Benjamin "Bud" Coyle Interview - Benjamin "Bud" Coyle Interview [part 3 of 4]

Primary tabs

  • PIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL TOPIC: Kountze, Sour Lake, Saratoga Areas NAME: Coyle, Benjamin (Bud) INTERVIEWER: Owens, W. A. PLACE: Houston, Texas TAPE NO. 122 DATE: 7-30-53 RESTRICTIONS: None
  • Owens- At the end of the last tape we were talking about the murder trial in Kountze. I'd like for you to describe that trial for us.
  • Coyle- Well, I don't know. See, Kountze is way over there in the piney woods, right in the middle of the Big Thicket, as I call it, or about it. And the only way you can get there is have to go to Beaumont and go out on that Santa Fe train, but they did have a good hotel to stay at and a good place to eat.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- Had very good beds, but no baths or nothing -- well, they had one old bath. But had awful good place to eat. It rained nearly all the time we was there, and we had to stay there about a week. It was just an ordinary murder trial, and jury and everything and witnesses. It didn't last but a day or two after it got started.
  • O.- Yes, you were one of the character witnesses?
  • C.- Yes, I was a character witness in it and I was in bed asleep when it happened. But I told you I never was no mob man.
  • O.- Yes, well, was there a great deal of feeling in Kountze about the affair or not?
  • C.- No, it was practically unknown, no partation (sic) in Kountze about it at all.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- And quick as them jurors saw the class of witnesses, prosecuting witnesses they had, why, they made up their minds right then what it was, I guess. That's what one of them told me. I---
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And after it was all over, but that's about all there was to the trial.
  • O.- Well, were most of the jurors from Kountze itself?
  • C.- Oh, well, they were from that country around there---
  • O.- Yes, they would be.
  • C.- Just an ordinary country jury.
  • O.- Was that while they still had the log courthouse?
  • C.- No, they didn't have a log courthouse, no---
  • O.- They'd built a new one---
  • C.- --- they had a jail, they had that. It may be the same courthouse there yet. I never did hear; I don't know whether they ever built a new one or not. To my best recollection it was a wooden courthouse.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- But I think they've built another one.
  • O.- Yes, it's not a wooden one now.
  • C.- I don't know, I haven't been there. I haven't been there in several years anyhow.
  • O.- Well, there's nothing particularly exciting about the trial
  • itself?
  • C.- No, nothing, just an ordinary trial.
  • O.- Yes, all right. Well, you mentioned the jungle a couple of times. You said you went over there.
  • C.- Uh-huh.
  • O.- Would you describe the place and the people as much as you could?
  • C.- Well, it was just down there and they had an old wooden building, just boards, just shacks, one-by-twelves nailed up. Generally a tin roof on them, and had a dance hall down there and a saloon and res- taurants and a lot of shacks scattered around, mostly nigger women. And ---
  • O.- How many people went down there?
  • C.- Well, I don't know. There's always something, you know, curiosity seekers keep them places alive more than anything else.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- Or he didn't feel like -- he's not scared to go down there if he didn't spend a dime.
  • O. - Yes.
  • C.- And scared, you know; it's a cinch you'd have just what you was going to spend in your pocket. You wouldn't never pull out anything to show it. And---
  • O.- Were there many killings going on down there?
  • C.- Well, I remember one; a fellow there was a gambler -- two gamblers -- one of them they called him Mexican Joe, and the other one Big Thicket Kid. They were very low, cheap gamblers.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- And I know one morning I was getting me a cup of coffee at Little Breakfast, kind of late out and that night, and going to work and didn't want to go back down to Batson Iron Works to get my breakfast. I heard the shots; fellow rushed in and said, "The Big Thicket Kid and Mexican Joe has just shot one another. Let's go down there." I said, "Uh-uh, I ain't going down there. I don't want nothing to do with that and be near that. That's just damn good riddance of damn bad rubbish, when them two shot one another." I never will forget a fellow saw me afterwards, eating his breakfast, a salesman or selling something or another, groceries or something. He'd stayed all night there and he met me in Beaumont afterwards and laughed about me, what I said about them two fellows. And said, "I got to investigating that and you sure was right." I said, "No, as long as they kill one another, but of course, every once in awhile one of them outfits kill a good man, is the trouble."
  • O.- Do you know some of the good men who were killed that way?
  • C.- No, Pearl Breden (?) shot an old one-legged hack driver that -- you know, just like, you know, them kind of fellows ---
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- ---- he may, I expect, I know I rode in his hack.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- Just murdered him. And he shot two or three fellows. Then another fellow that I knew, he shot -- I disremember his name now.
  • And he shot two or three around there, and then Pearl Breden finally killed him -- Not Pearl Breden; his name was Pearl Breden -- I mean Porter Lawson killed Pearl Breden. Porter was a worker in the oil field and this Pearl Breden was just one of, awful bad actor, just a two-bit pimp and regular gunman. And it ruint Porter Dawson -- I mean Porter Lawson.
  • O.- How did it do that?
  • C.- Oh, it made a no-good character out of him too, kind of; you know, there's some way or other people shoot somebody bad that way they get a reputation, you know, and generally doesn't do them a bit of good in the world.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And sort of like you get a fighting reputation, you know, and there's always somebody come along and pick a fight out of you, just to see if he can whip you.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And so that one way there, Porter never did amount to much in my estimation after that. I don't know what become of him, whether he's dead or not. He got to be kind of a bad actor himself.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And, however, he never did mistreat me or nothing.
