John Little Interview - John Little Interview [part 2 of 3]

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  • PIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL TOPIC: Sour Lake, Batson, Humble NAME: Little, John INTERVIEWER: Owens, W. A. PLACE: Belton, Texas TAPE NO. 44 DATE: August 7, 1952 RESTRICTIONS: None
  • Little- From Batson went over to Humble.
  • Owens- I believe you told me that when you were living at Sour Lake you were living with your brother.
  • L.- Yessir.
  • O.- He was married at that time.
  • L.- Yes.
  • O.- Where was his wife from?
  • L.- Wife from Moody.
  • O.- And were they keeping the drilling crew at their home?
  • L.- No, sir, only myself and her brother.
  • O.- You were staying with them and working with him.
  • L.- Yessir, with my brother, yes.
  • O.- Did she go into Sour Lake to do her shopping?
  • L.- Well, there wasn't much there. In a way they went to Beaumont.
  • In the early days there wasn't very much there, no stores much.
  • And they went to Beaumont or out of Houston.
  • Then afterwards they built up a pretty nice millinery store or something there in Sour Lake and of course, the Jews did most of the first buildin'.
  • O.- Did she run into any unpleasant experiences in Sour Lake herself?
  • L.- Of course, it wasn't established, and it's kind of like a minin' town or these rush towns.
  • They're kind of wild when they start, but they finally settle down to moderate times.
  • O.- So there was no real difficulty for her.
  • L.- No, sir, no.
  • O.- Now I've been told that there were fifty-two saloons and one church in Sour Lake at that time. Do you think that's about right?
  • L.- Well, I believe that fifty-two saloons is too much, and of course, the church-- I was really affiliated with the little church, the Sunday School there in the beginning.
  • O.- Yes, would you describe that church for us?
  • L.- That little church there was only a little building, perhaps was twenty-- eighteen foot wide and thirty foot long-- just a kind of a small building-- that is, in 1901.
  • O.- And who was the pastor of it?
  • L.- They really had no pastor. Really, the pastors would come in there, would go down to the Sour Lake Springs Hotel and they had a reception there, piano in there, and generally the preacher would preach on Sunday night and when he got through, well, the young people would dance.
  • O.- Is that right?
  • L.- Yessir, that's the way they carried on pretty much.
  • Some of the older settlers there-- why, they didn't, didn't come there.
  • It was a little bit beyond them; they didn't have the nice clothes to come in the hotel.
  • But finally when they got oil, some of the old settlers
  • got to come in the hotel, to the dancin', and in fact, after the boom was on, they had three or four different places.
  • They had any kind or style that you wanted, and of course, as to the fifty-four saloons, they had what we call honky-tonks.
  • O.- Called them-- used the word "honky-tonk" then?
  • L.- Yeah, they had a honky-tonk, and in there was gamblin' just like they are in California-- wide open.
  • Of course, nearly all those things burnt out afterwards; fire swept it out.
  • I remember one time it swept it out there, and my father owned a blacksmith shop on the block.
  • It burnt everything but the blacksmith shop. They started to tear it down and he ordered 'em not to touch it. And it was standin' there when it was over with.
  • O.- Now, I didn't know that he had moved down. When did he move to Sour Lake?
  • L.- He worked for Mr. Hamill.
  • Mr. Hamill went out of business with Mr. Forney in 1902 and started his own business as a air-compressor, blowin' the oil out of the wells.
  • And finally I heard he lost $15,000 on that.
  • My father was there in 1903, pumpin' the wells for Mr. Forney-- for Mr. Jim Hamill.
  • And he got his finger mashed off one time and he turned around and asked Mr. Hamill to give him his knife.
  • Mr. Hamill says, "What are you goin' to do with it?" He says, "I'm goin' to cut that finger off."
  • Mr. Hamill says, "No, you're not. You're goin' to a doctor."
  • So he turned around and picked up a rag and wrapped it up and stuck it down in a gallon or two of Beaumont oil and never stopped. Just
  • went right on through.
  • O.- Went right on through working.
  • L.- Yessir, never even stopped.
  • O.- Why "Beaumont oil"?
