Alexander Balfour Patterson Interview - Alexander Balfour Patterson Interview [part 5 of 5]

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  • Cause when they first started It was a bedlam. Beaumont was just something out of the world. And you've heard lots of stories about
  • O.- Yes, I have.
  • P.- The mud, and the men picking a hat up off of the mud and a man says, "Put that back. I'm down here fixin the hang strap on a mule." He was out of sight. And it sounds funny but it was almost true because in Ranger you had to pay to cross the street on boards. Mud was knee-deep on every street and the same thing in Burkburnett. Oh, you couldn't have gotten around if you didn't want to pay to get across streets; they'd pull the board out of your way. You just might as well stay on the other side of the street.
  • And, well, all those conditions-- now, if you go to a wildcat well today, you'll see a fine road to it as a rule. It's cheaper. It's more efficient. More money spent in the early days on transportation, trying to get to a place where It was impossible to go under normal conditions, and then after the operation was a success, then you'd come in with your good roads, good buildings. Now, that's all done simultaneously.
  • O.- I'd like to ask you about safety precautions from the time of Sour Lake and Burkburnett to the water operations.
  • P.- .Well, that went very slowly, Mr. Owens, any organized,
  • definite program of safety first. For years, there was nothing done particularly. Some driller would watch his men and tell them not to do this or not to do that. Some of them didn't do it. We had lots of injuries. You see, in the early days, we didn't have belts for the derrick men. We didn't have as high derricks, of course. And our original lights when I worked in the field were what we called Yellow Dogs, these lamps you see on the highway, on derricks, on the floor, no lights up above. A man working up above, if you were a derrick man, the light on the floor, you could see what was coming up to you to unlatch the elevators and operate. No platforms up there. You put one foot on the derrick and put the other foot on a -- around a brace and then one foot out on a little finger that the pipe would rack around.
  • So the move-- I'm trying to think when our safety program just began by leaps and bounds with each company putting In a safety engineer, where they have a full organization. And men were taught how to handle tools. Drillers were charged with the responsibility. It wasn't just make hole. Take care of your men. And that's gone on now in the last, oh, I'd say, the last 20 something years. Yes, it's really fine now what they've done, because men fell out of derricks, men had things drop on their heads. We didn't
  • have safety caps. The first derrick belts we got, men refused to wear them. 'Fraid of a blowout. Said, "I can't get down." Now, you couldn't get a man to go up in a derrick without one. Without a safety belt, he wouldn't work up there. And a lot of those things now, the men want and before they wouldn't accept. They failed to realize and take care of themselves. But all of those things, the proper position to stand in a strain, lift, hold the tongs, or the safety programs around the boilers, and the driller he does the same. If he sees a man doing something wrong, he's supposed to tell him. If he doesn't, why, he's censured, that's all.
  • And-- so I think they've got the safety program going beautifully, but I just cannot remember the year It started as a whole and yet I know it must have been a-- certainly 20 years ago, or even a little earlier, but not-- not since then. It's been in that long.
  • O.- Did you lose any men in the water operations?
  • P.- Yes, I did, Mr. Owens. Only though, not through storm. We had the edge of an equinox on two different times, these nine and ten foot tidal waves, and I had some barges driven inland eight or ten miles, five miles. One or two of them we salvaged with canals. And one or two of them were too expensive, cheaper to let them go. But a boat or two sank, but no lives were lost due to water. But we did have a boiler explosion on one occasion and it killed a man. We found him some distance from the boilers. We had -- not due to water --
  • we had one or two men injured, you know, like losing an arm, but that wasn't due to the water operations. It was just due to poor handling of the equipment and attention to the duty. And I don't think they have had any plane accidents even since I left that operation, that is, plane fatalities. And that's about the only one I can think of, is that boiler explosion. We had lots of narrow escapes from water. And, but that's about all. They were just narrow escapes,
  • O.- Did you get any blowouts out on the water?
  • P.- Mr. Owens, it sounds egotistical, but I guess I was just lucky or I was just very fortunate. In the four years that I was there, and the eight or nine domes that were developed, not one blowout occurred during my experience down there.
