Joseph J. Perkins Interview - Joseph J. Perkins Interview [part 1 of 2]

PIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL TOPIC: Wichita Falls; Burkburnett; Borger (Hutchinson County); Archer County; Breckenridge (Stephens County); New Castle; Canada NAME: Joseph J. Perkins (some statements by Mr. Charlie Tucker) INTERVIEWER: Mody C. Boatright, Louise Kelly TAPE NO: 134 DATE: September 1953 RESTRICTIONS: None

Perkins- My name is Joe J. Perkins. I come to Wichita Falls in 1910. I was associated with Captain Kell(?) in the coal fields in Young County when they built the railroad down there and in 1916 I bought the Rule Farm Oil Company(?) four hundred and twenty acres seven miles north of Iowa Park. And I bought this land in fee and it worked out to be a very profitable venture. It paid each of us something over four hundred thousand dollars during its life.

Boatright- Mention your partners in there before the tape, will you please, Mr. Perkins.

P.- My associates in this was J. A. Kemp, Frank Kell, R. O. Harvey, and C. W. Snyder, all from Wichita Falls, Texas. I bought this property in fee and I was under somewhat obligations to Mr. W. M. McGregor of Wichita Falls of the First National Bank and offered to let him take an interest with us but he declined by saying that he had to finance a well up at Electra.

My own thought was that he didn't take it because the, all the others were customers of the City National Bank and he was identified with the First National Bank. Anyway, each of us got about four hundred thousand dollars apiece out of the property and it's still producing and recently we sold to the Magnolia Petroleum Company, a half interest in the lease hold rights on that place, on that farm, for fifty thousand dollars, and they're going to water flood it.

This property is, does it join the Riley lands on the west?

P.- Yes, it owns, it adjoins the Riley lands on the west.

B.- The lease hold which belongs to the Magnolia, does it not?

P.- Yes, that's correct. And then we had, Mr. Snyder bought a lease on thirty-five acres of land adjoining the Rule farm on the west for which he paid two hundred and fifty dollars and we, that turned out very profitable indeed. On that thirty-five acres there had been produced over two and a half million dollars worth of oil and it's still producing.

B.- You had a very unusually large well there to begin with, did you not?

P.- The well come in making, the first well we drilled come in making between three thousand and four thousand barrels per day.

B.- That was about what date?

P.- 1916, fall of 1916.

B.- They, the newspapers carried it as the Perkins-Snyder well, if I remember correctly.

P.- Yes.

B.- That was, now, near the Syrene(?) tract?

P. - It was on the Syrene tract.

B.- On the Syrene tract, that's right, in the--

P.- Billy Silk had a lease on the Syrene tract, on some of the Syrene land, and Mr. Snyder bought this lease and I took half interest with him. The first well we got made better than three thousand barrels a day.

B.- Now then, joining your property, was that land that Bert Rhode and those people had, was it, had something to do with the early history of the Humble Oil and Refining Company?

P. - The Humble Oil and Refining Company acquired a lease on three hundred acres of the Syrene farm and they also acquired a lease on the (stop your

machine just a minute), they also acquired a lease on three hundred and seventy-five acres west of the Syrene farm, and I've been told that the production from the Syrene lease and the Schultz lease provided the pay- roll to a great extent for the Humble Oil Company at its start. Anyway, both tracts were very productive.

B. - The well, one of those Syrene wells, was a large well, I don't know as large as your original well, but one of them was a large well, was it not?

P. - About three thousand barrels a day was that and they got some wells over also on the Schultz that were quite large.

B.- Now I wonder, is that the well that's often called the Syrene well? I think it was,

P.- I think it is.

B.- That made history with the Humble Oil and Refining Company.

P.- Yes.

B.- That was now, in a point of time, how compared with the, with your drilling on that Syrene property.

P. - Same year.

B.- Same year. Afterwards?

P.- The Humble drilled a well over on the west side of the Syrene. Got a big well and immediately after that we drilled a well on the thirty- five acres which Mr. Perkins--

B.- But you had already purchased the land, the lease.

P.- Oh, yes, we had that lease.

