J. T. (Cotton) Young Interview - J. T. (Cotton) Young Interview [part 4 of 13]

Partial transcript from e_toi_0050 they said we couldn't turn it fast enough.Old

Bob told me, said, "They're goin' to be out here to seeyou run that rock bit tonight, Cotton.

You show 'em how damnfast you can turn it."And he knew how fast he could turn it.

And I said, "Okay."So they come out, Mr. Sharp and Hughes, and I run the rockbit;

I put it on high speed. And 'course, we're usin' an oldPIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL p.l4"XXX-Johnson

rotary." They was the kind that had the grip ringsset up on top of 'em, you know.

You couldn't tell that rotaryfrom a buzz-fan -- it was goin' that fast.

You couldn't tellwhether it was the rotary or the buzz-fan. Before they leftthere that night,

Howard Hughes told me, said, "Well, Cotton,you can turn her pretty fast okay,"And

we could. We could sure make her spin.W.- Was that the first use of that high speed rock bit?Y.- That

was the first time that it'd ever been run with a highspeed that I know of. I think that

was the first time that it'dever been run with a high speed. 'Course, it'd been in use sometime,

just on the regular old low-speed rotaries, you know. ButI think that was the first time it'd

ever been run by the highspeed. I'm sure it was or they wouldn't have both been out therewatchin'

it.However, they was both good men, and I thought as much of Mr.Sharp as any man I ever knew

in the oil field, because he was afine man, and Howard Hughes was a fine old man too.

He s got aboy -- Howard Hughes now, that I don't know -- I don't think Iever seen him in -my life.

But Mr. Sharp had a boy too, and Iknew him once. I met him during the Mexia boom, when I's downthere.

I met him there one night.Boatright- Is that Dudley -- Dudley Sharp?Y.- I don't

know what his given name was. I never knew him verywell. I just met him a few times,K.-

When did you first know Mr. Sharp, Mr. Walter Sharp?Y.- Well, I first knew him, I guess, in

1907. However, I hadPIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL p.15worked for the Texas Company in Louisiana

some before that, butI hadn't ever met Mr. Sharp before that. But

I first knew himin the old Electra field.A

fellow by the name of Mr. Black was superintendent

down inLouisiana when I's down there. He was a fine old man himself.W.- Howard Hughes

now --- his son is the Howard Hughes that has -identify him a little better, will you?Y.- Well,

he -- I think he's in California now, probably Holly-wood; I don't know just where he lives, but

he must be a prettyfine fellow himself. However, I don't think I've ever met him,but

I think he's pretty nice old boy. He started makin' his firstmovin' picture,

and I believe it was called "Hell's Angels," orsomething like that.

He started makin' it, and it was costin'lots of money, and they all advised him, so

I was told, that itcouldn't be done like he was goin' to do it. And they

said he'dsend them scouts out to git certain dope and stuff while he'smakin' that picture,

and they said he'd send 'em out to git itand tell 'em to git it. Fellow told me one instance where

hesent 'em out to git the dope and they come back and said theycouldn't git it, and he said,

"How come you can't git it?"And they said, "They want too much money for it."He

said, "By God, I said, git it! I don't give a damn howmuch money they want for it."So they got it. He

got everything he wanted, but he like tohave broke Hughes' Tool Company while he's at it. It was all

theycould do to make enough money to keep goin' on till he got overthe hump, but he finally made it.

Now I guess he don't know howPIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL p.l6much money he's worth.However,

the Hughes Tool Company's makin' lots of money yet.And

there's another old man in the rock bit business. However,I was always partial

to Hughes' tools because I knew all the men;I knew Mr. Sharp and Howard Hughes and

lots of the other menthat's workin' for Hughes Tool Company. And I was always partialto Hughes'

bits.But there's another old man in the rock bit business, old manReed. Made Reed rock bits,

and he'd give a lot of credit be-cause he stayed in there and battled against Hughes for yearsand

years, and he didn't have no bit that was worth anything,you know; he couldn't do nothing.

