Allen W. Hamill Interview - Allen W. Hamill Interview [part 4 of 4]

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  • So he- the story-- after it turned out, why, this bit was used on this particular well. Whether it was used anyplace else before that, I couldn't say, but I feel that was the real experiment, the try-out, because the sand up there at Mooringsport was very hard and a fishtail, it just grind it all-he was just in and out of the whole thing-fish tails all the time.
  • So--I didn't know at that time but in 1912 when I owned the second well I drove from California and I--I got Sharpton-Hughes to send me out a bit, one of their bits, and we had wonderful results from it out there. We had wonderful results and they heard about it and wired out and asked me to wire back my experience with it-what luck I had. So I answered them back.
  • I'd forgotten what I said, but anyway, it was most satisfactory. So I think that is really the initiation of the Sharpton-Hughes, what was called at that time, and what Hughes did at that time in California--believe it was.
  • O.-Who in your opinion is most responsible for the development of that piece?
  • H.-Well, of course that I don't know, I don't know. It was put in use and perfected before I knew about it.
  • O.-You have no guesses to make?
  • H.-Well--it was my understanding that Johnny Wynn, an old timer who was a droller of Corsicana at Sour Lake, decided that his mechnical knowledge to start a machine shop and he did. He had a nice little shop operating in the Sour Lake.
  • It's my understanding that he is the fellow that thought the idea up and develop it to a point that Sharpton-Hughes can take it on and perfect it. I don't know how far Wynn advanced with it.
  • He had it- ray understanding- of course, I didn't see it, but had it where it was in a workable condition. But I think one of the bugs in it was the lubrication. They had to work that out and that was a little slow process, I think, getting where that they could get the material to stand up and get it lubricated down there where they'd get much benefit from it, before it'd wear out.
  • O.- What do you think of Hughes' mechanical ability?
  • H.- Well, I-- I don't know whether Howard Hughes ever had any mechanical ability or not. I just don't know. Howard was a odd kind of a fellow. He-- was more like a playboy to we people around Beaumont for a good while.
  • But he seemed to have made quite a friendship with Walter Sharp, with the Sharps, so I feel that they encouraged him or backed him to a certain extent in this Sharp and Hughes venture, but Walter was a nice looking man, nice fellow to be around, you see, good mixer, story teller and entertainer, you see. Keep you interested.
  • O. - What about other inventions that you know of in those early days?
  • H.-Well, inventions then, they just kind of happened so. If you'd need a tool, you'd think about it, you'd rig it up and go to the machine shop and have It made. Never think anything about patenting it, getting a patent. Such things as the overshot and, why, Jim and I used them there. Go in the shop and have them made and spears of various kind.
  • Never thought about getting a patent on them, you see. In each individual fishing job, even up today, at this date, you get a problem sometime that you can't find a tool that you think will just fit, and you'll have to go and make it just a little different, maybe from something you had to use or tried to use on that particular job, so-- oh, I don't know. They just developed up as necessity demanded, you see.
  • O.- How often did the man who thought of the idea get credit for it?
  • H.- I think very seldom, think very seldom. Somebody would get it and you'd-- the average driller or contractor would go get what he'd need, rush out and use it and maybe throw it in the corner of his derrick or tool house and not think much about it. Of course, patents to us in those days didn't seem to amount to anything much.
  • O.- I'd like to go back now and ask something about the people I've noticed in talking to them that most of the men in the oil fields in those early days went to the fourth, fifth, sixth grades about. Can you recall any who were college graduates, that you were working with?
  • H.- No, I don't know that-- that I contacted any what you'd call college graduates, that is, anything like we have this day and time where they've gone up and taken a engineering course or geological course or anything like that. They mostly go through high school and maybe one or two years at college.
  • Had a lot of men that worked for us that you could tell that they'd had advantages and been to school quite a bit, but as to check up on their-- how much schooling they had, I just can't think of any right at the moment. That is, in the early days down there.
  • O.- Yes, sir. Well, how do you account for the fact that men with what seemed so little training were able to perform so well in the oil fields?
  • H.- Well, a lot of It down there was just weak mind and strong back in the early days. It was hard work and, of course, you might grasp an opportunity, you see, or grasp an idea. It didn't take any education much. You'd get this idea and you'd go to your machine shop if it was some kind of a tool you'd want to make, explain it to your foreman of the shop and he'd get it out if he could.