  • O.- Well, this person Pearl Breden interests me. Do you know anything more about him?
  • C.- Well, he was a -- just a -- I don't know what you'd call him, nothing.
  • O.- Yes, you don't know where he drifted in from?
  • C.- He come from that neck of the woods in there.
  • O.- Is that right?
  • C.- Yes, he belonged in there, and he just lived off of the women around and one thing and another -- just a regular P.I. ---
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And would-be bad guy -- and thief; course, he had to steal or do something or other to live, you know. And had a gang.
  • O.- Who was the sheriff there at that time?
  • C.- I forget that old fellow's name but when we come in there, see, Batson was way back there, you know, twenty miles in the woods. Well, about eight miles from Saratoga, but Saratoga had no railroads then either ---
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- --- when they first opened up there. They had an old fellow -- I forget his name now -- in fact, just like any other precinct, you know, called a justice of the peace. Had another fellow was constable. Well, Ralph Durham was county attorney, and he'd been over there at Sour Lake, head of all that big -- the gamblers and everything paid him to stay open, you know. And he come over there and started that and this old justice of the peace, he wouldn't do as Ralph wanted him to do. And Ralph just organized him another, got him another justice of the peace and a constable. I never will forget taking a fellow that -- we had a lot of fun. He was a hack driver, but he said he was a lawyer. And I think he had read a little law some way or another. He was trying
  • to get established, he said, was the reason he was driving that hack. And he put him justice of the peace, and then he'd taken a fellow that worked arcund gambling houses when he could or do nothing much, and made him constable, kind of a gambler. Well, round up them women every month and fine them so much, you know. And those gamblers had to give so much, of everything like that, you know, had to chip in to Ralph.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And he went up to St Louis World's Fair and wrote back to his assistant down there, said, "Round me up everybody and fine them and send me the money." He was broke. Well, he run the thing as far as law and order went. He didn't have no order just -- and amount to too much till we got the Rangers there.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And it, they didn't interfere with, as much on that business as, the Rangers didn't. They just cut out that shooting and one thing and another. There wasn't much more of that after the Rangers come there.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And then that thieving and these would-be bad men, you know -- them days, you know, they sure would scatter when the Rangers come.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- Because they'd take no foolishness. And they couldn't buy them off because they'd keep swapping them around. Let Sam Bates stay there, but they get a little bit off, or they'd put another one there, you know, and they know it. And a Ranger never was much
  • on the take business.
  • O.- Their reputation was always clean then?
  • C.- Yes, all ever I knew of was always clean.
  • O.- Did you see the Rangers put on shooting demonstrations in the day time?
  • C.- No, I never did see them.
  • O.- Did you hear about them there?
  • C.- Oh, yes, yes, most of that some of them show-off Rangers. This Sam Bates wasn't a show-off at all. He didn't even wear a big white hat. And he was -- you'd just thought he was an ordinary citizen walking down the street, and you'd never see his guns sticking out big or nothing. He was a real Ranger; he wasn't scared of nothing. And well, old Captain Brooks told me about how they trained them, what a rigid training. They take them down on the border them days. And they says you could find out down there before long whether they'd stick or not. He says it's many a one tried that didn't make it.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And he says it's not only being brave; you had to have judgment. Says we didn't get none of these trigger-happy boys. You hardly ever heard of a Ranger shooting anybody.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And he says -- that is, they had to. They didn't shoot till they had to. And they had one or two that they had to let out and cut, but them Rangers, I found they was good law enforcers.
  • All these laws and everything else didn't buck them at all them days. Your political pull didn't do you much good when they come around, because ---
  • O.- Well, how did it happen somebody didn't shoot Ralph Durham and his crew?
  • C.- Well, I, he was the back bone of their business. They shot him, they're liable to get one that wouldn't let them operate.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And he was a little bitty old ugliest guy. And he'd do a good deal of celebrating around and one thing and another, but he wasn't a tough guy at all. He didn't pretend to go on the tough business at all, and fighting and shooting game. That was out of his line. Get the money was Ralph's job.
  • O.- Yes, well, his constable ever get into any trouble there or his justice of the peace?
  • C.- No, no.
  • O.- Well, why did the other justice of the peace, the regular ---?
  • C.- Oh, he just quit, he was a good old nester and farmer around there and hog raiser and a rancher like, you know. And way back there in the woods where all the law they'd had to do with maybe was a boy got to a party and had a little fight or something or other, stealing hogs. So he just quit.
  • O.- Were there razorback hogs all over the place?
  • C.- Yes, yes, them hogs run in the woods; that was their living. They'd kill you quicker for shooting one of them hogs than they would one of them.
  • O.- Did you get to know any of the Big Thicket people pretty well?
  • C.- No, not too well, never. Old Ben Hooks -- I got to know him better there because he lived at Kountze.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And him and his brother was known as the biggest bear hunters in the Big Thicket. And old man Hooks was a mighty fine fellow, and his brother, old Bud Hooks, I never did know him. But I was well acquainted with old -- I've been to old Ben Hooks' house.
  • O.- Well, so have I. I was there back in 1938, I guess it was, and spent a Saturday evening. Old Ben brought out his fiddle and played all evening.
  • C.- Did he squat down in the front of the fireplace for you?
  • O.- No.
