E. M. Friend Interview - E. M. Friend Interview [part 1 of 3]

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PIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL TOPIC: Electra NAME: E. M. Friend (Also Mrs. Friend) INTERVIEWER:
Mody C. Boatright (Also Louise Kelly) PLAGE: Wichita Falls TAPE NO. 135 DATE: 9/4/53 RESTRICTIONS:
None Kelly - As soon as that starts rolling.
Boatright - Now.
Friend - This is E. M. Friend. I came from Erath County, January the first, 1909, to
Chillicothe, Hardeman County.
I was employed by the Waples-Platter wholesale grocery company.
We built a warehouse in Chillicothe so that we might have two railroads for distribution.
My territory was from Wichita Falls to Childress on the Denver and from Crowell to Dallas on
the Orient.
We lived at Chillicothe until January, 1910, when we moved to Vernon.
I was working in Electra on the day that the first well blew in.
K.- That was the Clay-Co well?
F.- Clay-Co number one.
K.- Number one.
F.- April 1st, 1911.
K.- You were selling groceries there that day, on a Saturday, wasn't it?
F.- The first day of April, April Fool's Day.
There wasn't a great deal of excitement.
At that time people didn't realize just what an oil field meant to a community.
I continued my position at Waples-Platter until the 4th of March, 1912.
At that time I bought a grocery store in Electra and moved my family from Vernon to Electra.
K.- There was how many children then?
F.- There was four,
K.- Four by that time.
Well, now tell us something about what Electra was like when you first went there?
F.- At that time there wasn't a foot of paving in the town nor a drink of water.
K.- That was the year after this first well came in?
F.- We got our drinking water from Vernon by rail.
It was distributed to the homes in water tanks.
Now you ask the questions.
K.- Well, how many stores were there?
Was there just the one street of stores or ---
F. - No, no, There was one dry goods store and one general mercantile store, and one
grocery store, one drug store.
Drug store and post-office were in the same building.
The First State Bank was the only ---
K.- There was just the one bank there then?
F.-- bank at that time.
K.- Soon after though they organized another, didn't they?
F.- Well, it was quite a little while after that before we had another bank.
K.- There was a lumber yard there too.
F.- There was a lumber yard and a hardware store.
The hardware store was owned and operated by the McLandau brothers.
And the lumber yard was owned and operated by Sanders Walker.
The grocery store was A. H. Marriot and Son.
K.- Wasn't that Walker the mother of General Walker that was killed in the Eighth Army?
F.- I wouldn't know.
K.- Someone told me that.
F.- No, Sanders Walker didn't have any children at all.
K.- But he wouldn't have been there then anyway.
F.- No.
K.- About what was the population then, about how many people?
F.- I imagine about 300 people, I guess.
K.- Was it, what kind of country around, how did they ---
F.- Well, it was ---
K.- Farming? F.- Farming and ranching country. Principal
they ---
K.- They grow wheat or cotton?
F.- Cotton and wheat.
North of Electra is one of the finest wheat and corn belts in Texas.
And, of course, the town was originally a cattle town, supported principally by the
Waggoner interests.
Bob Cook was perhaps the most prominent citizen in Electra at that time.
He was in the general mercantile business.
K.- But there were no oil men or no oil offices there even a year after.
F.- No.
K.- People came out --- F.- They all came in after the, well, there
was some of the oil offices there.
But the Texas Company and Magnolia Company were both well represented in the development
of that field.
And they maintained headquarters there.
I don't mean the general offices but they had their headquarters there.
Bo- Do you remember the men that represented them there?
F.- Yes. What was, Halrand, Hans Halrand was, he was superintendent I suppose you would
call him for the Magnolia.
And, oh --
Mrs. Friend - Mr. Murphy?
F.- No, Murphy didn't have anything to do with it.
What was the one that had the home out there where the gasoline plant was built?
Mrs. F.- Stringer's?
F.- No, I mean my
Mrs. F.- Woodruff?
F.- No, I'm talking about the oil man.
He was the Texas superintendent.
Mrs. F.- Lived out there at Sunshine Hill, is that the one?
F.- No, he built his home up there close to where the refinery was.
B.- Well, I don't think it's very important.
I just thought if you remembered them why we'd get them down.
K.- Well, you came there then and bought a grocery store?
F.- That's right.
K.- Well, by that time the drilling around was growing rather rapidly, wasn't it?
F.- Pretty brisk.
K.- And you had dealings with, in the grocery store with some of those firms.
F.- Yes, I guess --
K.- Well, tell us about some of that.
F.- Well, at that time a groceryman had a mighty good chance to make money for the simple
fact that the oil companies, they didn't guarantee payment on account.
But they guaranteed a guy lost his job if he didn't pay his account, which amounted
to the same thing.