  • Course, your teaming contractors and those fellows that'd come up from the ranch, maybe moved off the rice farm or come in from a cotton farm or a sugar plantation over in Louisiana. You'd have contacted all kinds of people, but we didn't have many boys or men come out there that looked as though they'd just finished school and tackle the job because they'd go to the office and get a job in there in the office, part of it.
  • O.-What was the average age of the man working at Spindletop in 1901, do you think?
  • H. - Well, of course- well, we didn't have many- we didn't have any youngsters there, hardly. We-- of course, there was quite a lot of boys come in there.
  • I suppose 22, three, along there and up to in the 30's, but Peck Byrd was about as young a man as we had and I suppose he was in his 20's there when we took him down to Beaumont. But we didn't have many young fellows. That is, what you'd call, just out of high school. They're more seasoned, had worked on the farm, blacksmith shop, had experience, you see, with tools or worked around thrashing machines out on farm or worked on gin, cotton gins, and such things as that.
  • We'd try to select men that had had some experience with machinery. We had quite a few that had been out in harvest field a year or two and, as I say, machine shops, and operated gins during the cotton ginning season.
  • O. - What made those men come to the oil fields?
  • H.-Well, I suppose it- just the - they'd read about it or heard about it and the- the idea to get a good job and looking for- maybe to get in on something for themself. But most of them- most of them, of course, stayed drillers and tool dressers right on down to pumpers, a lot of them, you see.
  • Of course, there 're a lot of the-- quite a few of the old-timers there have made good. Worked in and saved their money and got them a string of tools of their own and branched out in other fields as other fields developed, the opportunities there for them.
  • And If they'd saved money enough to make a down payment on a outfit, you see- you see, when we started in down there, why, $3500 would buy a good outfit, by gosh, crackerjack rotary outfit- boiler, engine, whole works. And after it got up a little higher, you see, and so on, built up as the material got heavier and, of course, things got a little more expensive as we went along. So a lot of-- a lot of boys, I know a lot of them that made good, just by starting out as drillers.
  • O.- Well, what was the difference in character between those who made good and those who didn't?
  • H. - Well, probably the ones that didn't were just more the "don't care, give-a-darn" disposition, you see, and squandered their money. They'd get their paycheck, why, they'd go to town or a saloon or off on some trip till it was all gone and come back, and, "Here I am. I want my job back, go to work." Take them back a lot of times, you see. Used to have one driller.
  • He'd work about so long and then he'd come and say, "Well, I've got to go to town. Got to be off for a while." "All right, Fred."And he was a dandy when he was back. He'd go off and spend all of his money. Come back, he'd look pretty worn out but make a good man till he'd accumulated a few hundred dollars, and he was off on another spree.
  • Well, there was quite a few that way, you see, not only working for us but others. But a lot of good fellows came in there from good farm families, you know, good substantial people, and they'd worked hard and knew what a dollar was worth and saved their money. By having that disposition, they'd come up in the world, some of them, got a lot of property.
  • O.- What made some of them boomers do you think?
  • H.- Boomers?
  • O.- Yes. Those who...
  • H.-Followed the booms?
  • O.-Yes.
  • H.-Well we were all more or less boomers, you see, as far as that. We'd follow the boom. When a boom had bursted we'd move to the Sour Lake and that came up with a big drilling campaign, you see. Everyone moved everything they could buy, borrow, and steal, by golly, get them to the contracting business in Batson because of the small tracks over there you see and created a lot of work at Batson.
  • Well Humble was the same way. Happened to be that almost all these fields came in where there was a lot of small property. Of course the-- Beaumont, not discredit anybody, if Mr. Galey had known the condition these leases were in he'd never let us start up when he did at Christmas because of his knowledge of oil he'd have had all that land and Lucas had it all promised to him--all those tracks,
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  • It was moved right in right away. He was there and rented the building, you see, and had material there before anybody else. And the Nation- National Oil Well, of course, they all came in about as quick as they could get there, you see.
  • O.- What was the name of that scout they had there?
  • H.- Name was Dobbins,
  • O.- Do you remember his first name?
  • H.- Mmm, gosh! He afterwards worked for Heywoods. Elmer J
  • O.- Elmer Dobbins.
  • H.- Elmer Dobbins.
  • O. - Was there any connection between Elmer Dobbins and Walter or Jim Sharp?
  • H.- I don't think so. No. No, not to my knowledge or- of course, he was a driller up in Corsicana and he might have worked for them or known them up there but he-- soon as the - right after the Lucas Well, why, immediately, he went to work for Heywoods. And left Spindle top and went to Jennings, Louisiana, where they developed the Jennings field.