  • C.- In cold weather he -- you know, how some of these fellows sit down, you know, with one foot under them that way.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- I was drilling some wildcat wells there at Ariola, and he'd come out there and sit that way. And I had some business with him and I went to his house and it was cold. We was sitting, and the first thing I know old Ben was sitting down in front of that fireplace like he sat down on a camp or something, you know, talking. I guess I was better acquainted with him than some of them boys worked for me, but I disremember which ones. But I guess old Ben knew more about that Big Thicket than any man ever I talked to.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- --- or most anybody else did, for that matter. Because he had lived in there, big bear hunter. See, they used to have to hunt
  • them bears for protection because they killed their hogs and calves.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And he told me, he said, "I left over 2,000 cuts of bear meat laying on the ground in one day in the Big Thicket there." Maybe he told you the same thing.
  • O.- No, I don't remember that.
  • C.- But that's about the only one ever I knew much, remember much about.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- Now them Jordens and one thing and another, I never did pay much attention to them. Old man Jim Jorden was a fine old man, but one of his boys I know didn't turn out. Oh, he just turned out a drunkard ---
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- --- little was all. Otherwise he was a good fellow.
  • O.- Well, where did they bury the people who were killed there at Batson?
  • C.- Oh, out there in the prairie, some place out there. I've been to the cemetery. They had a graveyard out there, and ---
  • O.- Did you ever ---?
  • C.- --- some of them they'd send them away.
  • O.- Did you ever go to any of the funerals they had for them there?
  • C.- No, I never did go. Had to send one of the boys from Sour Lake home. A nigger shot him.
  • O.- Could you tell me about that?
  • C.- Huh?
  • O.- Could you tell me about that? How's it happen the Negro would shoot him?
  • C.- Well, they was going down the boardwalk and the nigger wouldn't give right of way. And this fellow named Bob Rose, and Pete Hamlin, and Pete knocked the nigger off. The nigger shot at Pete and shot Bob in the stomach and he died. Never did get the nigger. That was another thing that the law didn't care, and I don't know whether they ever looked for him very much.
  • O.- Yes, was he a local one or had he come in to work in the fields?
  • C.- Who's that?
  • O.- The Negro.
  • C.- Oh, he come to work in the field. He was a bad actor. He was kind of a nigger thief and one thing and another as I understood it. But I never did see the nigger nor know nothing about the course of it. But a fellow that worked with us always swore that he knew the nigger that killed him.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And he says, "I know that nigger and know he'd do it. He's the one that done it."
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- But I don't know.
  • O.- How many Negroes were working at Batson?
  • C.- Well, there wasn't many niggers. They were driving teams and building earthen tanks and things like that. They didn't work in the field.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- Outside of driving a team, and helping move a rig or something or other like that, or hauling pipe. They didn't even work on the pipelines ---
  • O.- Yes.
  • C. --- them days. And no niggers worked in the field.
  • O.- Did they have any trouble between whites and negroes?
  • C.- Oh, one there that I tell you about at Spindletop, and then they had taken a notion to run them all off at Sour Lake one time too.
  • O.- Were you there when that happened?
  • C.- Yes.
  • O.- Could you tell me about it?
  • C.- Well, that wasn't much there. They started out there and they was going to run off -- this old fellow -- I forget now -- not Meachem, wasn't his name, something like that. Went out to run off his niggers and he didn't run. He run the mob off. He shot into them with a shotgun and, of course, they scattered. And that broke up that drive.
  • O.- One white man stopped the ---
  • C.- Oh, yes, didn't run his niggers off and that stopped it.
  • O.- It wasn't Meachem, was it?
  • C.- No, it wasn't Meachem; it was Meacham or -- I used to know his name. I saw that old fellow; he wasn't a very old fellow. But he just didn't run; he's the kind that didn't run.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And he didn't allow nobody to enter. He'd protect his own business; broke that up. But I didn't have nothing to do with it at all. Wouldn't; I went home when I heard about it.
  • O.- Well, you've mentioned some of the gamblers at Batson. Do you remember the names of any of the characters among the women there?
  • C.- Oh, let's not talk about that.
  • O.- All right.
  • C.- I could tell some of the low-downedest things that's ever happened, but that there's -- I don't think of a thing.
  • O.- Okay.
  • C.- Now then, two of the biggest gamblers there was Tom Wyman and Tom Thompson. Old man Tom Wyman, I'm going to relate this.
  • O.- All right.