B.- Of course, you couldn't have purchased it for that price if you had waited, I mean if that well had been in at the time.

P.- (Stop the machine just a second.) Mr. Snyder was my very good friend

and I was rooming out there and I told, he told me that he didn't want to make any further investments until he got his debts paid.

I bought this Rule farm and it so happened that I had to close that transaction on a Sunday or I couldn't close it, so I closed it up and then I took Mr. Sny- der and the others heretofore mentioned in as my partners and right after our noon meal on Sunday we drove out to the farm, I, still not knowing if Mr. Snyder wanted an interest in it. We were standing out in the public road right west of the Rule farm and east of the Syrene farm and he said, "I sure would like to have an interest In that place." And I said, "Well, alright, you can have it."

I had, in the morning, tried to find R. O. Harvey to, so I could offer him an interest. While we were standing in the road out by the farm, Mr. Harvey come driving up about a hundred miles an hour, more or less, said he sure would like to have an interest in it, so I told him, "Alright." So I already had my commitments on the other one so that's how come that we all be interested. Turned out very profitable, profitably to us.

B. - That was the largest production in the old Burkburnett pool, now, was it not? I mean the Perkins-Snyder well and the Humble Oil and Refining Company's Syrene well were.

P.- I think so.

B. - That's, as far as I had heard it was.

P.- I think that's right. It was, they were certainly very large wells.

B.- Well, they weren't, large wells were not the rule in the old Burkburnett field like they were in the --[inaudible]-- country.

P. - Oh, they were a hundred and two hundred barrel wells mostly, but, I'm talking about a well making two or three thousand barrels. First, after we bought the Rule farm, there was a lease on sixty acres of the Rule farm

that, we bought that lease after buying the farm. There was a well on that making about three or four barrels a day was all. So after we bought it we drilled that well from fifteen hundred and eighty-nine feet, the depth of the well was on there, to sixteen hundred and thirty feet and we got a well flowing three hundred barrels. And so -

B.- That was in a, that was in a different sand or was that sand thick?

P.- It was all about the same depth, sixteen, between sixteen, around sixteen hundred and fifty feet.

B.- I notice on this old map of mine which is not new by any means, that that Number One well of the Humble's on the Syrene land is still shown here and not shown as an abandoned well. Do you know whether it's abandoned?

P.- The, I couldn't tell you that, but there's a small amount of production on the old Syrene farm under the Humble lease and there's some production also on the Schultz lease.

B.- That was, that Number One Syrene of the Humble's was on the north side, north line, right at the north line of the property, was it not? That's the way this map seems to indicate.

P.- I guess the map's correct. I thought it was on the west side, however

B.- Well, that's right too. The northwest corner is the way they show it.

P.- We 're both right.

B.- This indicates and I just wonder as a matter of geography if this is correct, that your Number One well, the Perkins-Snyder well there that was so good, was located In the same position, northwest corner approximately, of your thirty-five acre lease.

P.- Yes, it was located about the middle of the west line of our thirty- five acre lease.

B.- Was it?

Well, as a matter of identification--

P.- Yes.

B.- Those important wells, it might sometime be worthwhile, somebody want to come back and spot them and mark them as a matter of history. That's the reason for being that particular about it. Your other activities in the old Burk pool, did you have a lot of other activities around that old not the townsite, but the old Burkburnett pool?

P.- Back In, oh, it was as late as 19--, oh, 1925 or later, in the north- west extension of the old Burkburnett pool I become associated with C. J. Tucker and operating under the name of Tucker Oil Company. We acquired a very large number of leases in the northwest extension of the, that was after the big splurge took place up here in the--

B.- At the--[inaudible]--

P.- Yes.

B.- What blocks, do you remember, which way from that original Burk-Wag- goner discovery well, or are you conscious of that with your leases?

P.- Well, I happened to own the, in fee, the land on which the old original Burk-Waggoner well I drilled up here--

B.- Hadn't studied my map close enough to realize, to know that. I hadn't checked it.

P.- Yes, I bought from the American Refining Company, or rather from the Creditors Committee of the American Refining Properties, the old Bob Waggoner homestead consisting of five hundred and twenty-one acres and--

B.- That included both the royalty side of it and the lease hold side?