  • O. -Do you know what finally happened to him?
  • H.- No, I don't
  • .O. - You got into the oil game early and you've stayed for 55 years, I believe you said.
  • H.- Yes, 55 years. At Corsicana.
  • O.- I'd like to know what has made you stay with it.
  • H.- Well, it's a- a occupation that has more or less excitement to it, possibilities, and, I suppose, like anyone--a merchant or starting in a occupation, you seem to learn it and know it and just a very attractive occupation, I think.
  • O.- Why do you suppose the others have stayed?
  • H.- Well, I think the same reason. It's a speculative business and a lot of excitement to it and you get to see various parts of the country from one field to the other. As we--say, making booms. Whenever there's a new field opened up, why, we feel we've got to move on to the next boom. It just gets in our blood, I guess,
  • O.- I've talked to old roughnecks who've worked on the rigs until they had to be taken off. They never accumulated anything. They just kept on working. What made them stay on do you suppose?
  • H.- Well, it's a business that they'd followed and something that they knew and they probably felt that they wasn't fitted for anything else or couldn't get a job that'd pay. You see, the oil business, all the time, has paid a little better than average wages and been an inducement. And, usually, tangled up with a mighty good gang of fellows. Oh, I don't know. It just get in your blood, I guess.
  • O.- Now, I wonder if there are any oil field stories that you remember that are just about the oil fields.
  • H.- No.
  • O.- Don't remember the kind of stories you told when you were waiting around the rig or anything like that?
  • H.- I don't believe there's any that would be very interesting. Of course, there's many, many stories. They're so varied and--to tell on individuals, but, maybe on myself, but that wouldn't be very good, you see.
  • O.- Well, tell me this. What about the ways of finding oil?
  • H.-Well, we started out, why, we just get a location and drill it. Just get a crazy idea probably. I been asked if there was any geologists had anything to do with Spindletop. Well, not as far as I know, because when I was out on a trip with Mr. Galey one time, he remarked that the best way for him to find oil was to use Professor Drill. He didn't seem to follow the geologists very much. He'd follow the trend idea, you see.
  • O.- Professor Drill?
  • H.- Professor Drill is what he meant by you'd have to drill a well, you see.
  • O- Oh, I see. Uh-huh, he didn't use the switches or anything like that?
  • H.- No. No. No, he never followed- I don't know. I've heard of wells being drilled on the strength of somebody going by and using a crooked switch and so on, and I was-- an old fellow by the name of Dr. Griffith, that he developed a kind of an apparatus that he'd hold in two hands and then had a mouth piece. Well, when I was in California, that old dickens came out there and my associate, Mr. Wallace and Mr. Edwards out there, knew him down in Beaumont, you see.
  • So he came out and Mr. Wallace brought him out to this particular well that we had around-- down around 38,00 feet and it collapsed on us. And we went back into that particular well, why, got down to this 38,00 feet, why, we found, that it'd moved over. One of those earthquakes out there or something had just cut our pipe completely off and moved the bottom part of our hole over someplace else. So we had to drill a new hole.
  • Well, when this Dr. Griffith came out there, by golly, he switched around with that tool of his, marched around and told us, by golly, that that hole down there had moved over, that there was two holes down there, that we'd drilled two. Now- well, now, Mr. Wallace and Mr. Edwards swore by all that was good and bad that they had never Intimated by word nor deed that we'd had any hard luck on that well.Well, it made us all feel kind of funny and suspicious so Mr. Wallace took him up to Bakers Field and Kalingo and followed him around and we watched-- took me along just to- the trip.
  • There was four of us. So that old fellow would go around and locate places, you know. This thing would flop over, you know, when he'd get to where there was oil and he'd follow it along like you would a creek or a river, you know. Maybe walk across it maybe half a mile, or maybe the streak that he pronounced was oil-bearing might be over a hundred or so feet wide. But, now, he claimed that he had discovered a new strata there at Humble and made-- he made quite a lot of money.
  • Well, he-- after he'd made this money at Humble, he goes up to Mexia and locates a well there but locates it about a half a mile east of what afterwards the Mexia-- the Mexia field came in and made a tremendous field. But he died, I don't know-- I don't know whether he ever made any real money after his strike at Humble or not.