But he just kept battlin'along and gittin' along some way, and he finally come out witha good bit.

Some of the last rotary drillin' I did was in WardCounty,

and I used rock bits nearly altogether down there, andI got to usin' quite a few Reed bits.

They were just about asgood as Hughes bits. However, I still favored Hughes

bits alltime because I knew all the men, I never did know Reed, but Iknow he deserves

a lot of credit for what he done in the rockbit business. He kept battlin' along

and finally made a goodbit.W.- They've improved rock bits still quite a bit further sincethe

one you tried at Electra.Y.- Oh, yeah, yeah, they've been improvin' 'em ever

since HowardHughes first made 'em. I think the first old bit that he madewas a three-cone bit,

and it wasn't much count. It beat drillin'with a fish tail on hard rock okay, but that's about

all. ItPIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL p.17wouldn't drill no soft formations a'tall. And finally duringthe East

Texas boom, in '31, I think it was, I had a rig downthere. I was makin' a well in Upshur County.

Incidentally,it was the first oil well that come in in Upshur County. Therehad been a few wells

drilled in Upshur County, but no oil wellsup to that time.I was broke when I went there, and I got

Tip -- Tip was mygood friend, one of the best friends I ever had in the world,I guess,

and Harry Reynolds called up there to Tyler from Houstonand told Tip he had a well he wanted

to drill, let a contract onin Upshur County. Told him to look things over and make him aprice.

Tip come to me and he said, "Cotton, Harry Reynolds wantsa well drilled in

Upshur County and I haven't got any rig, andEd and Henry's rig" -- that was his

brothers -- "they're all busy.They have three rigs and they's all busy. You want to move thatrig of

yours up there and drill it?"I said, "Yeah, I'd like to, Tip, if I can."He said, "Well,

we can, I think. I'm pretty sure we can getthe contract. What do you think we ought to ask

for drillin'it? They want us to furnish the water and fuel on it, I thinkwe ought to ask 'em about

$9,000.""Well, I don't know, Tip, I believe you ought to ask 'em

$10,000.They don't expect you to figure this water and fuel right down tothe

rock bottom price. They expect you to have a little leewaythere to work on.

I believe they'll pay us $10,000 quick asthey would $9,000. That's what I'd ask 'em. That's

what I'dmake 'em a price for."PIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL p. 18He said, "All right." And Tip didn't

have any money, and Ididn't either. He asked me, he said, "You reckon you can git anymoney up there

at Wichita to drill a well with?"I said, "Yeah, I think I can. Always have been able to gitmoney

around there."So I come up here, and he said, "Well, you better go up there;I'm pretty sure

we're goin' to git the contract. Better go upthere and see if you can git any money."I

come up here and went to the bank, the bank where I'd always done business,

and I had had as much as $40,000 or $50,000in there at one time, cash myself,

but I didn't have at that time.I's broke. I went there and tried to borrow $4,000 to make

thiswell in East Texas on. I knew it was a good contract and the bankknew it was a good contract.

But I don't know why -- it was rightduring the depression, you know, and they wouldn't

put out. Theywouldn't let me have a darn dime. I tried to get $2,000, and theywouldn't let me have

$2,000.I went back to East Texas and I told Tip, I said, "Well, Tip,I guess we just ---" We already

knew then that we had the contract. All we had to do was git ready to drill it. I told Tip,I said,

"Well, Tip, I couldn't git a darn bit of money at Wichitato drill a well on. Guess we'll just have

to call that contractoff."And he said, "Naw, we won't call it off either. Cotton. We'lldrill that

damn well if we have to git out there and rob one ofthese banks to git money to drill it with."Well,

I said, "I got plenty credit at the supply stores, allPIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL p.19the supply

stores I got good credit. And I got credit with thecontractors, the trucking contractors and I

know I can git therig moved ."He said, "Well, I think we can git a little money along."'Course,

it was goin' to take quite a little bit of money be-cause we's havin' to buy the fuel, you know.