  • L.- They called it Beaumont oil. Used to think of it as medical properties,
  • O.- Oh, I see.
  • L.- Sour Lake was noted for medical properties over there. That surface on top was more or less-- oh, I don't know-- asphalt, you know, and there was an old Negro doctor, Dr. Mud.
  • And somebody'd have a little skin cancer or something that way, and he'd do all he could; he'd go out in the woods and find something and mix it up and sell it to anybody that'd come along.
  • Sometimes it'd cure and sometimes it wouldn't.
  • O.- Did you ever see Dr. Mud?
  • L.- Oh, yeah, he waited on me.
  • O.- He did? For what?
  • L.- I had what they call a skin cancer-- in fact, I still got that. I had two or three burned off last week.
  • So I went to Dr. Mud and had him to treat me, So he says, "All right, take this can of mud and rub it all over you, and sit down there in the sun, an hour or two." And I set down.
  • Then when he came around he says, "Now go down to that pool there"-- round pool there, and there's sulfur water bubblin' up out of the bottom; there's gas bubbles, "Go down and bathe off." And that was the last of it, I wanted to pay him, and he says, "Why,
  • git out,"-- was his expression. Says, "You don't owe me nothing. You're an oil magnet." [Laughter]
  • O.- What did he look like?
  • L.- Well, he was a kind of a crippled fellow. He was a little bitty drawed up fellow, you know. I don't know what was-- whether it was polio or something or what you call it. He could hardly walk-- Dr. Mud---
  • O.- Do you know what his real name was?
  • L.- No, I really don't. I'd hear 'em, passin' the word around there, the girls that lived down there, sayin', they'd say, "Git out! Now git out!" [Laughter]
  • O.- Was there much sickness in Sour Lake in those days?
  • L.- Well, there really wasn't. And the conditions, as I told you, about this well-- that didn't look good for drinkin' purposes, you know.
  • My brother suggested what he would do, that he'd git a purer water-- and we did.
  • Of course, I stayed down there for two years or more and finally went into chills-- not eatin' good, wholesome food. People couldn't cook good, like our mothers and fathers sometimes.
  • So I went to Marlin once for chills and in five days had 'em cured.
  • O.- People then would go from there to Marlin for health.
  • L.- Yeah, that's right. Well, in fact, I was way up there close to Marlin. We's buildin' a wildcat well for Lane and Moore out of Houston in Grimes County; but it wasn't very far over to Marlin.
  • O.- Yes.
  • L.- Of course, you talk about the well business now. I talked to the oldest drillers that there is originated, and this rotary business started over in Louisiana, and old Bud Balden (?) and Jim Bennett, the men that drilled the well in Marlin, 3700 foot deep, was the first ones that ever ran any rotary machines much in Texas to start with.
  • O.- Now those were drilling for water.
  • L.- Yessir, but they did drill in Sour Lake in 1901, way out back of this Guffey No. 1, in the edge of the piney woods, but they didn't git any oil.
  • That's the reason I knew 'em; we'd talk to 'em. They'd pass by our rig and talk about their rotary machines and the mud and one thing and another then was-- and blowouts-- they's afraid of blowouts.
  • O.- Well, I'd like to go back for a moment. Who was the first one ever to use mud, drilling a well, do you think?
  • L.- I, I expect that must have been Jim Hamill and Curt and Bill Byrd, because I'd hear 'em talkin' about it, that that's the sand that had no mud, and they'd go out there on the rice farm and take black mud and feed it in the suction, by hand, to try and hold that sand back, and the gas.
  • So it must have been them pretty much.
  • O.- Now you were talking a little while ago about a place called the honky-tonk in Sour Lake. Did you ever go into it?
  • L.- Oh, yes, every time I saw it.
  • O.- Would you describe it for us?
  • L.- Well, that place there was a building that faced north and they
  • had a little saloon in there and you had a little show. Cost the oil field fellows fifteen cents to git in to the show.
  • O.- Would you describe the show?
  • L.- Well, the show-- they had a little stage, and they'd have all these comic plays put on on the stage to entertain the old roughnecks.