  • C.- And Tom Thompson run a gambling house. Old man Tom Wyman was seventy-five years old, and he'd been a gambler in this country forever, and he was known as Tom Wyman, the gentleman gambler.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- His word at a bank or anywhere else was just as good as any businessman's word, they said. And he was old and he had some of these regular office chairs, you know, boardwalk -- had no cement, you know. 'Course, he'd fixed them up a little bit. And in the summertime that old man would put a lot of water there. It never got very cold, you know. He sat there and the bar was on one side and then gambling on this side -- and a dance hall in the back, but he didn't have nothing to do with the dance
  • hall. Somebody else run that. But the gambling and saloon was his and Tom Thompson's. And he'd sit there and watch them games, you know. And I then was about thirty-four years old, three or four, five something. I was standing there looking in one night, and another chair there, says, "Bud, come sit down and talk to me awhile. I like to talk to young folks." I sat there and he said, "I take notice you don't buck them games in there much." I said, "No, I haven't got money enough to go up there. Anyway I can't beat them. I got sense enough to know that. I hate to thump my money off; I've got better ways to spend my money than floop it off in them crap games in there. Oh, once in awhile a bunch of us get together and go in there and have a little fun, lose $2 or $3 or maybe win $2 or $3 something like that, not much. He says, "You just keep that up. I'm a fair example of a gambler's life. I'm an old man, seventy-five years old. I have no children; I have no wife. The simple reason, I never would marry because I wouldn't marry a woman that'd have me. Now here I am at the latter part of life, no children, no nothing. And there's not a businessman in Texas that's worked as hard as I have. I worked the hard hours too. All of my work's mostly been at night. I've made and lost two or three fortunes." And he said, "If I'd have never got gambling in my blood and went into any other business, legitimate business and worked at it as hard as I have this gambling, I'd perhaps have been Mr. Tom Wyman today
  • and had some children or something or other to live for." That's the advice he give me. And he said, "And all of my existence too, that's the crookedest games I ever run. We've got to pay this Ralph Durham so much money that we've got to add that percentage to our game to break even, to make any money. That's all we've got added on to ours. Is that extra percentage. It's to protect, to pay Ralph Durham. The gamblers pay nothing. We don't mind so bad around here paying old Ralph, because we'll win it back anyhow. One of us, some of us will win it back. He slough it back, most of it back to us anyhow, so we don't care much about that." But that old fellow told me that, and I've often thought about it, you know, that he was sure right about it. And he was one of the -- they run the biggest place there, I guess, had more money behind them. But the others came and went. I know this Tobe Jorden I was telling you about there. His daddy had a little land around there and he sold his leases and had money. And he give him $35,000, they said. I never saw it. I know he opened up a saloon and a gambling house. And one of the high stepping gals, one of the better lookers hopped on to him. I think he lasted thirty days maybe, till they cleaned him.
  • O.- Is that right?
  • C.- The gal and the gamblers cleaned him up.
  • O.- Do you remember her name?
  • C.- Huh?
  • O.- Do you remember her name?
  • C. - No, no, I don't. I never -- I saw her around there. In fact, I forget her name. And---
  • O.- How many just kids came around, a great number?
  • C.- Huh?
  • O.- Were there many kids, fifteen, sixteen years old around the fields?
  • C.- No, not many. Only some of the men's boys and one thing and another. No, they, oh, we would have dances, that is, the young folks did. We built us a platform out in the open, you know, maybe under the trees. But the one down at Batson Iron Works there was right out in the open and we'd give dances, you know. And the young folks all went there and danced.
  • O.- They were the respectable ---
  • C.- Respectable people, you know. And then they had one uptown and because there wasn't none of the homes or no public place to go, you know. Only them hoe-down outfits, you know, and them old battleaxes to dance with in town.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- But we men around those places had our little parties and one thing and another.
  • O.- How about church?
  • C.- Huh?
  • O.- What about church at Batson, did they have any?
  • C.- Oh, yes, they had some churches there. And the early days though I disremember now. Of course, I didn't go to church much. I didn't have time because I worked seven days a week. And nobody
  • had time to go to church much but the womenfolks.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- But of course, Batson afterwards, later date there they got a lot of churches there now ---
  • O.- Yes.
  • C. ---- several. You know, they had two cyclones there in one day, and they tell this on old Ben Jorden over there. Him and the Methodist preacher, the first cyclone, had got on their horses. About the only way you could get around there then. This was back in -- somewhere around 1910, sooner or later, I forget, not much. And old Ben and the preacher went to riding around, you know, to see what they could see and what they could help, you know -- people had been blowed . And the old preacher or Ben one says, "Here comes another one." And they was riding these little old South Texas broom tail ponies, of course. The old preacher says, "Brother Jorden, let's pray." And they got down praying and old Ben kept watching that cloud. Finally he jumped up and was getting on his horse. And the preacher said, "What's the matter, Brother Jorden, ain't you going to pray?" He said, "Preacher, it ain't time to pray; it's time to ride. That thing's coming." So they rode out from under it. They just swear that's so. I don't know; I was away. But Batson though, had never made much of a comeback -- two or three little, like Humble and Spindletop and Sour Lake and them. Saratoga hasn't never done much about the comeback business.
  • O.- Yes, how much did you work in Saratoga?
  • C.- I was there about three or four months, four or five months. I drilled two wells there.
  • O.- Who were you working for at that time?
  • C.- I was working for Ed Prather.
  • O.- How successful were his operations at Saratoga?
  • C.- Well, unsuccessful ones. We drilled one well. Well, we quit one and never did finish it. Well, the Texas Company went in there I mean the Producers Oil Company, and finished it afterwards. They had it. But Ed Prather and Homer Chambers, and I don't know who all, went over there, and they sent me over there to drill a well. We got in an argument about flowing the well. Made quite a little oil and a lot of water, but we was hitting two sands, and never could agree on which sand was which. I didn't want to take in the upper sands but Homer Chambers and some more of them said that was the sand. So it was the one that had water in it. And they never would - they finally give it up. An old fellow sat around and listened to us the whole -- Captain I forget what his name is now. He did and he went back there and drilled a well down by that sand and made a lot of money out of it, that I said was the producing sand. And then I come on to Humble from there.
  • O.- Yes, where did you stay when you were in Saratoga?