  • O.- What was the biggest producer you got there?
  • P.- Well, the potential?
  • O.- Yes, sir.
  • P.- Well, I suppose if you'd opened them up wide-- we came into conservation rules about the time we started there in '29. But we'd fall flow those wells on small orifices. We've had half-inch wells that would make twenty four or five hundred barrels a day through a half-inch choke. I suppose that well would have been good for 18 or 20,000 or more, open. And--but on that conservation feature, and also, storage facilities. You couldn't let those wells, like the early days [sic]. The
  • early days, if we didn'tó if you spent $15,000 on a well to drill It, or less, if you didn't get that back in a day or two, you'd made a failure. It'd take all you could get if it was 30,000, 20,000, or 18,000. But they've had blowouts, of course, in those areas. Some of them, maybe. As I say, I tried to use every degree of prevention.
  • I know I had heavier mud in our drilling than was necessary. I exaggerated it just because I didn't know what we night run into. And the mud chemistry has made it possible to eliminate blowouts. See, the early days, we had blowouts, blowout after blowout, because we didn't understand the mud chemistry. And what we thought was a good mud was a very poor mud. And we invited blowouts. Now, you carry a mud that when you get a little gas entrained in it, you can dissipate it. Your viscosity will take care of that. But we made it so thick, there was nothing could get out of it. And when you got a big head of gas, why, that column acted like a piston and just come on out and you had your blowout. We didn't have blowout preventers in the early days. We have them today. It's it's, oh, to talk about this thing, Mr. Owens, and see what we did since I was in the game, you'd hardly believe how we'd ever get where we have today.
  • O.- Yes, sir. I'd like to go to another thing now, ask you about the development of the rock bit.
  • P.- Well, I would suggest to you on the rock bit, the Hughes Tool Company would be the one to get the real true history. You see, Sharp, Mr. Sharp, was a great friend of Howard Hughes Sr. aid he was the man that started the rock bit. And when he made the first bits, and they were run, they were behind fenced-in locations. And when the bit was put on the drill-pipe, there wasn't a crew man on it. It was Mr. Sharp, and Howard, and Charlie Clayton, this man that I mentioned to you, and the minute that was lowered below the rotary, then the crew came back and it went on in the hole.
  • O.- Did you see one of those changes of bits?
  • P.- No, but-- O.- Watch one of them?
  • P.- No. That was secretive. And that-- but from then on, then Reed Bit came in. See, it was a-- and those two companies had patent suits for years. They used to have to lubricate those bits. They used to use oil to lubricate it and a plunger tool, and the pump pressure pushed a plunger that put the oil down on those bearings. There's nothing like that today. But I would suggest, Mr. Owens, the history of rock bit, and I don't I know the Hughes organization would tell you even about others, cause there are others now. It just happens I was a definite Hughes user.
  • (The material from 10:06-11:18 was unstranscribed in the original format) For years and years and the reason is it was, to me, the most efficient bit.
  • O.-Did you hang around in Johnny Winn's shop in Sour Lake any?
  • J.- No, not not -- oh, just in and out.
  • O.- Yes.
  • J.-All those shops(?) where we'd go to get something or have it made, we had all these fishing tools made locally, didn't have them in supply houses. And most of them are copied after what they did in China anyhhow 2000 years ago, most of the fishing tools.
  • O.- Yes. But you didn't see then working on a bit in his shop, now?
  • J.-Oh, I'm not as a, I mean any observation was rather casual.
  • O.-Yes.
  • J.-No, the- see for years we just had the Reed and the Hughes, and then the Chicago dividing too, the security engineer, of California, they've got 'em. Oh there's a lot of 'em now. And, we used to even have them repaired, now you don't, you wear them out and that's the end of it. I would suggest get the history of that, and uh, I'm trying to think, Mr. Owens who- so many of those early day men are
  • gone, too, just the same as--
  • O.- Did you know Humason over there in--
  • P.- Oh, yes. Oh, Humason in Houston?
  • O.- Yes. P.- He's still there. And, of course, Decker's dead and Haddock's dead.
  • O.- Did you see Humason's design for a rock bit?
