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

Primary tabs

  • PIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL TOPIC: Humble, Spindletop, Batson, Sour Lake, and Louisiana Areas NAME: Coyle, Benjamin (Bud) INTERVIEWER: Owens, W. A. PLACE: Houston, Texas TAPE NUMBER: 123 DATE: 7-30-33 RESTRICTIONS: None
  • Owens - All right, sir, would you continue the highlights of your career?
  • Coyle- Well, I -- where'd we quit off at?
  • O.- You'd just left Refugio, I believe.
  • C. - Oh, yes, and gone to -- well, I went to, up to East Texas.
  • Then I come on back and, I don't know when it was.
  • Then I went --next thing that amounted to anything I went to work for -- we drilled some wells up here at Ariola for the Republic Production Company.
  • We brought in a little well, brought in a little field up there, and I drilled several wells there.
  • And I did some, drilled some wildcat wells up there in Tyler County, a couple over at Beauregard Parish, Louisiana.
  • Then I went over to Lake Charles and drilled a well for old man Jules Foulds (?) and brought in a little field over there, and I drilled seven or eight wells for him there.
  • George Hammonds and Curtis McCaleb and Harry Hanson had some leases over at Jeanerette, Louisiana, and they wanted me to go over there and drill a wildcat well for them.
  • And George Hammonds
  • give me ten per cent interest in it to go over there and drill it.
  • I went over there and brought in a field.
  • And I don't know how many wells I did drill over there and I'd have to stop and count them.
  • I drilled all the wells they had over there for them, and the war broke out.
  • And I concluded that I wouldn't fight another World War with the labor I had, and I just stacked my rigs till the latter part of it.
  • I taken my boy and went over to Pine Prairie -- I wanted to keep him busy, and went to digging a well, and I got sick.
  • I had a little brain hemorrhage.
  • And they put me in bed and things got so bad and everything -- why, I sold out and quit.
  • And in the meantime I'd bought a little ranch out here in Lampasas County, and I've been messing with that ever since.
  • 0 . - So you---
  • C.- Sold out all my rigs.
  • O.- What year did you sell out finally?
  • C.- '47
  • O.- All right, well, I'd like to go back now to have an outline of your career and talk about various things in it. I'd like to talk about the various troubles you had capping wells.
  • C.- Well, the first well I ever had to cap was a little old shallow oil well at Humble for the Texas Company there on that there Texas Company lease, that Sour Lake Springs lease. And then -- down to Refugio was where I done most of that kind of work -- that is, that'd amount to anything.
  • O.- Could you tell me about some of those operations?
  • C.- Well, one well down there I had the rig on for drilling it deeper, and these smart geologists said there wasn't no -- well, Mr. Buckner made them drill it deeper, but the geologists said there wasn't no gas in it deeper.
  • And naturally we was careless about it. But it was day work and I had some rigs down at White Point and I was down there and it blew out, and I mean blew out.
  • But it never did crater, and made a good little dab of water and gas and we capped that.
  • Then we was drilling another one deeper over there and a fellow let it get away.
  • 'Course, you have to be very particular about fire and don't get anybody hurt. You can get them hurt awful easy, you know, because it -- and you can get them hurt bad too if you don't watch your tubings.
  • But I rigged me up an outfit with blocks and tackles and things which they use a lot of it yet, but same method practically, lot of it.
  • Then that well down at White Point, the Houston Oil Company let that get away one night on their rig.
  • I capped that one. And they was about the biggest three wells I ever fooled with.
  • And then over at Ariola, we had a well there that'd make about 10,000 barrels of oil.
  • Frank Cullinan messed that up and we begged him not to.
  • And-- O.- How?
  • C.- Huh?
  • O.- How did he mess it up?
  • C.- He made us wash it too clean, then tried to pull out after we set the stringers, set them a little different than they do now.
  • We didn't have all the riggings and them days a company furnished
  • a blowout preventor and put it on.
  • They insisted on putting It on and I told them it wasn!t on there; it wasn't right when it was on there
  • . "Oh, it was too," you know.And I know I got the better shift, and I says, to this fellow I says, "Them damn valves you put under there, you go under there and close them. Me and my men's not going to close them."
  • And Prank Cullinan said, "What's the matter?" Oh, this fellow was smart aleck.
  • It was two, twin brothers. Ard, "What's the matter?"I said, "Blow that thing off if you close it." Frank looked under there and he wouldn't close it.
  • And we had to kill that before we -- day or two there. But 'course, that didn't make much noise and got some mud there and we didn't have too much pressure either, like them 1,000 and 1,500, 2,000-pound gas wells would, you know.
  • It didn't have over 300 or 400 pounds of pressure on it, I bet, maybe 700 or 800. But we pumped mud in that and killed it, you know.
  • O.- How far could you hear a gas blowout?
  • C.- Oh, you could hear that several miles, a gas blowout. Hear it several miles. Shoot, you'd just get so you couldn't hear nothing.
  • Stuff cotton and then put mud in on top of the cotton and everything else to try to; it'd help you a little.
  • But I think they got things rigged up now that they won't- hurt you.
  • O.- They never had gas blowouts over in the Spindletop, Beaumont area, did they?
  • C.- Well, I never did mess with none of them. This famous gas
  • blowout there was called the Beaumont-Palestine well. And that was the first of rotary drilling and they had all kinds of messes.
  • Some fellow, the fellow that drilled it had bolted his rotary to the floor, and they couldn't get that thing off of there to do anything much with it.