  • Then after the show they'd stack up all the chairs on one side and then they'd have a dance, what they called a square dance or round dance, and if you had plenty of money and wanted to spend it-- why, you'd buy two bottles of beer and it'd cost you fifty cents.
  • If you didn't have plenty money-- why, you'd spend two bits and git two nickel glasses of beer.
  • And so they had a gamblin' house in the house there with it, all kind of dumped in there.
  • Every now and then there'd be a little fight take place, bust a beer bottle over somebody's head, hit somebody over the head with a six-shooter.
  • Just such things as that. I tried to stay away from after I saw how bad they were, you know.
  • O.- Who was the law there then?
  • L.- Well, they had a law that was runnin' what you call a open town, and they got in a little fuss up there one night, misunderstanding, and I was standin' in there and this bartender hit the fellow over the head with a beer bottle.
  • This fellow was a man, a workman, and he started over that bar after him. So his friend knew that they'd shoot him if he went over that bar, so he grabbed him and held him back.
  • They said, "Take him to the calaboose."-- little city attorney.
  • So the night watchman took him out; he wasn't drunk.
  • They started up toward the calaboose and got up toward the main part of town and the fellow says, "Why, I'm not drunk, and I'll pay my fine tomorrow and I'll make bond right now."
  • So they went in a restaurant to make bond where he boarded, and some of his friends with him, good people.
  • So somebody ran back and told 'em down to the honky-tonk, says they'd taken the man away from the law.
  • The little city attorney, he ran up there and walked in the place and says to the officer, "I thought I told you to take this man to the calaboose."
  • Well, he says, "He's makin' bond to pay a fine."
  • "No, put him in the calaboose." And he grabbed ahold of this man, and when he did, the fellow jerked back.
  • When he jerked back, why, this little city attorney hit him over the head with a six- shooter and his gun went off.
  • I looked up there, and when I looked up, I saw one of the gamblers from that place had a six-shooter drawn on me. Told me to git back out-- and I was goin' anyhow.
  • So then the next morning, next day at 12:00, when I went to my little shack-- why, I met this fellow. The calaboose was in about 200 feet of my shack.
  • And I met him and said, "Good golly, fellow, we kind of got into it last night."
  • He said, "Yes, he ruined my hat." He had on a Stetson hat and he cut a hole through the hat.
  • So that man that hit him didn't stay in town; he left. But he should never've hit that man with a six- shooter.
  • O.- No. Was there a great deal of pistol whipping going on there?
  • L.- Well, there was. Seemed like some of the laws got mixed up with themselves.
  • One of my friends there-- somebody hit him over the head there with a six-shooter.
  • He was a county judge there at one time, in the town. Philps.
  • Somebody hit him, and I wondered what somebody wanted to hit him for; he's a good old man. So I never did see him afterwards to find out anything about it.
  • I knew his boy and his girls; they'd lived there all their life around Sour Lake Springs. I never did see him any more.
  • O.- Now I'd like to ask you about the next work you did. You continued at Sour Lake how long?
  • L.- We stayed in Sour Lake till Christmas, 1903.
  • And then they struck the Batson Prairie Field, Little and Mitchell.
  • And the rush started over there and I was with the company out of Beaumont.
  • My brother had two rigs, and we moved the rigs to Batson Prairie.
  • So that's the-- I drilled one well, and then I drilled on a wildcat, but never did find no oil, way at the edge of the field on the south side.
  • O.- Who were these men who discovered the well-- that drilled the discovery well at Batson, you remember? You named them, but go ahead and tell me something about them.
  • L.- Well, of this Little, which is no relation to me, there was three brothers; Frank Little and Charlie Little and Will Little-- three brothers.
  • I think they's from over about Louisiana or Mississippi, somewhere over in there.
  • They were no relation to me, that I know of. But they were well drillers, and old Mike Mitchell
  • was an old, good old scout, but he was a well driller, what you call a roughneck.
  • O.- What does the word roughneck mean to you?
  • L.- Roughneck means that they're just not afraid of nothing-- mud, gas, oil, or anything else; they'd do anything.
  • In those days when a man had a bunch of men-- why, he went to work on a well, everybody jumped in and helped the other fellow and when they got through, lot of times when they got a well, why, the company'd give 'em $50 or $100 apiece, or a diamond ring, or just different things.