P. - No, I didn't, I bought the royalty with about sixty-three barrels royalty for which I paid a hundred and eighty-one thousand dollars, and some of my friends thought I was crazy but it didn't turn out that way

and I, a while back I was figuring up. I had gotten my money out of that more than twice over and I wouldn't today take, oh, many times what I paid for the entire land, for the tract of land at the present time.

B.- [inaudible comment]

P.- It's right on, it so happened that the, it's right on top of the apex out there and regarded as the, it's got some forty or fifty feet of sand on a goodly portion of it. It's--

B.- I think it's the richest sand ever discovered below, it's shallower than two thousand feet in this part of the country.

P.- (Better stop your machine a minute.)

P.- I bought the Bob Waggoner homestead of five hundred and twenty-one acres from the Creditors Committee of the American Refining Properties largely on the recommendation of Mr. Tucker, Charles J. Tucker, and the, after I bought this, Mr. Tucker and I formed a partnership and we acquired a large number of leases in that general area, which is, constitutes the property which I sold, in which I sold a half interest to the Magnolia in 1951 for a million and a half dollars.

B.- And now this is a part, their purchase is a part of their effort to consolidate that whole pool for water flooding, is it not?

P.- I don't know whether they want to consolidate that whole pool or not but I do know they have acquired a very large amount of acreage out in that country and are still acquiring. They have told me that they're, they expect it to produce as much oil through water flooding as it has primarily produced with ordinary methods. It's unbelievable to me that it would produce that much but it may do it.

B. - We've had other testimonials on the tape that confirm that thing.

P.- Well, you've covered the Rule farm and you've covered the northwest field

in a way.

P.- Now what other things, your next activities or your nearest activities to that.

Unidentified Voice- Were you in the Burkburnett townsite development?

P.- Very limited. Nothing to amount to anything. We had a little, a few wells were drilled in there but nothing of any consequence. There were four of us bought a ranch in Hutchinson County, Texas, which we though might be oil property and it turned out to be oil property and it's paid off about as well as anything I ever bought and it's still producing, making about, oh, the royalty on that makes perhaps twelve to fifteen thousand dollars a month. Belongs to four of us.

B.- Is that in the Borger area?

P.- Right north of Borger, just across the river.

U.V.- What was the name of that ranch?

P. - Dial, D-I-A-L

U.V.- Was that the same ranch that Walter Cline and perhaps some associate explored first north of the river there?

P.- Yes sir, we bought it for fee and, for about, traded eleven thousand acres and we paid roughly a hundred thousand dollars for that ranch and it turned out to be a very profitable investment. The oil business is not all a gold mine by any means. We've drilled lots of dry holes in different areas of the country and whenever you drill a well and get a dry hole It leaves a nasty, brown taste in your mouth. And they, we've had a very nice return.

There were about two thousand acres of the Dial Ranch that was unleased. We took it up with the, some of the oil companies and finally sold the lease on that two hundred acres, two thousand acres, to Phillips Petroleum Company for a thousand dollars an acre, half in cash and it's equivalent and half in contingent in an overriding

royalty from the oil and so I've got no regrets from having made that purchase.

B.- Was there some interesting legal procedure up there following that first lease that you had to make a trip to that little old county seat town?

P.- Clements?

B.- Yes.

P.- Yes, we had some litigation with the Gulf Production Company and Walter Cline and we had some rather interesting experiences. Clements at that time was the county seat of Hutchinson County and we, when the suit was, come up for trial we went up there and we stopped at the little hotel and they served us watermelon for an appetizer in the morning and I never drink coffee but they had, oh, what's the name of this stuff that's--

Kelly-Postum?

B.- Postum.

P.- They served us Postum for breakfast.

They had these, made these batter cakes that was the size of a plate and when, I think it was Mr. Cline come in a little late for breakfast, they'd stack the batter cakes up on the, one on top of the other, so he really, when he got there, why, what was left, the cakes cooked first. You all know how good a batter cake Is that's been cooked a half an hour, so the, when they brought Walter the slice of watermelon instead of the grapefruit for breakfast and then brought him the Postum, why he said, "Huh." And so, but it all worked out alright.