  • C.- I first stayed there at that old Aunt Betty Lane. She run that Saratoga Hotel there. And I found a barber I knew up there. Him and his wife had a little apartment over in the barber shop,
  • and they fell out and divided the things up and I bought them out. And I lived there till I left.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- Had my own apartment up there. And I never did like to room with nobody and I had a room with somebody down at that hotel. I just bought old Roscoe's little apartment house.
  • O.- Did you go into the Turf Bar any there at Saratoga?
  • C.- Yes, old man Tom Thompson run that, yes. And then a fellow named Dude Ryan and Barfield, they was there before -- they was one of the first there.
  • O.- Yes, that wasn't Plummer Barfield, was it?
  • C.- Huh?
  • O.- Plummer Barfield?
  • C.- I forget his name. He was a great big fellow, but he died a long time ago.
  • O.- No, that's not ---
  • C.- He was a native of that country but this fellow Barfield, he come in there.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And old Dude was a tooter he was, and was a mighty nice old fellow. Oh, he wasn't old. He was just -- oh, I guess he was a man six feet tall, maybe six or over six feet, six feet easy. I know he was three or four inches taller than I was and an awful big man. He wasn't what you'd say fat but he was just big, much of a man. Wore about a number twelve or fourteen shoe or something or another. And he was quite a hunter. He was a Big Thicket guy
  • and I think raised around Saratoga somewhere. But I don't know where Barfield was from.
  • O.- Was it a pretty tough place?
  • C.- Well, yes, but it was all in a small way according to Sour Lake and Batson was.
  • O.- Saratoga was never as big an affair as either one of those?
  • C.- No, never had the boom that either one of them did. And old Dude Ryan was constable over there and Ralph didn't throw him out. Well, there wasn't the money there. Old Tom Thompson's place and old Dude and Barfield's place was about the only places there that done any business. Well, there's another one down there a little while. Old Jimmy something or other, an old Irishman run it, old Uncle Jimmy something.
  • O.- Well, Saratoga didn't last more than a year or so?
  • C.- No, It didn't last long. Biggest part of it -- oh, six months brought up the biggest boom it ever had, I guess, that I know anything about.
  • O.- Yes, you didn't stay any at Matt Jorden's boarding house?
  • C.- No, did you ever talk to her?
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- Ain't she a tooter?
  • O.- Yes, what was she like then?
  • C.- That old woman must be eighty years old now.
  • O. - She is.
  • C.- Eighty something -- I know she's older than I am. No, I never stayed there. I never did stay down at Miss Mattie's place. I did
  • too -- me and my wife stayed all night there one time. The company that I was working for at the time being was drilling some wells over there and going to stay all night. I told her about her and when she saw her, she, she give up. When we stayed there she was only just renting rooms.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And we got over there one night and had to stay all night. She had a nice clean bed and everything. Course, she was getting very old then. But she never did have any women around her.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- She never -- as I know about. I never did know about her having any women around.
  • O.- Well, you can still get a room there if you want to.
  • C.- Yes, can you?
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And I knew the fellow she married. He was kind of a worthless kind of a ne'er-do-well or something or another, you want to call them, just a part-time worker.
  • O.- Well, did he have anything to do with the saloon?
  • C.- I don't think Bob -- he may have owned one or something or other. He got mixed up with the first -- he was one of the big leaders in the first oil field strike.
  • O.- Oh, when was that?
  • C.- Well, that must have been about 1906 or '07 -- no, '05 or '06.
  • O.- Could you tell me about that?
  • C.- Well, I was at Humble drilling some wells for the old Producers
  • Oil Company, working for a fellow named Ben Tabor. And I come over from Saratoga I went to work for Ben Tabor, quit Ed Prather. And they had a strike. I don't know why; I never joined it.
  • O.- What was the union called?
  • C.- Oil Field Workers.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And they had that first strike, and didn't amount to much. Shut them down awhile, not long, didn't amount to much. Saratoga was shut down a little while and Goose Creek hadn't opened up yet, I don't think. Batson, Sour Lake, and Saratoga -- but Humble doesn't shut down too tight. Quite a few of us didn't join. Oh, it was a messed up thing, and didn't all, not know about it and ---
  • O.- What were they striking for?
  • C.- More wages and -- oh, mostly some fellows -- It was organized -- that were looking for a easy job, you know. To manage and things was mostly the thing. If they'd been striking for more wages or to hold the wages up -- why, I might have joined it. But, shoot, a lot of them belonged to a outfit for the Gulf and the Sun Company, and wouldn't pay as much for a driller as everybody else was. And most of them was working for them and they was scared they were going to raise their wages, and scared they wasn't going to get them a job, you know.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And regular standard wages then was $200 a month, and they said it was $150. And I said, "Damn if I'm going to join anything that'll cut my wages." I was getting $300. I didn't want to cut
  • it half in two.
  • O.- I don't blame you.
  • C.- So I didn't mess with it. But it didn't amount to so very much.
  • O.- How long did it last, do you suppose?
  • C.- Oh, I don't know. They had trouble with them for a couple of months, I think. But I know it did shut down my rig about -- we didn't shut down over ten days to a week or something like that.
  • O.- Did you know a labor leader named Harry Paramore?
  • C.- No.
  • O.- He was working in the Spindletop field.
  • C.- Huh?
  • O.- He worked in the Spindletop field, I think, altogether.