  • That's the way they did a long time ago.
  • O.- Was this the only well in production in Batson when you got there, this discovery well?
  • L.- It was, yeah, it was producing.
  • O.- Yes, but the only one producing at that time?
  • L.- Well, that's the only one I remember of. There might have been others, but I didn't know of it though.
  • O.- And you went to work immediately drilling there?
  • L.- Yessir, yes, we moved the rigs right over and set 'em up and went to drillin'.
  • O.- And what was this company you were drilling for there?
  • L.- The company's name that I was in with, as a silent partner, was called the Texas Drillin' Company. That was the name of that company, and there was a rig builder in with it called Beech; he was the mayor out at Cleburne.
  • He was the rig builder, like old Dan Rumbough [?]. And so they finally, they drilled two or three wells,
  • and there's a Colonel Britton-- Britton Oil Company wanted to buy the rigs, and my brother and the rest of 'em up and just sold out in 1904.
  • O.- Where did you live in Batson?
  • L.- In Batson? Why, we had our own little place, had our own little house. Had an office in front, Texas Drillin' Company office.
  • My brother was a manager, and we had in the back places to sleep. We just ate first one place and another.
  • O.- Were you close to the field, or were you in the town?
  • L.- It was a kind of a little town there and it wasn't over a half a mile down into the field.
  • O.- Was the boardwalk there then?
  • L.- No, no, that was kind of high, and there wasn't much water there then.
  • Way down at the far end where I went it was pretty low. There was water down there, but not a great deal though.
  • O.- What were living conditions like in Batson at that time?
  • L.- Well, now there's where they had the saloons. You talkin' about Sour Lake-- I think they had more saloons in Batson Prairie than they had at Sour Lake,
  • O.- Is that right?
  • L.- Yeah, I think there were.
  • O.- Do you remember any of those?
  • L.- No, I don't, but I know they's pretty tough over there, and of course, you said there's some fellow got killed over there; there's several of 'em got killed.
  • O.- Do you remember any of those who got killed?
  • L.- Well, I can't recall that name, But I knew of some of 'em. Heard the boys talkin' about it. They's what you call the "bad men." I didn't fool around bad men; I didn't care much about it
  • O.- They were bad men because they were gamblers---
  • L.- Yeah, that's it. They was in a hell hole.
  • O.- So you stayed away from Batson itself pretty much.
  • L.- Yessir. O.- Stayed on the field.
  • L.- Yessir, although I was in one or two nights and I saw then it wouldn't do.
  • O.- Well, would you describe one of those nights?
  • L.- One of those nights there there's a woman or two that I knew over at Sour Lake Springs. And she'd killed one or two.
  • Her and I, we'd just danced too much and drank too much, and the cops was just gittin' ready to take me home and put me to bed, and so I had enough sense to go home and go to bed.
  • And that was my last. [Laughter]
  • O.- What was her name?
  • L.- Clara White.
  • O.- Clara White. L.- That's what they called her-- Clara Jones.
  • O.- And she'd actually killed someone?
  • L.- Yeah, she killed her husband, I think, and then she had something to do with-- there's some other, there's another woman got killed-- and I don't know what all she to do with it.
  • O.- But she was mixed up in it.
  • L.- Yeah, bad-- honky-tonkism.
  • O.- Yes, and there's too much of that, huh?
  • L.- Yeah, boy.
  • O.- How long were you in Batson?
  • L.- In Batson I-- I don't think I was there only about, up till about July-- June or July. Well, now when was the World's Fair? Do you remember when the World's Fair was?
  • O.- No, I don't.
  • L.- Well, I know my brother sold out there and he took his money and went to the World's Fair. So that must have been right close to July.
  • O.- And where did you go from Batson then?
  • L.- From Batson I went down and stayed at Moody Sanitarium for three months in San Antonio.
  • O.- Moody Sanitarium-- what kind of sanitarium was that?
  • L.- Well, it's a sanitarium for drinkin', you know, and nervousness and things like that.
  • O.- You were recuperating from your experiences there.
  • L.- That's right, that's right.