  • Six fellows said they could put it off --Tom Blair, and I forget the others. The other five died; they got killed -- the gas knocked them out and killed them right on the well.
  • O.- Yes C.- Drug old Tom out and as I was telling you, Jim Sharp worked on him there four or five hours and got him to.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- Between being drunk and one thing and another saved him, I guess.
  • And they finally had to get a fellow with a deep sea diving suit and he went in there with that suit on.
  • See, they had their pumps way out. And he got that rotary off of there and they got a valve on it.
  • O.- Well, what about fires that you've witnessed or engaged in?
  • C.- Well, I've witnessed several fires. But the biggest fire was that Hogg-Swayne fire, I guess. That burnt up more derricks and one thing and another.
  • O.- Were you there when that happened?
  • C.- Huh? O.- Were you there?
  • C.- Yes, yes, I helped, me and two or three more fellows, me and those fellows on the field, we just -- see, you could just walk
  • from one derrick to the other. And we just went in there and went to tumbling them derricks.
  • They was just little old sixty-five and seventy-two-foot derricks, and we just went to tumbling them back in the fire.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- And shoot, the Houston Fire Department couldn't have put that thing out much any other way. That was a pretty good-sized fire.
  • Well, there was another fire that really burnt more, burnt some tanks and and one thing and another. It was over there in the Yellowpine one night.
  • That was tremendous; that was the first time I ever saw -- I think the first time anybody had ever saw one of these oil tanks catch afire that had water in the bottom of it.
  • It boiled over when it got to that water, just throwed. It's a wonder it hadn't burnt a lot of people up, just all run all over there.
  • I believe that was on one of them Higgins tanks that burnt up. It just boiled over and we always learnt to watch out for that boil-over.
  • Generally them days they'd be a little water in them. We didn't have these separators and things.
  • It was pumped in there and let it settle out, you know, and be water in the bottom of the tank. When it got down and got that water hot it just come up "boom," just blow fire over ever which way. And that was a pretty good fire.
  • Never did have a fire around Sour Lake that'd amount to anything. But Batson got a well afire over there one night, and a lot of tanks burnt up. It burnt around there several days till we got it put out.
  • O.- Anybody get killed in that one?
  • C.- No, no, now Curt Hamill had a blowout there one day and a derrick man burnt up.
  • O.- Did you see that happen?
  • C.- Huh?
  • O.- Did you see that happen?
  • C.- No, but I saw the fire. I was up there a little ways.
  • I went down there and that was the only time ever I sneaked off from anything. I didn't want to have to pick up that fellow.
  • O.- I bet.
  • C.- My gosh! But the worst accident happened at Batson. We didn't know anything about perforating and one thing and another.
  • But the first well they got there wasn't in the -- what we call the cap rock part. It was in a sand at 800 feet, or eight-something, thirty or forty or something or other, any way between 800 and 900 feet.
  • Them other cap rock wells went to water, we went to putting a plug in them and shooting them with dynamite to jet that 800 foot to come out and make a good lot of oil.
  • And they done one that way and it didn't do no good. They went to pull casing and the crew pulling that.
  • I happened to be in Dallas; went home to see my mother when that happened. And they was pulling that out and it come -- that one charge didn't go off and it was hung it there.
  • They would bottle the couplings on the pipe. Then we didn't have no tool of course, this was just casing. We'd hammer it with our sledge hammers.
  • See, we had to break it by hand. And a fellow hit this a rap or two and it went off and
  • killed five of them. Oh, they say that was the awfulest mess in the world. I was glad I was away from there when that happened.
  • Not many fellows, people got hurt around the oil fields, crude as it started out to be and one thing and another.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- Few of them lost their hands, and I know one boy uptown here now. His folks had a lot of money and he never worked but two or three days in his life, by gosh.
  • And one day he was on a drilling rig and hadn't worked there but a day or so till he lost two fingers in the crown block. Done a boll weevil stunt, caught hold of the line and let it pull it in there.
  • We always called them boll weevils, green hand stuff, you know. We always called a green man a boll weevil.
  • O.- Why is that? Why was that, do you ---?
  • C.- Well, along about the start of this, you know, the boll weevils eat up all the cotton in Texas, and instead of calling them a farmer like they always did before, you know, they just called them boll weevils.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- And so that started that. And used to, you know, no matter what hours you'd pull on the rig, they'd say you was a farmer, you know, or a rube or something like that, and they just cut it down to a boll weevil.
  • All new beginners till yet now, before he's a rough-neck, he's a boll weevil. And ---
  • O.- Well, what does a roughneck mean?
  • C.- Well, it was just a fellow like that boy told that judge, just
  • stout in the back and weak in the head. But nevertheless like a bookkeeper I had said about it; he said, "They can't organize them. A roughneck's not a laboring man," And I said why.
  • He says, "They're diplomats. They don't do like any other working people ever I saw in my life anywhere. They can confuse you."
  • I said why, and he said, "After World War I here, you walk in a tool house and there'd be silk shirts hanging everywhere, good clothes and everything else, and when the panic hit, they just went on. They just forgot all about the silk shirts and one thing and another. It don't worry them.
  • That's just over the hill --that is, that's down the river for them. They- can come back; they can just adapt themselves better than anybody in the world."
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- He said they -- but 'course, I don't know; they're having lots of trouble, my friends do, now about their labor.