  • But he would go out and he would offer to put a certain amount of money in a wildcat. He offered to join us in California if we'd take up some of those projects. Well, Mr. Wallace and Mr. Edwards, who was an old Standard Oil retired man, and he-- they almost fell for it. We almost went in with him, but we didn't.
  • O.- What do you know about him before this time?
  • H.- Well, he was around Spindletop. I knew who he was but I never knew him well before he got over to Humble, Old Doc Griffith, I -
  • O. - What was his name, his given name, do you know?
  • H. - I can't think of it just now.
  • O.- Why did they call him Dr. Griffith?
  • H.- Well, he was supposed to be a doctor, I think, a doctor of medicine, I believe.
  • O. - A doctor of medicine?
  • H.- I think so. And drifted off into this- got in there at Spindletop and-- at the end of this thing-- it was a contraption made with various kinds of capsules, little aluminum capsules about three inches long, would screw in this little container in the end and it was connected up with a kind of a little box affair with three tubes running out that were flexible, something like a- this conduit, you know, that--
  • O. - Oh, yes.
  • H.- Round, but it was flexible. And he'd hold two pieces in his hands, you see, one in each hand, and the other piece in his mouth. Well, this confounded thing, when he'd get to a certain place, why, this little capsule affair would turn tail and turn right down and stay down there and follow along till where he'd cut over to where he said the oil formation existed, and turn up like a rabbit's ears and he'd say, "Well, that's all."He had various capsules, now.
  • He had, I suppose --out there in California was the only place I watched him operate-- I suppose he had a dozen-- a dozen different types of capsules. He bad one that-- salt water. He'd say, "No, that sand there contains salt water and this here's a brackish water.
  • There's oil," or, "This is gas." And he every-- he'd be changing those tools from time to time, those little capsule affairs. And we thought afterwards, probably, that he had salt water of a certain degree and a certain oil, you know, gravity, and so on, and so on in each one of those capsules.
  • O.- How many characters like him around?
  • H.- Oh, I've never watched any of them but I've heard of them that worked around with a crooked stick. Then in Beaumont, the early days, there, they brought a young fellow in there, I believe, from Southwest Texas, that had x-ray eyes, so the story went on, by golly.
  • O.- Did you ever see him?
  • H.- No, I never did see him but I-- he located-- they had him locate a well off south and east of Spindletop. Of course, It was dry. I don't think the x-ray lasted by the one well.
  • O.- You haven't told me much about the terms that they used in the oil fields. Which ones interested you most as words they used?
  • H.- Oh, you mean, they characterized the different men, the drillers--
  • O.- Yes.
  • H.- The Boll weevils and the roughnecks and the--
  • O.- What is your understanding of the word "Boll weevil"? Where did it come from?
  • H.-Well, Boll weevil was-- see, about the time that Spindletop was discovered, why, that was just about the time the boll weevil became so well known and gave so much trouble, put the cotton planters out of business up in the Brazos bottom, up in the cotton country. And a lot of those fellows had been on those cotton farms, why, had drifted into the oil fields. And I think that's where the name of boll weevil originated, or why it originated.
  • It was from those boys coming in from the cotton patch.
  • O.- Any other terms like that that you could tell me about?
  • H.- Well, oh, I don't know. It- of course, call them Hard Tails, and-- where they'd been teamsters, you see, or maybe cowpunchers, of course. Roughneck was the general word used, you see. Swivel necks. A lot of them were called swivel necks, you see. One would-- probably- just off hand I can't-
  • O.- Well, what about some of the names of the roughnecks? They all had nicknames I understand. Do you remember any of those nicknames?
  • H.- Oh, course, each fellow, you'd call him Slim or High-pockets or maybe the district he'd come from. Cajun if he was over in Louisiana, might call him Cajun. Some distinction, maybe, or some story he'd related maybe give him a nickname-- nickname from that.
  • O.- Did you have a nickname yourself?
  • H.- No. Just plain old Al. Maybe behind my back a lots of times. Plenty of times.
  • O.- If you had it to do over again, would you follow the same pattern?
  • H.- Oh, yes, but you know there's hindsight. Yes, I'd stay in the oil game all right. But I can see where I've made many, many mistakes. There isn't anybody that's had any greater opportunities than I, none.
  • I fouled them up. I stayed independent all the time, practically. If I'd organized a big company like some of them did and gotten going probably better had- I shouldn't complain none,
  • O. - It's been a full-
  • H.- It's been a rather attractive life and I feel life's been very kind to me. I feel that we've been very fortunate [end of tape]