  • O.- And then after that was your health good again?
  • L.- Yes, yeah, it was. It was good then; I hadn't been very bad at all, and shoot-- I had a good chance then maybe to git married, because-- settle down. But I didn't do it.
  • So finally said I wouldn't well drill no more, and I started back to Houston to go into the railroad, and fooled around and drove right back over to
  • Sour Lake and went to work. (Laughter)
  • O.- And for whom did you go to work then?
  • L.- Well, I forget the name of that was; I don't know whose rig that was, whether it was Keastor or not. There's a fellow out of Houston, a pawn broker that owned a rig or two, by the name of Keastor.
  • So he and old man Gedler [?] were kind of together quite a bit, and Keastor gave my brother a lot and my brother built him a home, a house, nice little house in Sour Lake.
  • So of course, these oil field towns, they move out, so my brother moved on to-- in fact we moved over to-- he went to Houston. Then I went from there back over to Humble.
  • O.- Well, when did you first work for Walter Sharp?
  • L.- Well, my first work for him was in 1904.
  • O.- Where?
  • L.- It was at Humble.
  • O.- At Humble. L.- Yessir.
  • O.- You didn't work for him in Sour Lake then?
  • L.- No, I don't-- that that was-- my brother, perhaps, worked for him in Corsicana, before Spindletop, But I never-- I knew Mr. Sharp and I knew his brother Jim, but I never knew John. And I knew Flannigan.
  • O.- Yes, now (Laughter), will you tell me something about Flannigan?
  • L.- Well, Flannigan, he was a kind of a stylish fellow, and he'd come around the honky-tonks a little bit-- drank pretty much-- have on a red vest, had quite a time. But I didn't know him very well.
  • O.- Was he related to Sharp?
  • L.- The age?
  • O.- No, was he related to him?
  • L.- Oh, I think so-- oh, yeah, I think that was Mr. Sharp's uncle.
  • O.- Mr. Sharp's uncle.
  • L.- Now I'm not sure about that.
  • O.- Uh huh, what kind of a looking man was Flannigan?
  • L.- Flannigan, he's kind of a little Irish fellow, wasn't so very tall, about five feet, six or eight, 150 pounds.
  • O.- What are some of the scrapes he got into?
  • L.- No, I never did know of any a'tall. Those things I didn't know because I stayed right on my job pretty much and I didn't, I'd never know of him gittin' into any trouble in this here dance hall.
  • Now they'd drink in there, but I never did know of Flannigan gittin' into any trouble there at all.
  • O.- Where did you first see Sharp then?
  • L.- Mr. Sharp?
  • O.- Yes, Mr. Walter Sharp.
  • L.- It was in 1904, I guess, over in Humble.
  • O.- You'd known about him for a long time.
  • L.- Oh, yes, I'd heard about him, don't you see, over in this-- in a well before Spindletop came open, because as I say, Mr. Sharp and Patillo Higgins ought to have more honor than any other people, as to huntin' this oil, because they tried, as a man's done all he can.
  • They just didn't have any rotary rigs then and was drillin'
  • with cables. Well, the cables couldn't make it through the sand.
  • O.- Well, would you tell me about your first meeting with Mr. Walter Sharp?
  • L.- I was workin' for contractors that was workin' for Mr. Sharp, and when we got through with the well-- why, they said, "Well, there's nothing for you to do now, but Mr. Sharp said to move the rig over next to the Trinity River, and if you git oil, he'll pay you $300 a month." And didn't say what he'd pay me if we didn't git oil.
  • So I went over there, and we drilled down and they told me about 600 feet to look out for a water flow. I says all right. And I got down about 600 feet and so the well-- I started out the hole and when I started my blocks down from above, my elevator-- I looked and saw my pipe standin' four or five feet off the elevator.
  • So I knew there's something wrong and so I hollered at the man upstairs to hook on the swivel and before he could hook on the swivel to pump it-- why, it had already made one burst, and it'd throwed water all over the derrick and this pipe had started to goin'. I told this man to come down outside and so we all ran, different directions.
  • One fellow ran for his wife and I ran to an open space down across there.