  • P.- I don't doubt but what I did. In fact, I'm sure he's shown it to me. Yes.
  • O.- But not in the early days?
  • P.- No. No, recent.
  • O.- recent?
  • P.- Oh, recent.
  • O.- That was a different story.
  • P.- Oh, yes. Very recent.
  • O.- Yes, sir.
  • P. - Very recent.
  • O.- Well, you know who first used mud in drilling?
  • P.- The Hamill brothers at Spindletop.
  • O.- At Spindletop.
  • P.- Definitely. O.- Yes, sir.
  • P.- I guess you got the history of that and how they mixed the mud with the cattle and everything.
  • O. - Yes, I've heard that story.
  • P.- Well, it's a true story.
  • O.- You really think it's a true story?
  • P.- Oh, I know it was a true story. Curt Hamill was one of the best friends I ever had. I've known him since 1905. It was absolutely, just like all these other steps of climbing the ladder of experience, they couldn't make any progress, losing their returns, and they figured it was-- the fluid was thicker maybe they could. And, of course, as a result of that, we've used moss, we've used rice stocks and corn stocks and chopped up rope. We've used everything. Now, they've got plastics and things that you can use to stop up those things.
  • O.- Well, I'd like to go back again now to Sour Lake when you were first there. Do you remember any of the outstanding roughnecks that you worked with?
  • P.- No, I don't.
  • O. - Not any of their names?
  • P.- No, I surely do not. I worked for old Keefer Gordon, you see, in 1905, into 1906, then up-- oh, then back in the--I can remember lots of names, but I don't remember any very many stories, and a lot of the big contractors today started in the early days.
  • O.- Yes, sir.
  • P.- And same thing in North Texas. Same thing in West Texas,
  • 0,- Did you have a nickname as a roughneck?
  • P. - Pat.
  • O.- Pat? P.- That's all. The only thing that I had was different from anybody else, I wore a derby a big part of my time. And when it got caked with mud, it was the best safety hat in the field, I guess I'm one of the few men. And another idiosyncrasy was to wear a tie. It was a bow tie. I couldn't work without a tie. Even if I had to pick up a shoelace, it had to be. And the men in one crew, particularly, one day we were going out to pull a well and the tool pusher said, "We can't go out." And the reason was, "Pat hasn't got a tie on." I felt undressed. And I went and found an old shoelace and tied it around my neck in a bow. Nothing that would hang low to get caught, but, anyway, we went ahead then and pulled a well or something. But that was a known peculiarity that I had, a black tie.
  • O.- Well, what kind of work clothes did you wear with that black tie?
  • P.- The worst in the world. Overalls, or khakis and anything that the typical clothes of a field man.
  • O.- Yes, sir. P.- Boots. We all wore boots.
  • O.- Did they call you 'boll weevil' when you first arrived?
  • P.- I was a boll weevil, definitely, and I-- I had one or two tricks played on me, of course, like they do on boll weevils.
  • O.- I'd like to hear those.
  • P.- Well, one was to have a board across the mud pit and have it sawed underneath, on the bottom, so you couldn't see it. And then tell you to go get something from the other side of it. When you'd get out in the middle, the board broke, you went in two or three feet of mud. Of course, you always fell; you couldn't stand.
  • O.- Yes.
  • P. - I've had that sort of thing played on me.
  • O.- Yes, sir.
  • P.- And one of the famous things was-- never did it to me--but they'd tell a man to go up and get a left handed monkey wrench. And he'd go from one rig to the other. They'd say, "Oh, we just let so-and-so have it." Maybe the poor fellow would walk all morning and come back with a ring tongue. Nobody had one, see. But all those things, there are a lot of funny experiences a man has as a boll weevil. And that's what they called them. Then the roughneck feature came in. The first well I ever saw or brought in on air, all the water
  • had moved away because the water was coming out of the dis-charge and it they put up so many hundred pounds air pres-sure to lift this fluid, bringing in the well. It's all water at the time, you see.
  • O.- Yes.