And there were a world of independent contractors, drilling contractors.
Dick Dulaney I expect was the biggest individual contractor.
He'd have maybe five or six different camps scattered, maybe they would be, oh, in the
radius of 15 miles.
They run boarding camps, that is the man that was the contractor had a boarding house.
And ---
K.- Usually in tents?
F.- Yes, always in tents.
And we delivered groceries as high, as far as 20 miles in just horse and wagon.
Didn't have any automobiles.
K.- And not any good roads?
F.- No roads at all.
Now the same condition prevailed with those contractors, they made their men pay their
grocery bill.
A lot of the men would eat out there but the families you see would live in town and maybe
they'd be too far to go.
The families would have to stay at home in town.
So it was rather a good business for a groceryman.
Now conditions, living conditions was pretty bum.
Cause I've seen eight mule teams bog up right in the middle of the street there.
Have to unload their wagons to even pull them out empty.
K.- That didn't make your grocery delivering any easier either?
F.- Quite a bit.
We were delayed about a week sometime.
K.- Do you have any idea about the cost of groceries around that time, I mean ---
F.- They were cheap, very reasonable.
About a, oh, I'd say they didn't cost you, I'd say 75 per-cent cheaper than they are
now.
You couldn't ---
B.- Did you get about the same prices as people at Vernon say would get or did you get a little
more?
F.- We had the price set low.
That was one thing I imagine could be said of Electra that could never be said of any
other oil field in the world.
That prices were never inflated, nobody took advantage.
K.- Well, there wasn't very much of a real boom there either?
F.- There wasn't any boom in Electra, there never was a boom at Electra.
It was just steady.
We had two kinds of drillers, the up and the down and the go-around they called it.
That was the rotary and ---
B.- Oh, I see.
K.- The rotary and the cable tools.
F.- They got along about like strange tom cats.
If a man was a rotary driller he ought to have been in hell before he was ever born.
That's the way they thought about it, that's the way the cable tool guys were.
They would set there in the store and cuss each other for hours at a time nearly.
K.- Well, did they ever go beyond the mere cussing?
F.- No, it was all in fun.
And they chewed different kinds of tobacco.
One of them chewed Mail Pouch and the other one Beech-Nut.
It was amusing to hear them abuse each other about the kind of tobacco they chewed.
They all smoked stogies.
You couldn't give one a cigar, he wanted a stogie.
B.- And which one chewed Mail Pouch, do you remember?
F.- That was the cable tool man, he chewed Mail Pouch.
And the rotary guy chewed Beech-Nut.
You could tell which one he worked for by what kind of tobacco he chewed.
K.- Do you remember any particular camps that you ---
F.- Yes, we had
K.- --- sold groceries to?
F.- I sold to all of them.
The biggest camp we had was run by Mrs. Gilligher.
K.- Well, she had a regular boarding house, didn't she?
F.- Yes, she had a boarding house.
F. - Well now, where was that located?
F.- That was located on the Stringer lease.
She had about 40 or 50 boarders all the time.
And her account run from two to three thousand dollars a month.
And we never had any argument about the bill except one time.
She come in and paid I think it was about three thousand dollars.
She never had asked the price of anything till she paid her accounts.
Says, "You know, it seems to me like that as much groceries as I buy I ought to get
a little discount."
And old Red Gilligher, that was her husband, he was a field foreman.
K.- For which company?
F.- For the Magnolia.
And he hired and fired them.
Well, I said, "You know old Red has got about a 100 families here that trade with me.
And sometimes, not often, once in a while they'll leave between suns.
And I said somebody has to pay for those groceries."
She says, "Go to hell."
That was a long time ago.
K.- Mother Gilligher was a fine person.
F.- One of the finest characters I ever knew.
K.- Do you have any idea how much she charged for board?
F.- No.
K.- Did you ever know?
F.- No, I never did know.
She ruined every deliveryman I ever had.
He'd go out there and she'd make him sit there and eat till he couldn't, wasn't worth a damn
the rest of the year.
I told her --- what?
Mrs, F.- Mother Gilligher, they all called her Mother Gilligher, all the oil men and
everybody.
F.- Old boys of mine that worked for me, well, Lord if you said anything about Mrs. Gilligher
you better start running, that's all there was to it.
Mrs. F.- She still up there?
F.- She's dead.
K.- Yes, she died several years ago.
Mrs. F.- Yes. Well, Dad Gilligher died ---
F.- I'll tell you about old Red.
Now this is kind of --
K.- That's her husband.
F.- --kind of a rough yarn.
He was the wickedest old devil you ever came in contact with.
And he would go down to the supply house to get something to take out to one of the rigs.
He'd go in cussing and call them everything on earth.