He said, "You goto Overton in the morning and see the truck contractor and see ifyou can git the

rig moved."And I says okay, so I started the next morning and I startedout and I's goin' to Kilgore

and I went through Overton. Istopped in at H. B. Leinbert's Truck Contracting camp. I knewhim well;

he'd done a lot of work for me in this country, and Isaid, "H. B., I got a rig in Shelby County

down close to CenterI want moved to Upshur County. I wish you'd look things overtomorrow and call me

tomorrow night at Kilgore at the RepublicSupply Company at 10:00. I'll be there at 10:00.

Something elsetoo, you move that rig, you'll have to move it without any money.There won't

be no money till this contract's finished."And he says, "Well, that's all right, Cotton. I'll

move therig for you. I'll call you tomorrow right at 10:00."I said okay and I went on to Kilgore

and that night at 10:00he called me there at the Republic and told me -- I think thatwas on Friday,

said, "Cotton, goin' to cost you $840 to move thatrig to Upshur County."And

I said, "Well, the boys're down there tearin' down now andthey'll be ready to go Sunday

morning at 7:00. I want the trucksthere ready to go at 7:00 Sunday morning."PIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL

p.20He says, "All right, they'll be there." I wasn't there, butthe boys

said they -- the trucks were settin' there Sunday morningenough to haul a whole rig at one trip.

They loaded on and startedto Upshur County.So

we made that well in Upshur County. Got down and set casingand shut down. We set there with

the rig for two months. They'spayin' us and payin' two men for watchin' it all that time,

andset there for two months before we ever drilled that well

in. Itcome in -- it was just a little old well; it didn't make very much.However, it flowed some.

And another thing when we's on that well,when we's riggin' up, I forgot to tell this.When

we's riggin' up Tip come by the rig one evening just about2:30 or 3:00, I guess,

and we talked a little bit. He was goin'to Tyler, and I was broke. I didn't even have enough money

to eatsupper on that night. I said, "Tip, by God, we got to have a littlemoney. What're

we goin' to do for a little money? I haven't evengot enough to eat supper on."And he said,

"Cotton, you stay here with this rig till I gitback. I'll be back before night,

and I'll have some money."And he sailed out. He was drivin' a Chevy coupe. He come backbefore

sundown that night; he'd been to Tyler and back and thatwas a good long ways too. But he'd been

to Tyler and back andhe got out of the car and handed me ten fifty-dollar bills. Sohe said,

"That'll hold you for a little while, Cotton. You canat least eat. I'll git some more somewhere."And

I couldn't help but think about what he said about we'dgit the money if he had to rob a bank.

I know that's not wherePIONEERS IN TEXAS OILp. 21he got the money,

but I never did know where he got the money.I never did ask him. (LAUGHTER)And so

we got started on the well

and I was roomin' in afarmhouse out there close by the well. I's livin' cheap asI could because

I didn't have no money much. I'd git up andgo over there pretty early in the morning. One morning I

droveover there; it was pretty chilly that morning -- it was in thefall of the year, pretty chilly.

This old fuel oil was thick andheavy anyway. It didn't run very good to the boiler, and

I seenthe boys, how far it was built on the fuel line as I drove in.Drove right by this tank.

I noticed they had one built rightup on the connection, right against the tank.

I didn't thinktoo much about it at the time.I

got out of the car and went on in and was talkin' to thedriller, and

looked out that way in a minute and I seen thatblack smoke pourin' out of that old fuel tank.