  • O.-Yes
  • C.- They're -- can't get nothing done. Well, that's one thing I quit about. I saw what was coming; I figured it out, and ---
  • O.- Well, what made them such individualists? Do you have any idea
  • C.- Well, I tell you, it was just like after World War I. A big bunch of these boys that went to war, you know, educated and had money and one thing and another, taken a notion they wanted to learn the oil business.
  • Well, they wouldn't stay long. I know Mr. Cullinan come out there and asked me, "What's the matter with them boys?" Well, I said, "Them boys come out of a home where maybe Mama
  • picked up their clothes when they throwed them down, and they come out here in this camp. I put them all up there in a shack by them-selves." And had a little nigger to go around to clean them up, you know, and everything.
  • And he said, "Boss, I want you to come up here at them there lieutenants'" -- as he called them -- "house. I can't clean that up the way it is." Well, it was the awfulest dang mess.
  • There was old grease, you know, and they had a stove in there, and instead of using kindling and one thing and another they'd use crude oil to start the fire with and it was all over; you never saw such a bunch in all your life.
  • And I got the gang that repaired everything and laid pipeline. We called them a bull gang. I went and got the bull gang and laid a water line and a steam hose up there and cleaned that thing out.
  • And I eat me a bunch of lieutenants -- as this little nigger said --up. I said, "Dadgum, you're the nastiest outfit in the world." Well, they -- I said now then they come here and I says I don't blame them.
  • Just like one -- I had one Captain -- well, he happened to draw the tank division in a tank division during the army. And he come out there and he was the only one of the fellows that really stuck around there.
  • But he finally come to me with a letter, said, "I want you to read this letter." And it was from this caterpillar bunch ---
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- --- wanting him. Well, I says, "Looks to me like you're here working for $3 a day, and get $250 a month and expenses. You'd be
  • a fool to not quit."Well, he says, "I, I just hate to do this. I've just realized, I've been around here, and now I know now that I've worked just about from nothing to half as much as these men that know how around here.
  • But I'll tell you, I was misinformed in this. They told me that I could go right on up, that all the fellows was very ignorant and had no education and nothing else. And I found that out to be a lie.
  • The fact is, they only left one man and that fellow was a curiosity to me. I never did know where that fellow come from or what he did. But he had him a bed fixed up and kind of had his own bed clothes. He come out of the Northwest somewhere but he never would talk much.
  • Take him."Now, all of us boys In there, most of them's got a college education and all of them's got a degree or two. I have. But we get in an argument and that old fellow don't talk much, but he raises up and says, 'You're all wrong.'
  • And he shows us and convinces us we're all wrong. I want to know."I said, "I don't know." And I never did find out where that old man -- well, he wasn't a very old man, about forty-five, I guess, fifty, something like that.
  • And he says, "Now then, I find out that these fellows around here, they're all wet on that proposition."Well, I said, "These fellows that go so fast in this oil field --you go back and dig up and you'll see, you'll find out Poppa's got a lot of money in It.
  • Or his daddy-in-law or somebody. They don't travel too fast that works their way up. You're just a fool if
  • you don't take that," And he did. And I never did know what become of him. But now that was the way, you know. Them boys just wasn't used to that kind of life and these fellows, these roughnecks was used to it.
  • But nowadays they'd all live in town ---
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- --- and go to work in an automobile,
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- And it's not -- but then you had to stay in the field, because by gosh, or walk several miles. If you had a car, you couldn't get it there.
  • O.- Well, how do you account for the fact that some of them who were roughnecks did work up in those early days and made good fortunes for themselves?
  • C.- Well, they was just fellows that would, most of them would save a little stake and got it invested in tire right way, you know. And I knew a lot of them when they didn't have a -- now this here fellow Bob Smith that was going around.
  • 'Course, they all over-rate these fellows and what they've got. They over-rate everybody that's got a little money, because I know people what they think about me, and I know how far off they are.
  • And that come up and more or less, you know. It just happened like this fellow Young I was telling you about that got in at the right place. Just sort of like this blind boy down there at Jeanerette, Louisiana.
  • And George Hammonds come over there and said, "Wait a minute. There ain't nothing; this is just luck." And I mean it was. I happened to know it was luck because
  • the first well we drilled we never did get another well from that sand. And he says it's just luck in that. And some of these fellows plumb nuts that's made a lot of money. And any other way --just got in there, you know.
  • However, Bob Smith was a pretty bright sort of a fellow anyway. You can take him -- when I first knew Bob -- he knew me when he was a kid around the oil field, but I didn't remember him. But worked in an old supply store at Mexia.
  • But he went on, and several of them like that. I could take this Humble Oil crowd, the old crowd; I knew every one of them when they didn't have any money.
  • O.- Yes
  • C. But they all were hustlers and one thing and another. And some-thing a little about them got them by.
  • 'Course, everybody, you know, like that just likes to play like they done it all themselves, you know. But nevertheless somebody helped them and they got in.
  • O.- Well, how do you account for the fact that Howard Hughes was able to do what he did?
  • C.- I can't account for it. Well, one thing is that he happened to get hold of something that would sell, and he could make money out of.
  • You see, now he gathered up those old patents there and put them into -- and he developed -- he got his ideas from them other fellows' ideas more or less, you know, which most of these things are.
  • And he worked it out there and it just went over. Then Howard was a terrible man too, about making something good.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- Because anything he always has made's been good.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- And made that bit and it was a wonderful thing to the oil pro-duction, one of the greatest things that the rotary drilling ever was.