  • C.- I think he was over there. They had a little trouble at Spindletop there. I didn't know him.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- Bob Evans and this fellow -- I forget his name now, at Humble, well, one of the leaders of that over there was -- oh, doggone his name. I know this Pearl Breden shot at another guy and hit him. Bob Campbell was his name. And then Ed Todd was secretary and vice-president or president or something or other of that there. But they was all pretty good kind of fellows, Ed Todd, Bob was a pretty good kind of fellow. Only thing was, old Bob got drunk and spent all the dues. That blowed up the union.
  • O.- Did you know Billy Bryant at Saratoga?
  • C.- Yes, I knew him.
  • O.- What kind of work was he doing there?
  • C.- Why, I disremember. He worked around the fields some and I think he run a saloon at Sour Lake or somewhere, something or other afterwards. It's been so long, I never had -- I knew him but I never had too much to do with him.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- He was kind of one of them fellows.
  • O.- Well, you went to Humble in what year? 1906?
  • C.- No, that was 1904, or '05, it was; '05.
  • O.- 1905 you went to Humble?
  • C.- I believe it was, '04 or "05, right ---
  • O.- Who did you work for over there?
  • C.- Ben Tabor.
  • O.- Ben Tabor.
  • C.- Yes, he was an independent producer and drilled a couple of wells for him there when I worked for him down there.
  • O.- Well, can you tell me what the situation was like in Humble when you went over there?
  • C.- Well, they was starting out there and that was another place only way you could get there was trains. They run them two regular trains, one every night and one every morning to Shreveport. And then they have a mixed train out there, to leave Houston, I believe, at 10:00 or something, come back at 5:00. And it was mud, knee-deep to a giraffe, and they opened up a town site down there, half-way between what is known as Moonshine Hill and Humble, still called Moonshine Hill there. There's
  • nothing much on Moonshine Hill any more. They called it Crosby Town. The Crosby House went down there and built a building and had some restaurants downstairs, and a saloon and a billiard hall, and upstairs had rooms, pretty big nice rooms for those days for a place like that. I roomed there. And I think there was, one time, thirteen saloons down there. Oh, I know there was one every other door. But the Crosby House and old man Ben Herrin was the two main places for fellows to hang around. They was the ones that done the biggest business. Kid Butler and some of them others, kind of gambling houses and one thing and another as far as they -- they didn't allow so much gambling in Humble. They got the Rangers there right quick.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And had a little better order at Humble than we did at -- it was getting nearer civilization, see.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And it wasn't so bad there at Humble at all. Only places that was -- about the toughest places around down there on the tram railroad we called it. The Bender Brothers sawmill had a tram railroad just split that field down through there, went off down there in the woods and hauled logs. And a lot of them sawmills, niggers and one thing and another up there. Used to be kind of tough down in there. I never was down there at night.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- Used to some time have to get out of the rooms down at the Crosby House. Why, to get out there you'd have to walk down that tram railroad there, and doggone hack teams couldn't hardly get
  • down there. And I'd walk through there in the daytime going to the depot and back or going uptown or something. I hardly ever went up -- I didn't go uptown too much. But the fellows did most of their celebrating in Houston then.
  • O.- Yes, well, how long were you at Humble?
  • C.- Well, the first time there, that time I stayed there a little more than a year, I guess. And then I went back to Sour Lake, and drilled one well for Batts and Benckensteln. Then I come back to Humble and drilled some wells down the river there for Ed, for Ben Tabor again, contracting for the Gulf. Then I went back to Sour Lake again and worked over there for the Producers Oil Company for six or seven months. And then I quit there and went down to Louisiana and drilled some wildcat wells. Finished up there and got dry holes, of course, and come back and went down to Fort Morgan, Alabama, for a fellow named Ike Bettison. He had gotten some fellows, was going to try to get -- that was a government reservation; they couldn't get any fresh water on the island. And we went down there to try to get fresh water. They got me to go down there with them and we went down there, and stayed there all winter. We was waiting on orders mostly. Wasn't no trouble to dig the well, but every time we'd hit a little old new batch of sand we'd have to sack it up and send it to Washington, and sit there sometimes two weeks waiting to get a report on it. And I drilled that well. And then I -- no, before I went over there I come back from Sour Lake that time and went out here to Pierce Junction -- I'm
  • getting ahead of my story -- Pierce Junction, and drilled three wells. Ed Prather, a fellow Sloan Emerson, a fellow named Disch, and another fellow -- I forget his name, were the Kirby Oil Company. This fellow, this one, or whatever married one of them Sedigus (?) girls, and them and old Taylor owned the biggest part of that country out there then. We had all that under lease and drilled three dry holes on it, but only drilled one of them deep enough. Well, we drilled two of them deep enough, other two we just didn't drill deep enough. There was four, by gosh -- one on old man Taylor's stuff where we hit that salt dome and that was deep enough for that. Wasn't nothing ever got up there. And then one over there. Back down across the railroad tracks they've never gotten oil down there. But up on the other two they went on down. Course, we was in 1,500 feet. That was when these geologists said if you didn't hit the cap rock, got off the dome, you wouldn't get any oil, you know. There's no such thing as that. And then I went down to Velasco -- there was no Freeport -- where Ed Simms and the Texas Company and George Hammonds up here, and (INAUDIBLE) National Bank, and did that first prospecting for sulfur down there.
  • O.- Is that right?