  • So it blew out 300 feet of six-inch pipe and blew rocks out as big as a three-gallon bucket that'd go in the ground when they'd hit back.
  • The trees was breakin' with mud-- pine trees-- it was right in the piney woods. It blew the derrick plumb down to the first dirt.
  • So then-- why, she whistled around there hour or two; could hear it ten or fifteen miles. All the people on the field
  • came over and my brother asked me if I's hurt. I says, "Aw, I sprained my ankle, is all."
  • So he said put it in hot water.
  • So then Mr. Sharp says go ahead and kill the well. Well, I knew what he meant by killing it. You do that with mud.
  • And so he says, "Now you pump water; put up a pipeline from here up to the field, about a mile, and pump mud over here.
  • Then put up two joints of six pipe, six-inch pipe, one above and one below. And when you fill your six-inch pipe-- why, close the top valve and loosen the lower one."
  • And so we did that and one of the green-horns made a bust and I like to have got my brains knocked out when he blowed a hose off.
  • Then we finally got it killed.
  • In the meantime, before then, we tried to put a valve on it, and we put the valve on as tight as all the men could put it up, and the cut the valve off-- and she blowed it off. Nobody got hurt.
  • So then we put it back on and put all the chain tongs on, catheads and catheaded up.
  • Then we could cut off the valve. It held.
  • So we went ahead with that well and got down to about 900 or 1000 feet and struck this 60 or 80 foot of nice, brown compact sand, had oil in it.
  • But we never could make a steady gush. So they finally quit and they paid me off.
  • O.- What did they pay you?
  • L.- They-- Mr. Sharp then, he told 'em, says, "Now, fellows, you haven't got an oil well, and my men I don't pay but $200 a month and they're just as good a man as Little."
  • I says, "All right. I've got no kick comin'." So I accepted his $200 a month.
  • But that's the well that Mr. Sharp sent to
  • California and bought the extra string of pipe for me to drill with.
  • O.- Tell me about that.
  • L.- And then when he got the pipe-- why, I was givin' it pretty much all it ought to stand and I had a quick little engine, and I-- the contractors had told me to take inventory on this stuff out there in the woods.
  • So I told a fellow one day, he was an old cable driller, to run the pipe and don't reverse the engine on that head of steam.
  • I says, "If you got to reverse the engine-- why, throw it out of gear and pull up."
  • So I came back up on the derrick when I took the inventory, and when I came back up, he says, "I went through the rock."
  • So I walked up and caught hold of the brake and I let down a foot and let down another foot and never touched nothing.
  • And I says, "Yeah, you certainly did go through the rock; you twisted it off."
  • "Why," he says, "no, I didn't."
  • I says, "Yes, you did, we're comin' out of the hole."
  • So I came out of the hole and there was some pipe in the hole.
  • One of the men wouldn't tell a lie and he said he reversed the engine on a full head of steam. So that got me in a lot of trouble.
  • O.- I guess.
  • L.- But I got straightened it out and got the well on down.
  • At that time they were not usin' nitroglycerin in Texas and so the well perhaps might have flowed or something like that if they'd put fifteen or twenty quarts of nitroglycerin in the well.
  • But I went back later and I saw in that district right around there in a
  • 100 feet they had wells around there.
  • I don't know what they did; I didn't ask anyone whether they found a different sand in 100 foot of it or not. Such things can be done.
  • O.- Did you continue to work for Mr. Sharp then?
  • L.- No, that was all I did then; I didn't work any more. I went then to Colorado Springs on a tour trip.
  • Then I came back and-- what was 19-- then I came back and the-- my brother had a well rigged there.
  • Had finished up a contract with Mr. Sharp, and so then the Lane and Moore Company in Houston said they wanted my brother to work for them and take his rig on a water well.
  • So we moved up to Humble Station and drilled a water well, and then we went to drillin' water wells, and every now and then-- why, they'd git a little money ahead and think they could find some oil and we drilled two or three wildcat wells, but never got no oil-- only at Blue Ridge.
  • Blue Ridge is where they thought there's oil for years back. So I drilled down there about 1000 feet and found it in salt.
  • You could break open a piece of salt and there would be a drop of oil. But that's all we ever did git. [End of Tape]