  • O.- Well, how much did he actually owe to Walter Sharp?
  • C.- All of it.
  • O.- Well, could you tell me something about that?
  • C.- Well, now I couldn't. Most of mine is just information gathered here, there and observation, you know. Howard couldn't make enough money to spend. If he could've, he could've got by with it. I think the biggest part of the work was done by Howard, or the im-provement of it, and his associates.
  • 'Course, he had engineers and things helping him. But the bit, I don't think he could do much without Walter's approval on anything. Walter Sharp had --man enough to know anything, when he saw it, you know.
  • But Howard Hughes was a genius on that kind of things, you know.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- And another thing is, after he got up, he didn't try to run his own business. He hired somebody to run it, while he had a good time.
  • And that was a success of his there; then he just got to making more money to spend. 'Course, the thing has growed a lot since he died.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- Growed a lot.
  • O.- Well, it was the Sharp-Hughes first, wasn't it?
  • C.- Yes
  • O.- It what point did he change it?
  • C.- Well, when Walter died. I don't know how come, I think Walter, I'm sure Walter and Ed Prather had things together, and I think di-viding it up -- Mrs. Sharp didn't want to fool with Howard.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- And she turned the bit over to Ed.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- And like I tell you, Ed sold it because Howard's business system didn't suit him.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- Ed didn't -- and he was scared Howard would break him, was what he was scared of. But he didn't. And got to making so much money he couldn't.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- And, oh, he could've if he'd -- but Howard didn't gamble. Oh, he'd pitch a few dollars or something like that, you know, but he wasn't one of these fellows that'd think he could break the bank, you know. And far as I know he didn't play the stock markets.
  • Ed Prather said he didn't. I didn't know, and Ed would know. Ed said that was because a boy got mixed up in gambling here when he arrived young. There was some gamblers they said took him for $40,000 or $50,000.I never did know the boy; seen him around.
  • But Ed Prather of course, seen him, and Ed told me, "I ain't a bit scared because that's one thing Howard wasn't- guilty of . This boy's too much like his daddy to be a gambler. So I ain't afraid about it. I ain't afraid about that."
  • And sure enough, boy, that's the last word anybody ever heard of him gambling any more. But Howard liked to chase the women around and have a good time, live high. 'Course, that's practically what killed him, you know, living too high. And he didn't drink to the excess, they tell me, either.
  • Said he was a man that handled his liquor very, very well. Said you'd hardly ever see Howard drunk, if ever.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- But I never associated with him that way, of course, at all. But 'course, now then the young fellow got into this brewing busi-ness, I don't think Howard ever got into that. I don't know enough about it to ---
  • O.- Well, when did you leave the Sharps? You told me once but I ---
  • C.- I left them directly after them at Sour Lake.
  • O.- Yes, well, what did you know about Walter's career from then on till his death?
  • C.- Well, he was just an oil businessman, and they quit contracting at Humble. Then they turned all their rigs over to Producers Oil Company. Walter put the biggest part of his time into running that Producers Oil Company, and about all ever I know ---
  • O.- Did you see much of him then?
  • C.- Huh?
  • O.- Did you see much of him then?
  • C.- No, not much. Just around like anybody else. I never -- out there at Humble I was working there for Ben Tabor. He used to come out to the rig a few times. And meet him on the street and one thing and another, you know.
  • O.- Do you know the story about the fire that he got hurt in?
  • C.- Huh?
  • O.- Do you know about the fire that he got hurt in, or was engaged in fighting?
  • C.- Oh, I never knowed for Walter having but one fight.
  • O.- Not only fight -- fire. I'd like to find out about the fight and then the fire.
  • C.- Oh, fire?
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- Oh, I don't know, he wasn't there. Jim was there at the, on that Keith-Ward fire. But I don't think Walter was there. I never did -- now Walter was up in the Caddo field.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- I wasn't working for them then, and they had a big wild well up there. But I wasn't up there.
  • O.- You don't know the circumstances of that?
  • C.- No, I don't know, only just what I heard, you know, and one thing and another.
  • O.- Well, tell me about the fight that you ---
  • C.- Oh, that was, an old fellow named Daddy Reeves jumped him down there one day, by Gladys City down there at the Petroleum Iron Works. I wasn't down there but I know some more fellows there. And he come along the field and old Daddy done something or another.
  • Walter socked him and knocked him over a wagon tongue and the old man --Walter walked off from him. But Jim was the fighter, but Jim hardly ever had a fight. I never saw him have but one.
  • O.- Where was that?
  • C.- That was at Spindletop. A fellow named Charley Rader, the first pipeline superintendent that Texas ever had come up. You see, especi-ally them days people that come from the East or the North.
  • Whatever you want to call it, knew damn well that the Southerner didn't have any sense. There ain't no use -- just a whole lot of shit -- there's no use to talk to them about it; you just didn't know nothing if you belonged in the South.
  • And Jim kind of knew that.Then this fellow didn't know that, how Jim was connected up with it, and Walter was, and didn't know nothing about this deal. Really J. S. Cullinan caused that. He should have told that fellow what we was going to do, but he didn't.
  • And he come there and the fellow -- one way was right but he come up and called Jim a God damn farmer, Jim just knocked the fire out of him. And I know some of them Eastern fellows didn't believe that Jim Sharp whipped this guy.
  • But Jim Sharp whipped two of them, because just as fast as he'd get up Jim would knock him down. And that's the only fight ever I saw Jim have.