  • C.- Yes, and oh, I don't know -- let's see, I drilled four or five wells down there. And we bought the first -- well, the only diamond tools ever I knew of, diamond tool rig being used in this country, down there to do that coring. That's before you had
  • anything like these core barrels we got now. And Jim Sharp had one of them rigs up in Oklahoma and they sent it down there. Sent an English along with it named Nichols. I never will forget -- he was the driller on it, and I drilled down to the top of what we called the caprock and set casing. And he'd go in with the diamond tool and core it. And on them cores was the deal that Simms and George Hammonds made on that property with that sulfur company. I stayed there till about '07 -- well, somewhere, '07 or '08. Then that's when I went up in Oil City, Louisiana, and went to work for the Texas Company, the Producers Oil Company then. They had the producing end of the Texas Company.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And worked on one well and then went up and drilled a wildcat well and got sick up there. Got to having them damn chills and fever and like to had the black jaundice. I quit that country; I wouldn't stay up there. Well, I come back and went to Sour Lake the second time. Then over that way, and then I come back and I was fixing to go to California. I went up to Dallas to see my mother and I run into this fellow Ben Harper you was talking about. Him and Mike Mitchell was drilling a water well for the city there, one of them what we called a deep well then, going down 2,000 feet. And they was in trouble; had a bad fishing job on it. Ben begged me to go out there and help his brother fish that well out, you know, and get it straightened out. And I postponed
  • my trip to California and went out there and got that all straightened out. The drill stem wasn't set down. And I told Ben I wouldn't be back. But nevertheless, just had a lot of trouble with my throat, might near like diphtheria -- what you call It? I got sick. And I'd had my reservation practically made to California, and I'm glad it didn't come off, however, afterwards, and had to cancel it. And I never will forget -- I drove down in that town with my brother-in-law on a Saturday night and run into Ed Prather there by the old Oriental Hotel, and he wanted me to go up in Jack County. They'd just finished a dry hole up there, him and Walter Sharp and the Texas Company. And wanted me to go out there and move that rig to Young County and drill a well. Then when I was a boy about fifteen years old, fourteen years old, it was, and I had the rheumatism, just inflammatory rheumatism. Couldn't move it was so bad, tied up all winter with it. Well, I got up there and that stuff hit me again and they had to ship me out of there on a stretcher. I was tied up for about fourteen months with that stuff. Then I come back and messed around here. Then I went down to Louisiana, Benton what we called it, and drilled a wildcat well for the Texas Company there. The work played out; the field died out, and didn't have nothing more for me to do. I went up to Burkburnett -- I mean Electra was popping open then, and I went up there. Hadn't hardly got there till Ed Prather overtaken me and sent me down, back down in -- and I never had done nothing. They sent me down with a rotary rig into
  • Young County. I drilled three wells down there in Young County, dry holes. Finally shipped everything out of there and I headed back to Houston. That was along about the latter part of '12. Stayed out there a little over a year, right there about '11 or '12. Overhauled the derrick, and then we had to move a long ways and one thing and another, and weigh oil and one thing and another. I run into T. P. Lee, and they'd just promoted him awhile before that from being general superintendent, field manager at Sour Lake, and put him in charge of all the production of the Producers Oil Company. Well, that's when it went into, I think, then they changed it all to the Texas Company. And he'd changed things around and they'd put a friend of ours, a fellow that worked for him a long time, named Ed Watson, field manager out at Humble. They'd had a little trouble out there about drilling wells. The fellows that had been out there hadn't been so successful and Tom sent me out there to go to work. I drilled one dry hole and then another little old shallow well. And they was working up there -- they'd been working out there seven or eight years on one. They'd blow out, they'd lose them, they d do something or other. They didn't know what it was all about; called deep wells 3,000 foot. C.O.& G., called the Caddo Oil and Gas Company lease. And Ed Watson put me out there to drill the first well under Tom Lee there. I finished it. We kind of, they kind of got it messed up. We didn't -- set too much, got it down too little
  • again.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And run into some stuff there that looked awful good when you first get back in with a new bit. But it was shaling. I knew it wasn't much. But they thought I'd make a big well and we set in that and didn't do much, and fooled with it there. And Tom Lee was disappointed about it. I come to town for a little run-in to Tom. He said, "What do you think about that well?" I told him we never did get to the sand. "I believe the sand is deeper down there," I said. "I saw a two-inch set of upset drill stem laying down there. I don't know nothing about that, but it's a nice looking string of pipe. If it was me, I couldn't get in there quick enough with that to drill that well deeper." He said, "When are you going back?" "I don't know." He says, "You go back out there. I want you to go out there in the morning. And I'll tell Ed Watson and have that pipe out there and that crew out there in the morning for you to go to work." And I went out there and drilled that well, didn't have to go but about seventy feet farther. And set two and a half stringer and it flowed 6,000 barrels of oil. That was up, what they call this flank production. The funny thing about that -- I drilled one, two, three wells there. The other two would make -- oh, I don't know how much, 15,000 or 20,000 barrels of oil a day. And J. S. Cullinan had bought that half interest that Burton Griffin owned; did in that old Farmers Petroleum Company they organized.
  • I mean bought Burton Griffin and that stuff down there on the Stephenson lease, they call it, Stephenson lease. And then the Texas Company then divided up. Tom Lee cut -- I mean J. S. Cullinan cut Tom Lee in as a quarter interest on it to come and look after it. And Tom Woodard had helped Tom buy out Yount-Lee, and they were partners. Tom says I wouldn't have had the Yount-Lee. He slipped in there and got that for himself, production, if it hadn't been for Woodard. I want to cut him in for half of mine, put them six apiece, you see, and that's the way they had it. I was getting $200 a month from the Texas Company and they offered me $250 to go down there and drill for them. I quit and went down there. And, you know, the Texas Company -- not a soul ever told me goodbye nor said nothing.