  • P.- The well had been washed and the driller sat down on his heels very close to this discharge -- and there were big mudpits, reserve mud pits, all around -- and I figured 'there was the proper man to stay with. ' He was 'he knows what to do.' And I was dressed in good clothes, and was, at the time, I was vice-president of the subsidiary in Jennings, Louisiana. And I hadn't had a lot of field experience except Sour Lake. And no air wells, compressed air. But when the well did come in and tear loose with this head of air, behind the water, it roared just like an explosion or a tremendous blowout. And this driller had boots on. He just jumped about two feet and stopped in the edge of the mud. Well, I let off like a rabbit. And I fell, of course, and I crawled through that pit thinking that something was after me. I never was crawling arm deep, knee deep, till I got out of that pit. Then, of course, I was a sight with mud. And everybody was screaming and laughing and whistling. So I had to go up to the Evangiline office where I had the buggies and the horses to drive into Jennings. And as I walked through the field, every rig
  • I went by, men hammered on drill pipe and whistled end, oh, I was embarrassed. My grief J I told you told the driller, "It's all right. It's a good joke, but I kinda thought I could count on you." I did. I thought, "That man knows what he's doing and I'll just--" but he played the joke on me, all right. And that's about the only one I can think of. Course, I went through blowouts and went through-- fought fires and I've had, oh, a lot of experiences of that sort. But I believe, Mr. Owens, that's about all I can think of right now, unless you have some questions to ask.
  • O.- Yes, well, I have one or two more questions. If you had it to do over again, would you go the same journey?
  • P.- I would do it only if the same circumstances that made me make the decision of going to work rather than completing my education and being a professional man. If those same conditions existed, I wouldn't want to be robbed of the friendships I made, of the wonderful opportunity to give something of my life to the operation. In other words, the philosophy of life to me, has been not what you get out of it; it's what you give. So I would go through It again. I'd enjoy every minute of it.
  • O.- Now, you were much better educated than most of the people worked with in the field?
  • P.- in the early days, yes. Definitely.
  • O.- Uh huh. Did that give you an advantage?
  • P.- I imagine it did to a certain extent. It may have been the reason for some of the early day promotions quickly. Because I could talk a little better. I showed that I had a background of environment of home and refinement. And it could be that when I met Mr. Leovy, of the Gulf interests, he was impressed enough to say, "I think you ought to come with us and not go back in the field." Well, after that period with them and then with the Evangiline Oil Company, I then had made up my mind I wanted to have my own company.
  • O. - Yes, sir. P. - Which never resulted, of course. Over all, I think I would go over it again if the original circumstances controlled my life. And circumstances do control people.
  • O.- Yes, sir. You'd never consider yourself a boomer, would you?
  • P.- A what?
  • O.- A boomer. P.- Never. No, sir,
  • 0,- What was the spirit of the boomer?
  • P.- Huh? O.- What was the spirit of boomers as you watched them?
  • P.- Oh, the man that never had a bit of money. That he'd work and spend everything in one area and he was discharged or got tired of it, he'd borrow enough money to get to the next loca-
  • tion. And it's pipeline men and tank builders used to be atrocious. They were the roughest element we -- almost --had. They were always boomers. Just like the pipeline man that went to hire out on a well in-- on a line in West Texas a few years ago. He'd never been on one, but he was talking to the foreman. He said, "Do you know anything about pipelining?" He said, "Yeah. Just came off of one." And he says, "Where was that?" And he said, "Up north here." The foreman mentioned a number of pipeline companies and none of them gee-ed [sic] and he said, "Well, was it the Mason-Dixon Line?" He said, "That was it'" So he told him to get away from there with a little profanity. He didn't hire him at all. Yeah, that was the line, the Mason-Dixon Line, that he had worked on.
  • O.- Well, Mr. Patterson, thank you very much for this inter-view. It's been a pleasure to be able to talk to you.
  • P.- Well, I'm very glad and I hope maybe some of it might be of interest. The game has been so big, Mr. Owens, that I suppose I could think of hundreds and hundreds of interesting anecdotes, and, as I say, these the blowouts, the fires we used to have, we know why they had them then, and we know how to prevent them. It's just another book, that's all. [end of tape]