  • O.- Did you ever go out trying to locate a well yourself?
  • C.- No, not with just, only just observation and handy to get to or something or another. Oh, I went- and looked at gas seeps and everything like that, of course.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- And things like that, but as far as knowing anything I don't about this. Nobody else, for that matter, knows. Now this, first these wigglestick guys.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- There ain't none of them knows nothing. They ain't, just like I was going to tell about this old Dr. Griffith.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- Went out there to work for the Texas Company. They laughed at me, says your partner. I says, "Let me tell you something or another. I've got to get along with that old man out there if I hold my job .
  • "Right along about then the first of this business of wireless telegraphy come along. And 'course, talking machines had been out a good little while. And they was just beginning to fly airplanes. I told them about all them things in my day, in my life has come to be, has come along. I said I know how they laughed about them.
  • "Couldn't be done."So now I said, "I don't know -- I'm getting paid to find out whether that old fellow knows anything or not, and I'm going to stay on the good side of him and I'm going to find out if he knows anything.
  • He's got him a partner. He don't know It but he's got him one. I'll dog him to death." And so I found out about -- he ain't no -- he's just a pretty good -- the old man was a pretty good geologist along with it and had pretty good ideas but enough that he made some money out of it.
  • But I'm just as sure as the old fellow's dead that he didn't believe no more In that stick than I do. Don't see how he could've.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- Well, he was the only one that ever I knew that was anything
  • about it at all. The best thing which they use now is that seis-mograph business, you know ---
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- --- and torsion balance and things. They can give you a good ideas. They're not accurate, of course, no matter -- and these geologists, you know, they've all everything, you know. Old Patillo Higgins, you see, with his history will show you what they knew, you know, about there wasn't any oil at all in this country.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- Well, I don't know -- I know the day was that there's no use to drill if you didn't have a salt dome. I know that, you know. 'Course, they'll argue back with you now, that if you go deep enough you'll find a salt dome. But nobody, they won't tell you how deep.
  • And nobody knows how deep then afterwards, you know, below 15,000 or 16,000 feet deep, and yet -- that I know anything about. Well, West Texas -- I know I've talked to the best of them about that. You was just crazy to think there's any oil out there. So what the human has known about the oil wells before it was drilled has been very limited.
  • Oh, I'd say a fellow could get oil wells where they was just as sure as they was going to get it as they could be. But I've saw them just as sure as they were going to get it, be there, not be nothing there too.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- And so far as anybody knowing, they don't. You've got to drill them holes in the ground for it.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- 'Course, nowadays, in the early days of this Gulf Coast Company,
  • the geologists was absolutely handtied. Old Professor Cummings, that used to be with the S.P., said there was so little to work on in this. Had no hills, no canyons, no riverbeds to amount to anything that was any depth or anything to get any idea from ---
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- --- for the drills, you know. And now then they drill to every-where, till these geologists and coring things, and they work out a pretty good thing. Anybody could do it that'd sit down and try it, you know, and get the data all together.
  • Just a man that's got brains enough to get the data together and just figure a little bit can do that. But in my estimation a geologist is just like a dose of hot feet; it just spurts him enough to go ahead and he just gives the money guy enough dope to -- you just don't like to go out and start anything if somebody don't give you a little shot in the arm about it, you know.
  • They do that, you know.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- And, oh, I've got some mighty nice friends that is geologists, and one thing and another. They're a lot of help in a lot of ways.
  • O.- Well, when you were drilling in the early days, how did you keep your log?
  • C.- Well, we just caught samples and told by the feel of the bit, what we was in. And the way the drilling was cutting, you know. You can tell, you know, whether you're In sand, clay or rock.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- And kept the samples. We had to catch it out of the -- didn't have, didn't know what a core barrel was. And we had to dig it out, right out of that there, you know.
  • O.- Would people actually taste and smell ---?
  • C. Oh, yes, yes, yes. A fellow could crow like a chicken, he'd eat so much of that darn sand. No, now then, you take this Jeane-rette field down there. 'Course, they got this Slumber Jay business, you know.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- They said I didn't have any oil. They said it wasn't any good. And I made a couple of wells there and then I booked up one for old Jules Foulds and we told them there was, me and this field man both. Then went back and dug it our way and made him an oil well.
  • No, these days and times, I don't know what these here college boys would do that they've got charge of these things if it wasn't for the Slumber Jay.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- But now they're surprisingly accurate though, but they're not 100 per cent proof. And this shooting business is not, because they wouldn't drill all these dry holes if it was, you know.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- But it made them do a lot more drilling. You just didn't like to go out there and just sit down and put out nothing, you know.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- Nothing, and that was a way. These geologists tell me that up In these hills in the mountain country they have something or other to go by. They can chase the outcroppings and one thing and another And as old Professor Cummings said, it was that, it wasn't, he had -I read a couple of his reports. I had him to make a report for me
  • once in another outfit that I was working for. He had a paragraph in there; it read this way: He'd go on to tell you why he thought there was a structure there or oil or what or why not.
  • And then under that he'd put, "It's a matter of fact oil is where you find It at." And old Professor Cummings was as fine a man as you ever saw. Now he was field superintendent over at Saratoga for the Rio Bravo, that was S.&P.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- And also they had a little church there and he was the preacher in that little church. He done the preaching for it. And I asked him why, and he said, "I tell you, I've drilled wells for myself and had them drilled, looked after them and one thing and another, where I didn't think I could miss it, and I missed it.