  • O.- Is that right?
  • C.- Of course, the Texas Company crowd claimed that Tom Lee stole that lease, but he didn't. Old C. N. Scott was head of the Texas Company then, and him and Tom Lee didn't agree. He was a mechanical engineer and very high up in it. With this Socony Pump Company, and they had interests there and put him down there and he was going to do wonders. Tom tried every way in the world to get him to buy out this half interest old Burton Griffin. Old Griffin was a wigglestick man.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And he wasn't the only man ever I knew of that ever made any money. Well, they had sub-leased this C.O. & G. off of old Burton
  • Griffin. And, oh, my Lord, they give you a lot of trouble. Old Doc thought he knew where all the oil in the world was, you know. And I know one rig I got nearly set up and made them move it fifteen feet, which is just like moving that thing over there a foot to make it talk better. It wasn't nothing to it, you know. Tom Lee tried to tell old Scott, said, "Why, dadgummit, we can't get along with them with just, with a royalty. They give us all the trouble in the world. You never would get along with them people with half interest with them." And J. S. Cullinan called Tom over to his office. J. S. had quit the Texas Company then.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And wanted to know something about something else. And Tom was mad because old Scott wouldn't buy out Burton Griffin. And he told J. S. And old Burton Griffin was drilling some wells up here at Iowa Park by Electra, and they was needing some cash. And old man Cullinan traded with them, and gave them $17,500 for their half interest. Then give them a eighth royalty, you see, in that thing. That's when he made the deal with Tom Lee and them. And they -- old Scott and them claimed that -- 'course, they claimed that they didn't know nothing about it. But they had to, you know, to keep the stockholders from eating them up.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And, well, that's the way the Farmers -- and I went out there and drilled the first four wells myself, run the rig.
  • O.- Well, the Farmers was organized out of that then?
  • C.- Yes, yes, and then they made me field foreman, superintendent. Then they changed it into the Republic Production Company.
  • O.- Well, who were the people chiefly active in the Farmers?
  • C.- J. S. Cullinan, Tom Lee, E. F. Woodard, and Bill Hall. And Mrs. Sharp had some interest there; course, she -- J. S. handled hers. I don't know how much interest she had then.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And they was the main stockholders in it.
  • O.- Yes, how long did it operate as the Farmers?
  • C.- Couple of years or three, something or other.
  • O.- And then you went in ---
  • C.- Then they bought a half oil interest in this million acres of the Houston Oil Company. And I went over to Hull, and I was superintendent on drilling the first wells over there. I stayed there till '20, and a friend of mine got me to go to work for them. But I saw that I wasn't going to get nowhere with the Republic Production Company any further than I was much, because I had too many poor kinfolks, and naturally blood runs thicker than water. So I quit and messed with that there about four or five months and then I went to contracting.
  • O.- You went to contracting in 1920?
  • C.- Yes, well, the latter part of 1920.
  • O.- Yes, well, I'd like for you to outline the various fields you worked in as a contractor then.
  • C.- Well, first well I drilled was a wildcat well right down here across the bay from Goose Creek, out there from La Porte. That was
  • my first rig there. And then I moved it to -- next work I done was at Mexia. And -- no, I went over to Hull -- no, I went on to Mexia and I bought another rig up there. Then I come back to Hull again and worked around there. I drilled I don't know how many wells there. Then I went back to Mexia, up there at that little Worsham boom, drilled two or three wells, didn't drill them; didn't last long. Then I went in partnerships with George Redman and a fellow -- oh, my, what's the name of that guy? Anyway, went over here to a little old place called Lytton Springs and we drilled, George had two rigs and I had two, and we drilled I don't know how many, ten or fifteen wells, them little old shallow wells. Then I went down to Refugio with the Houston Oil Company. E. H. Buckner and I was awful good friends. And I drilled gas wells for that new first gas line, this Houston Natural Gas put in. You know, they'd had nothing down there; they'd had a lot of gas down there. Had a gas well or two but they was all wild wells and never finished. I really finished the first finished gas well in Refugio. And then I drilled I don't know how many wells there for them. Then I went down to White Point and drilled some wells for them. And I drilled wildcat wells around there and went up here in Montgomery County and then I went over here to Lost Lake for the Pure Oil Company and drilled a well. Then I come out here to Barber's Hill and drilled a couple of wells for the Republic Production Company. Then I went down to Hackberry and drilled a couple of
  • wells, but they was dry holes down there, both of them, mighty dry, Hackberry, Louisiana. Then I went over and drilled a wildcat well for 'em at Breaux Bridge; that's Cajun country. And while I was drilling that well, East Texas opened up.
  • O.- Yes.
  • C.- And I was drilling a wildcat well down here too at the time being at Skidmore. Well, I had four rigs then, and I had two of them in East Texas in there, and finally brought that one from Louisiana there, but I didn't move that other one down there up to East Texas. And I drilled -- oh, I don't know how many wells up there now; I'd say seven or eight wells for the Republic Production Company up there, and one or two, two or three for other fellows around there, a fellow Hunter, and -- I don't know, not this Hunt, but a fellow named Hunter. He's dead now.