuck, you know, and be two days gittin' It out, be hot weather, ruin, you see. Finally
they got to havin' trucks and things, where you could have trucks over, it wouldn't be
so bad. But I've seen one wagon load after another just
the finest beef you ever saw --- B.- It'd be spoiled.
I.- Just -- and they'd drive into camp and say, "Hell, take that stuff down there and
throw it on that fire and burn it up. We don't want that stinkin' stuff here." Well, that
was a lot of loss, lot of money. B.- Well, when did the railroad get here?
I.- It was in '20 something; I've forgot now -- early '20's, guess about '21, along there.
Probably near about '23, I think. B.- Did they build up through Ranger?
I.- Yessir, they come up through Dublin and up through Ranger .
This little road used to do lots of business, but most of their business now is haulin'
these tank cars out of here, these gasoline plants and things like that. Still lots of
oil and gasoline pulled out of here. 'Course, some of these companies ship their stuff out
by pipeline; they run it out to Ranger, load it there, you know. Not too much freight comes
in here. Oh, it's an old road. B.- Well, of course, you've got a good highway
now. I.- Yeah
B.- I imagine a lot more run by trucks now than ---
I.- Oh, yeah, yeah, no passenger train run over this in years.
That thing about run out? B.- Just about ---
(BREAK) B.- How do you feel about all these years
of service with the oil industry? I.- Well, in a way, I enjoyed it. It's been
a pleasure in a way, lots of thrills in it, but you see so many things that's so degradin'
and all that It just disgusts you, see. You'd see things in these booms that you'd, if you
didn't know better, you think there wasn't a decent person in the world.
B.- And that gave all of you bad reputations. I.- That's right.
B.- That's the reason the preacher said what he did.
I.- Yeah, that's right; yessir, you just --- B.- So you wouldn't want to go through those
boom days again. I.- No, no, even if I's a young man, I'd just
pray the good Lord to never let me see another one of 'em,
B.- You're not thinking about the hard work that you went through?
I.- No, it's just the people that's so degradin' and so - whatever you want to call it -- it's
just pitiful. They have no morals among 'em at all. They just ---
B.- Well, do you feel those days are gone? I.- Yeah
B.- You think they won't come back? I.- No sir, never come back,
B.- Uh, why not? I.- Well, people are educated from it now,
and the companies just won't have It, They just won't have that kind of people. And they
are -- a better class of people just wouldn't stand for it because you know, towns and everything
else. B.- That is, the companies themselves ---
I.- Yeah, yeah B.- --- have learned that they shouldn't let
things like that happen. I.- Yeah, right. Just won't let it happen.
People as a whole are lots better than they used to be in my experience. Now I hear people
-- preachers git up and talk about the world goin' to the dogs and everything like that.
It Isn't no such a thing, see. People are not as mean now as they was twelve,
fifteen years ago. B.- You think not?
I.- No! 'Course, they's mean as they ever were, but now I'll tell you, we used to play
football against Ranger, Eastland, Cisco. Well, it was a knock-down, drag-out game.
Now we - and they's just fights one right after another -- well, in the last seven or
eight years, you don't never see nothing like that in a football.
Everybody is friendly, from this town just as friendly as the others, you know. They're
a whole lot more friendly; you don't have those things.
B.- You think, uh, since we got highways, and truck transportation, well, that helps?
I.- Oh, yeah, it's a help. And people are gittin' educated from that stuff, that rough
stuff. It don't pay; it just don't. I think people are better today than they was when
I was a boy. 'Cause I was raised up in about as tough a
place, down in Louisiana, as any country ever had, while I was lucky enough not to git into
no trouble. But you go down there - I've just come back from a visit down there -- well,
everybody is friendly and nice; those people are happy down there. You never hear of those
feuds anymore. All them old heads that used to have this killin' and fightin', all dead
and gone. And the younger generation are more social and friendly with one another than
they were when I was a boy. That's why I differ with these preachers about the world goin'
to the devil -- it ain't! To my notion the world is just better than it was a long time
ago, I know. I hear people sit and talk about the "good old days." Now I wouldn't want to
go back to what we was no more than nothing in the world, see.
We lived out in the country, no modern houses, no nothing. If you went, you went in a wagon
or on horseback. You had no -- nothing modern. Well, now, you see, you can just git up and
go anywhere; distance don't amount to nothing to you. Well, why would you want to go back
to that now? Lord a mercy, I can't figure it out myself. You take all our modern equipment
and machinery away from us and what would we be?
B.- Be pretty bad. I.- Yes, It would. People say, "Oh, look at
that robbery in oil!" Well, It's been goin' on ---
B.- Well, the way the oil industry is now, you think you'd recom- mend it for a career
for --- I.- Yes, I would.
B.- -- starting out and --- I.- Yessir, I would. If I was gonna start
out again, I'd go to work for an oil company. I'd -- because If a man'll take an interest
in it, it's interestin' and it's good pay and, uh, you just got more privileges; you
got a better life. Look - Lord a mercy -- here I am, I've put in my hard day's work. I git
enough now to sit down and do nothing on, see. I got a good living comin'. State don't
pay me nothing; I don't have to depend on a lot of things that other people do. I've
made lots of money; I've spent lots of money lot of people do. I had the misfortune enough
that I had a wife for thirty-five years just practically an invalid. Cost a lot of money,
to keep her. Finally she passed away, two years ago.
B.- But you felt secure during all that time because you knew you would be taken care of.
I.- Yeah, that's right. I got nothing to - no regrets to my life at all that way. 'Course,
I probably lived a sinfuler life than I should. I never was in no meanness or nothing, but
I didn't live as good a Christian life as a man should do.

Details

Title: Bill Ingram Interview [part 4 of 4]
Identifier: e_toi_0129
Description: Reel 35a: Bill Ingram discusses Pine Island and Breckenridge areas in 1917.
Creator: Ingram, Bill
Boatright, Mody C. (Mody Coggin), 1896-1970
Date: 1952-07-29
Date Created: 1952-07-29
Resource: Oral history of the Texas oil industry collection
Subject Geographic: United States - Texas - Breckenridge
Physical Genre: Oral histories (literary works)
Extent: 7 inches
Collection Strength: American Energy Industry
Texas History
Project: Oral history of the Texas oil industry collection