  • And I've saw fellows that I couldn't see what in the world and thunder they was drilling a well there for, and they'd hit it. Now the fact is of the business, If you've got any outcroppings or anything, it isn't too hard to locate a structure, but, boy, tell whether it's closed or not.
  • "You know, it's got to be closed -- no outlet for the oil to get out or away from there, you know. And he said, "Now but that -- it takes drilling to do that."
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- And so that's the way it was down in this country. That shooting, as we call it, is a great -- been a great boom to the oil business but it's not accurate. But it'll give you an idea where to drill at.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- And very good. And the Slumber Jay is very good and It's not
  • accurate. Some of them pass up, some of these fellows slipped back and got oil where they knew that they'd made a bust of it, but they won't tell you about that.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- And ---
  • O.- Well, I'd like to ask you some more things about the folklore. Did you hear Gib Morgan stories while you were working over there?
  • C.- Huh? O.- Stories about Gib Morgan?
  • C.- Gib Morgan?
  • O.- You never heard that name?
  • C.- No O.- Uh-huh, well, did you hear Paul Bunyan?
  • C.- Oh, I've heard Paul Bunyan stories all my life, of course, you know.
  • O.- Well, could you tell me some of the ones in the oil fields?
  • C.- Oh, I don't know what just how much you want to know about it. I don't know nothing. Some of these fellows can tell you the biggest dadgone yarns, but I don't know of nothing that's --
  • O.- Well, do you know any songs about the oil fields?
  • C.- That's one thing that -had one little old song that, only one I ever heard about the oil field and something or other, just a verse added to "Turkey in the Straw."
  • O.- How'd it, how'd the words go?
  • C.- Oh, that was "Oh, you dance a double jig around a ten-inch hole,And picked up the stilts that the contractor stole.and done something, I disremember -- I---
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- But it was just a verse to "Turkey in the Straw."
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- --- is all we, ever I figured out. But I know some fellow brought that up over at the convention at Beaumont, that somebody never has wrote a real oil field song.
  • O. - Yes, I've never heard one.
  • C.- I never heard one. Never heard a real oil field song.
  • O.- Well, what did your roughnecks sing, or did they?
  • C.- Oh, there ain't much saying, much as they got out. They had no -- they just kept up with the popular songs.
  • O. - Yes
  • C.- Like anybody else.
  • O.- Just music hall songs?
  • C.- They didn't have nothing special at all.
  • O.- Did they sing any church songs at work?
  • C.- No, we used to at camps some, sing church songs. But working that way, you see, those pumps are running and one thing and another, why, you didn't have much time to sing. You couldn't hear nothing nohow much.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- So not much singing went on.
  • O.- Did many of them play musical instruments?
  • C.- Not many, not many. I never did know any that played particu-larly. Only when I'd go around, and kind of professionals that played for our dances and ---
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- And one thing and another, you know.
  • O.- But they were not roughnecks?
  • C.- Hardly ever, well, some of them would work in the oil fields --
  • O.- Yes
  • C. ---- and be fiddler or guitar player or something like that, you know. But I never did know anyone that had any particular music abilities. Oh, we had quite a few fellows that was kind of noted for one thing and another but not much ---
  • O.- Yes
  • C. --- in that line. The fact of the business is that people that get anything like that have to stay together a long time, you know, and most of us would go one place and another, you know.
  • O.- Yes
  • C. One place or another, you know, peddling. After I got the contract, well, I never stayed no place very long. And in the early days -- why, come and go, you know, come and go.
  • Lot of boomers for awhile here and then go, go to California. In fact, just run around, and you seldom knew them.
  • O.- What made a man a boomer?
  • C.- Well, just like anything else. A fellow doesn't stay at one place long enough. He just, he didn't want -- when anything quieted down, got down quiet and normal, (CLAP OP HANDS) go where there's a boom at.
  • O.- Yes, how many of the boomers made money?
  • C.- None. Well, now, of course, a few fellows made by following them. But regular boomers, we called them -- why, of course, that
  • boomer business is an old thing, you know. Construction workers of all kind have got to run from one boom town to another, you know
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- And 'course, there's all class of boomers. Even these guys, leasing hounds, you know, and one thing and another, boomers, you know, 'Course, they, most of those that made the money, they had to them days play the big plays, you know, with lots of ups and downs in this. Some of them made and some of them didn't.
  • O.- How many of them are in unmarked graves over in that area?
  • C.- I wouldn't know, I wouldn't know.
  • O.- Quite a few or not many or what?
  • C.- Not too many, as, I don't think. Take a few, we'd pick up money for and bury. I guess nobody ever did come back. But quite a few times -- why, we'd bury people but not too many,
  • O.- How many of them were buried without coffins?
  • C.- Never heard of it.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- Never heard of one. You could always get out and make up money enough to pay everybody right quick. And now this fellow Bob Rose -he died and he was just working there for Sharp Brothers, and his brother wanted to carry him back up here by Rockdale to bury him, a little old place called -- I forget now -- Tanglewood.
  • And he started out and said, "Wait a minute." And I went out and Jim Sharp give me, for him and Walter, give me $100. And wouldn't take but a couple of hundred dollars to do a thing like that then. And I made it up around there in a couple of hours.
  • O.- Is that right?
  • C.- Bought him a ticket and a coffin. And see, the country folks where they lived had to take care of him after he got there, you know.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- And 'course, we'd bought him a coffin and fixed him up and bought, we had about two tickets, you know.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- I think one or two of his friends went along with him. I won't say they did or didn't. But just like that, you know, just make it up.