I told the driller,I said, "By God, I believe them boys got that old fuel tank afireout there."About

that time I seen 'em all grab shovels and run out thereand start shovelin' dirt into it, you know,

just all inside wasafire. I told 'em, "Git back and let her go. Can't do nothingabout it now."And

what happened -- this old tank had been used for a fueltank or something before and it had

places where it'd run overand little streams of oil had run down the side of it, you know,and

dried there. It was old dried, hard oil, but this fire had --was right under one of

those little old streams of oil. It hadPIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL p. 22got one of those little streams

of oil hot and the fire justcrawled on up the side of that tank, followin' that stream, andover

into the tank before anybody knew it. About that time,about time it got to goin' good,

Henry Reynolds come tearin' in.He was superintendent for (INAUDIBLE) and Reynolds,

and he cometearin' in and jumped out of the car and he said, "God damn,

nowyou went and burned the fuel tank up. And they're in a hell ofa hurry for this well."And

I told him, I said, "They ain't in no bigger damn hurryfor it than I am for 'em to have it.

They just have to be patient.Couldn't help it because the darn fuel tank burnt up."And he said,

"What're you goin' to do now?"And I said, "By God, I'm goin' to Willow Springs and gitanother

fuel tank." So I hopped in the car and sailed out, andwhile I's at Willow Springs I phoned the

refinery to send outthree or four truckloads of oil.

I got another fuel tank and hadit sent out there. Got back out there, the old tank still

burnin'.But we just disconnected it and tied onto the truck and yanked itoff. Had it or. a bank of

dirt about as high as this table, youknow. And we pulled it off to one side and set the other tankon

there and hooked it up, and the trucks was already standin'there, loaded with oil and they just

went to pumpin' oil. Directlywe's goin' again, in little or no time.The

old tank we had was a 250-barrel tank and we had borrowedit from

Tip's brothers. 'Course, we had to pay for it when thewell was finished,

but they just charged us I think $50 for thattank. Ordinarily it would've cost us $200 or $300,

you know, butPIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL p. 23they knew we's up against it for money and they just charged

us$50 for it.K.- Didn't you use Hughes bits on that well too?Y.- Yes ma'm, that's where I used

one of the first what they callsport-model bits they put out. It's a new model bit that theyput

out at the time and one of the most successful bits I thinkthe Hughes Tool Company ever put out.

They had a few of 'em outon trial around there just to see how they'd do,

but when I wentto git one of 'em I had to pay for it. I think it was the firstbit that anybody!d

paid for. And broke as I was they made me payfor that darn bit anyway! (LAUGHTER)And so we run it,

and I think the bit made somewhere between350 and 400 feet, which was a good record at that time.B.-

That was in twenty-four hours --a day?Y.- Yeah, it run longer than twenty-four hours. It run --

I guessit was thirty-six, maybe forty-eight hours.B.- Uh-huhY.- But when I pulled it out

of the hole -- why, the Hughes ToolCompany was settin' right there ready to git it, and he got

itand put it in his car and took the record of our boiler pressure,our pump pressure, how

much hole it made, how long we run it, youknow. He shipped it right straight to Houston and sent the

dope,what it did and all, right with it.W.- It was worn out.Y.- Yeah, it was worn out, pretty

near it.K.- He didn't pay you for it.Y.- No, he didn't. They didn't

do that way then.PIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL p.24W.- What's the importance of that improvement now?

That's twentyyears, about, after your Electra rock bit incident but still withthe Hughes Tool

Company. What importance is there in modern oilwell drilling attached to that new rock

bit and these new rock bitimprovements?Y.- Oh, it just fixed 'em so they could drill

oil wells a lotfaster and with a lot less bit cost, you know. The bits don'tcost 'em near

so much and they don't have to pull out near somuch. They drill these wells altogether now;

they don't use anyold fishtails like we used to do, you know.W.- How deep could you go In the

Electra field and in this areaback in those days, soon after 1910 and '11, and along in there?How

deep could you go with that old fishtail bit with what you hadto drill with in those days?Y.- Oh,

we could go -- as deep as we ever went them days was 2,000feet. We could go that deep with 'em.W.-

You struck some hard formation?Y.- Yeah, we struck some hard formation,

but we'd just have towear it out. It took us sometimes two months to make a well2,000 feet.