We, by common consent the litigation was transferred to Wichita County and it was tried up here in one of the Wichita County courts. The case had gone to the jury and we worked out a compromise and it was taken away from the jury and that was, instead of it all, instead of one

well holding the entire lease, why, we divided it up into three hundred and twenty acre leases, we'll say, and so we could get some real develop- ment on the property and it turned out to be very valuable property and it worked out nicely.

K.- Did you have to stay all night in that hotel?

P. - What?

K. - Did you have to stay overnight up there?

P.- Oh, yes, the, I think Walter went to, he had a friend up there and I think the bedbugs, he went up to this friend's house and the bedbugs liked to eat him up and the upstairs of that hotel was just hallway both ways in the upstairs. You could hear everything everybody said in every room up there.

Very quiet, you know, and private, so we had a lot of experiences and since there were really no hotel accommodations up there it was transferred by common consent to Wichita County and the compromise worked out and that, we got a little over two thousand acres of eleven thousand turned back to us without any lease on it and that's the land that we sold the Phillips Petroleum Company for a thousand dollars an acre. A million dollars in money and a million dollars contingent out of a portion of the oil.

B.- Does the Gulf still operate the rest of it?

P.- Yes sir.

B.- That just comes down to the Canadian River? Is any of that on the south side?

P. - No sir, the Canadian River is the south line of our ranch.

B.- And your ranch nearly covers the width of that oil field in there or more than covers it, does it?

P.- I wouldn't, no, it don't do that. It's, it--

B.- It nearly does, doesn't it?

P.- Alright, maybe it does.

B.- You're in the heart of it, according to my map. I haven't looked at it lately.

P.- Alright, it's, we'll pass that.

B.- Were there, are those areas your principal activity, now?

P.- No, I had a, I got hold of a fellow, Dr. R. W. Miller from California come down here and we got him to drill a well in the south part of Archer County and he got a small well. He got me to go down in Stephens County to Breckenridge to take up some leases down there.

We had a geologist by the name of Puffinburg that Dr. Miller had great confidence in.

(audio noise begins) We went down to Breckenridge and I leased up a large amount of acreage and Dr. Miller drilled a well on part of it to about eighteen hundred feet, as I recall, and, which we thought was an awfully deep well. B.- What date about? P.- That was about 1912. B.- It was, then, wasn't it. P. - And so I met up with a fellow down there, Breck Walker, and (audio noise ends)

he joined me in the purchase of, In assuming these leases, so then Breck bought the leases out in the northwest corner of the town of Breckenridge for which we paid a big bonus, ten cents an acre. And ten cents a year annual delay rental. And in the leases that Mr. Walker had bought for us was the Goodman lease of a hundred and fifty-eight acres in the northwest corner of Breckenridge.

We rode along two or three years and we couldn't afford to pay the rental forever, ten cents an acre, so we finally decided to drill a well there. There were a lot of wells down in the Breckenridge area at that time and it looked pretty good. Things were kind of

hot in activity in and around Breckenridge and we drilled a well there and got a well making three thousand barrels. And we sold a forty acre lease from this one well to the Kirby Petroleum Company for nine hundred thousand dollars, a hundred thousand in cash, four hundred thousand thousand dollars payable out of half the oil and four hundred thousand in a secured note endorsed by John H. Kirby, a lumber man.

We collected our notes and they went into that first well and drilled it a little deeper and got a well that made probably ten thousand barrels. Anyway, they produced enough oil from the twenty-ninth day of June to the end of the year to pay us up entirely, entire contingent oil payment. Then we went across the creek on this same tract of land and got a well ourselves that made eleven thousand barrels.

And the, we spent seven hundred thousand dollars drilling wells on the hundred and eighteen acres which we had left and at the time we started oil was, we were getting three and a half a barrel for oil and when we wound up we were getting a dollar a barrel.

And some three or four years after that I asked my bookkeeper how much money I, we had put in this Goodwin lease in the corner of Breckenridge, northeast corner of Breckenridge, and I told him I wanted to know how many dollars we had put into it and how many dollars we had gotten out. When he brought me the figures