  • And 'course, I think when some of them fellows get killed for them companies, I think the company buried them or give their folks something, you know.
  • But I never did know of nobody being buried without any coffin.
  • O.- Well, you were going to tell me more about the Farmers Company.
  • C.- Well, they went in there and we produced an awful lot of oil, you know, there. And I don't know how many million barrels.
  • It went on there and I don't know why J. S. Cullinan changed it. Well, J. S. Cullinan had the Petroleum Iron Works and the Union Tank Company -- no, not - was it the Union Tank Company?
  • Some tank company that had railroad cars, you know, that they built there in that iron works. They had, principally built steel tanks and one thing and another. And they had a couple or two or three little companies there and he throwed that in there and made ana changed it up to the Republic Production Company some way or another, reorganized it.
  • I had a little stock in it but not enough to know much about it.
  • O.- Yes, well, how long did the Farmers actually last, do you --?
  • C.- I disremember whether it was -- let's see, '14, '15, '16, '17, I think, that's when, '17 or '18, when the Republic was organized, And they went and sold a half interest to the Galena Signal out there at that lease at Humble, or all of it some way or another. I don't know, a refinery J. S. Cullinan started down here on the Bayou.
  • O.- Yes C . - Or they started it down there. They built that refinery and one thing and another. I don't know what happened all around there. Tom Lee and Woodard and after that Mike Hogg fell out with J. S., I mean Bill Hogg -- and all, oh, I don't know -- messed up there. They all ought to have been ashamed of themselves.
  • O.- Is that right?
  • C.- Yes, Bill Hogg, he didn't do nothing. Old J. S. fed him around there, and picked up there like I was telling you about, Tom Lee and them, and made them. And then they go back on the old man.
  • O.- How well did you know Cullinan, J. S.?
  • C.- Oh, I knew old J. S. pretty well in a business way. Old man J. S. was a awful good friend to me, and he treated me awful nice.
  • Them other fellows could done a little better for me because I made them a lot of money that they wouldn't have made.
  • And oh, this fellow E. F. Woodard, he died very -- got killed, him and his wife did, in a train wreck. I believe he knew less than anybody ever I knew, and the hard-headest man ever I saw to make any money.
  • He made money in spite of himself.
  • O.- Is that right?
  • C.- He just got two little nubbins rolling down the hill and he was scared to pick them up. And income tax made millionaires out of a lot of people.
  • O.- Is that right?
  • C.- Yes sir, he was one of them too. This fellow Blaffer that used to be the head of the Humble Oil Company, he'd sold out when he got $500,000 if he hadn't had to give so much of it to the government.
  • Just kept on, kept on; it kept growing so fast on him, it killed him worrying about it. And old Lee was just that kind of fellow. He, old Lee was a good fellow and -- but- just that way.
  • They think and that cost me some money. I learnt better than that In that-stock I had. But now there's where I was looking for the old man's stake I was telling you about, you know.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- I figure, and I still think I'm right, old man Cullinan was trying to figure that thing up to leave a nice income for his chil-dren.
  • And Bill Hogg and Tom Lee and them wanted the money spent. Woodard wanted his to get his hands on it so it would be Woodard's.
  • And when I quit the company I didn't figure it'd go broke but it like to. I kept my stock till I seen what was going to happen.
  • I'd got nearly twice as much for it if I'd sold it, and that's learnt me not to mess with stocks, too, you see. That is, I learnt the owners don't know what it's worth, and how in the hell do I know what it's worth?
  • It's a pure-d gamble when you stock your money into stock.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- And a lot of things. Just like this fellow George Hammonds, If he was around here. He's one of the oldest bankers in town fixing to get out now.
  • President of this Union National Bank now, been down there for years, but they've consolidated with another bank. Why, he's going to get out.
  • George is older than I am. I heard George tell my wife, said, "If anything happens to me and Bud" - they always call me Bud Coyle, you know -- "why, don't you buy no bank stock."
  • And she looked at him surprised; I was too; I just happened to walk up. She said, "Why, you've got bank stock."
  • And he said, "I'm down there." And I didn't know what -- he says, "Too many people inexperienced in the banking business --this thing of people stealing this money and one thing and another.
  • They'd send them to the penitentiary if they stole it. They're just ignorant, just didn't know how to run a bank.
  • A whole lot of these banks just run along and the people put their money in there and they don't know where it comes from nor where it goes to.
  • They just live it up; then they get scared and go to gambling and break the whole outfit. That's the reason."Now then just the other day I was up there talking to George.
  • This Carter family around here that owns that Union National Bank, they wanted to get out of the banking business. He said they're lumber people; they're not banking people.
  • That's the reason they're getting out. So it's just that way with things, you know, about this stock business. I know that if you don't own 51 per cent of it, you don't know what's going on.
  • O.- Yes
  • C. - And I sold my interest out down yonder in Louisiana because I was in with too rich people.
  • They wouldn't advance any and they wouldn't pay any dividends because it'd run their incomes up too high.
  • But it didn't hurt me and I couldn't afford to let it, so I just sold out.
  • O.- Yes
  • C. - And George Hammonds was getting old and I was getting old.
  • These younger fellows was in there.
  • I didn't know what they'd do, and I knowed I was all right as long as George lived because a man never had a better friend to him than George Hammond's been to me, never had a better friend.