Now they make 'em in four or five days.W.-

But doesn't that explain why the rotary rig didn't go anydeeper much here?Y.-

Well, that's one reason. They didn't have the rigs big enough,the rigs wasn't big

enough and the equipment wasn't good enough togo much deeper than that, you know. They's

just little old rigs,and the drill pipe wasn't much count. And everything else in pro-portions,

there wasn't nothing much count. Didn't have much to doPIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL p. 25anything with.

They couldn't blame us much for takin' two monthsto make a well because they

didn't have --- that's the kind of stuffthey had to work with, you know.

'Course, we never did hurt our-selves; we never did git in no big hurry.(BREAK)K.-

Well, let's see, you're drilling up in the Electra field stillwith the Texas Company.

You hadn't -- he hadn't told about thefishing ---W.- No, he hasn't told about it.Y.- I'll

tell you about a storm we had up there in the Electrafield. I never have told you about it yet.

Are you ready now?B.- YesY.- Well, while workin' in the Electra field we had a bad

stormthere one night. It got -- oh, it was a terrible storm. Blewdown 115 derricks.

I think my derrick was about the only oneleft standin' in the field. The only reason it was

left -- Iwasn't on the rig; my brother was on there on evening tower.We's on an old fishing job

and we had a'hold of two stringsof tools, stuck in the bottom of the hole, and we'd been

jackin'on 'em -- oh, for ten days, I guess, with hydraulic jacks. Hadnine lines strung up.

We jacked and pulled and we had a brandnew string of upset drill pipe that would stand the gas.

We justkept pullin' and jackin'. We thought all time we's doin' somegood, but I finally decided

I'd run a steel line to see how muchgood we's doin'.I run a steel line on it and we hadn't moved

the tools a inch.PIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL p.26But we had brought the pipe up nearly a half a joint.

That'ssomething that most people haven't ever had the experience

ofnowadays and probably never will have. That pipe stretched, Ibelieve it was thirty feet

before it come in two. We kept runnin'the steel line every day or two to see whether the tools

movedany a'tall, you know, and they never did move. Never had moved ainch,

but the pipe was still comin' up all the time, great pres-sure on 'em -- a pair of

100-ton hydraulic jacks and nine linesstrung up to pull with.The pipe finally come in two,

and when it did we pulled It outof the hole. It had stretched one joint of that pipe just

flathalf in two in the middle, just stretched it till it come in twoin the middle of the joint.

And that pipe -- I run it for a goodmany wells after that and it always looked like that

it had beenswaged down from about four inches to -- it was four-inch upsetdrill pipe, you know --

and it looked like it had been swageddown right under the upset part to about three

and a half-inch.It looked like about three and a half inch-pipe. That's how muchit stretched.

Most of the people wouldn't believe these days thatyou could stretch a string of pipe thirty feet

like that did butwe did. We did it by the steel line measurements.The night that storm came up,

my brother seen it comin'; he wasrunnin' the rigs nights, evening tower.

He just stretched thepipe up just as high as he could git it; put all the strain hecould git

on it; tied the brake down and went off and left it.Went off a little ways, him and the

crew, and crawled in a fire--box to an old boiler, an old dead boiler that was settin' outPIONEERS

IN TEXAS OIL p. 27there, and stayed there till the storm was over. When they gotout, I think,

I believe every derrick in the field was down onlythat one. It was still standin'. 'Course,

that heavy weightbein' on it just held it. That's the only reason it stood. Therest of 'em,

115 derricks was blown down that night.W.- What lease was this on?Y.- That was on the Stringer.K.-

And that was about when? 1911?Y.~ No, I imagine that was about '12, maybe,

possibly a littlelater -- anyways, '12. 'Course, we had to move over and drillanother well.

They just built another derrick right by the sideof that one and just skidded the rig off

to another derrick rightby the side of that one and just skidded the rig off to anotherderrick

and drilled another derrick by the side of that one. Wecouldn't never git that stuff out.

We just had to move over anddrill another well.

J. T. (Cotton) Young Interview - J. T. (Cotton) Young Interview [part 4 of 13]

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