  • He helped me more than anybody in the world ever helped me. And he's helped a lot of them that won't acknowledge it ---
  • O.- Yes
  • C. - --- financially and morally too.
  • O.- Well, how many people became wrecks because of their work in the oil fields, their attempts to make a fortune?
  • C.- How come they became rich?
  • O.- No, became wrecks.
  • C.- Oh, oh, goodness, I wouldn't know that. Wouldn't nobody in the world that would know that.
  • Oh, I don't know whether the oil fields caused it or not, but there's people that -- I saw several people all right, and go haywire and go off, I don't know-- kill their wife and one thing and another over some old battle-axe.
  • And then she'd turn him in for doing it, which she ought to done.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- But I don't know this wrecked lives business of people. They'd wreck, they'd just look like do the wrecking to me.
  • O.- All right, could you tell me about the use of crude oil for hair dressing?
  • C.- Well, I was at a barber shop at Dallas and got a haircut and shave and shampoo, and the fellow wanted to give me a treatment with Beaumont crude oil.
  • Well, I finally told him what it'd do to a horse's leg and one thing and another.
  • And the barber happened to -- knew me when I was in the oil field, and he come over and told them, said, "You, you -- I knew some fellow would get -- some of you fellows was going to get caught about that crude oil busi-ness.
  • I wouldn't put it on nobody's head and you laughed at me. But now you know, don't you?"
  • So that I guess wound up and 'I never heard of it any more. But you know, they had a lot of things, you know, like a lot of this stuff they put on, you know, like, sort of like dandruff business --
  • O.- Yes
  • C. --- bad thing, you know.
  • "You got dandruff?" I said, "You dog-gone right!"
  • "How long you had it?" I said, "Oh, some fifty-six. years" --whenever it was they asked me, you know.
  • And an old bald-headed barber, you know.
  • O.- Yes C.- And very few men my age has got as much hair as I've got, you know. A fellow like Ed Prather and Frank Cullinan and I was dining
  • up at the Houston Club, and somebody said, "Now there's three old-timers. One of them guys can't be an old-timer because his hair ain't, gray enough." -- because Prank and Ed both just white-headed.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- And I never done nothing to my hair besides wash it. I never would use these fancy --oh, I used a little after for precaution, Fitch's Hair Tonic to keep from catching a cold.
  • But I used to use just pure-d alcohol and quinine -- mix it myself. And just after I'd taken a shampoo, you know, bath, shower bath or something or another, you know, to keep from catching a cold.
  • O.- But no crude oil? C.- No crude oil, no. Take hair -- 'course, especially that old stuff that had that sulfur --
  • O.- Yes
  • C. - --- in it, mixed, you know. And it's just -- oh, I've seen horses' legs just full of it, oh, it's awful.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- Now on the teaming racket of this business, you ought to see if you could get to talk to W. M. Dewey.
  • O.- D-E-W-E-Y?
  • C.- Yes, Dewey. He got Dewey & Son Transfer people. He got a place out on Cart Street here.
  • He lives up there on -- I guess Dewey's the oldest living teamster that's been -- started out from -- he started out working at Spindletop and come on and went to teaming at Sour Lake.
  • Teamed clear on through till he retired. His son taken over his business. Well, it was trucks, you know; went from teams to trucks .
  • O.- I'll certainly see him if I can.
  • C.- W. M. Dewey, he lives up on Prospect, 3225, 2532, I believe it is. You can look in the telephone book and see.
  • O.- Yes C.- And you'll find him a pretty nice old fellow, and he's my fishing -- I was fishing with him yesterday. He's two or three years older than I am. But if you want on teaming ---
  • O.- I want it very much on teaming.
  • C.- And he could give you more dope on the teamsters than anybody else. He can remember all the main ones and ---
  • O.- Good
  • C. - --- such as Roe Davis and Hughes, Joe Hughes, all of them.
  • O.- Well, Joe Hughes is dead?
  • C.- Yes, yes, well, now then, I don't know of another one of them old-timers that'd amount to anything. It might have been one or two or three or something or another.
  • But Dewey's the only one of the old line that I know of left.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- Roe Davis and Joe Hughes is dead. And I think -- oh, them two brothers, I forget their names.
  • O.- Well, one more question from you. If you had it to do over again, would you go through the oil fields again?
  • C.- Yes
  • O.- Why?
  • C.- Well, because I wasn't equipped to do anything else.
  • O.- A man ---
  • C.- And if I'd had an education I'd never went through with it to start with.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- Because I could've -- a friend of mine, my father's, was agent, freight agent for the T.P. Railroad at Dallas. And if I'd had a education I'd been a two-bit clerk for the T.P. somewhere, if I'd held the job,
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- Because I'd got money enough there, that all I was after was getting money enough more to take care of my mother.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- And myself to boot. I couldn't do it skinning mules so I taken to the oil fields. However, that's all sort of like some people say to me, said, if you'd had an education.
  • And I says, "No, I don't know; I ain't so sure about that. I think, at the time being, the way it was, I'd just accepted that job."
  • Because it was con-sidered a pretty good job they offered me if I'd been capable of holding it.
  • O.- Yes
  • C.- But there was certain jobs that I couldn't hold down; didn't have the education enough to hold them down.
  • O.- Well, we've come to the end of the tape again. Thank you very much.
  • C.- Don't mention it. I -- 'course, a fellow could talk always on the darn subject if he could think of it fast enough.
  • (END OF TAPE)