And they'd do him the same way.
Well, they decided one day they'd frame up on old Red, they would be good to him.
They would be nice to him, you know.
And he went in and told them what he wanted.
"Okay, Mr. Gilligher."
I guess It was the first time anybody had ever called him mister.
They got it and he sat around.
"All right, Mr. Gilligher."
He chewed the rag around a while and got in his buggy and started out to the rig.
And got out three or four miles and turned around and come back.
When he walked in he said, "I want to know something.
What do you damn bastards mean calling me Mr. Gilligher?"
And he cussed them all out saying everything on earth he could think of.
After that It was all the same, it was all over again.
K.- Were there very many of those individual boarding houses there as ---
F.- Oh --
K.- ---in those fairly early days?
F.- I don't think.
I believe that's the only one now that was really a company, what you would call company
boarding house.
The rest of them ---
K.- There grew up several though there in the town itself ---
F.- Oh, yes, yes.
K.- that they boarded the different men.
F.- Hotels and rooming houses and so forth.
So --
(Yes sir, do you have a match? Okay.)
K.- Do you remember any other individual drillers or workers there that were rather colorful
characters or ---
F.- Well, of course, Walter Cline was prominent in some of that development.
Most of Walter's business was in the Burk field but he ---
K.- He was in and around.
F.- He was in and around Electra and was pretty prominent kind of a character, you know, and
everybody liked him.
And Charley Clark, C. II. Clark developed the Red River Oil Company property there.
It was a small outfit when he took it and he became quite important in the development
of the field.
K.- Wasn't Reese Allen pretty much of an Electra product, I mean so far as oil is concerned?
F.- Yes ma'am. But he never, Reese, if Reese ever made a dollar out of oil there I don't
know of it.
He ---
K.- How did he come there?
F.- Reese was, Reese opened up that Waggoner column.
And he was more in the land business than anything else.
He, oh, I guess he made a little money maybe in the oil business.
But Reese never was interested in drilling.
He never had any land of his own.
It was all, he just handled somebody else's land.
But at that he was one of the most substantial men of the community.
Any enterprise, why you could always count on Reese Allen and Bob Cook and Faye Woodruff
to a certain extent for leadership.
Now some of the drillers, you know, that were pretty prominent, that is considered good
oil men like ---
K.- What about the Liggen (?) boys?
Didn't they start out in that field, Bert and Burch?
F.- Way late.
K.- They were later?
F.- Oh, yes.
Al Hughes was one of the, I believe he drilled on the first well there.
K.- He was the night driller when that well came in.
F.- That's right. And Al --
K.- Bob Praugue.
F.- Yes.
K.- Did you know him?
F.- Yes. He was a brother-in-law to Al, he was ---
K.- The day driller on that crew.
F.- Yes, ma'am.
K.- He lives in Houston now.
F.- Well, you know Al made a lot of money after that.
I guess died a pauper.
He was big hearted, a fine, well man.
K.- Well, don't you find that rather characteristic of oil men, that they are very generous, too
generous very often with their money?
F.- Were you there when they built the Methodist Church?
K.- No.
F.- It was right funny.
We had a fellow by the name of Crutchfield, you knew him.
Well, he built the church, that is, he was the pastor.
And you know E. B. Massey was in the drug business there. And so -
K.- That was about 1917, wasn't it?
F.- Yes, somewhere along there.
So Crutchfield got his organization up and asked me to be on the building committee.
Well, I didn't belong to his church, didn't belong to any church.
Well, I told him, I said, "You better keep on with your church members.
Well, he had on it George Hansel and Coffey and Self and Massey.
K.- That's C. J. Coffey and N. W. Self?
F.- Yes.
So they had a mass meeting there one night at the Methodist Church, no there wasn't any
women there, just men.
I don't know how come but just had men folks.
But they was going to raise some money to build the church.
So Al Hughes and Massey and myself was sitting way back there.
And Crutch got up and he had this little prayer.
And told them what they wanted to do, and they was ready for subscriptions.
Old man Dan Cross, he was the bellwether, you know, of the church.
K.- D. T. Cross?
F.- Yes.
So Mr. Cross got up and says, "Well, I'll tell you what I'll do.
For every dollar that's raised I'll put in one."
Well, that was, he was about the only man that could make a statement of that kind and
live up to it, you know.
So that got them started.
And they was going along and I saw they was heading for trouble, just taking subscriptions,
writing the names down putting down the amount they promised.
And I got up and I said, "Preacher, I guess you're a pretty good preacher, but I don't
think much of you as a businessman."
Says, "What's the matter?"
Well, I said, "These guys have got the money here tonight.
They are telling you they will, give $2,000, and a $1,000.
They can write a check here just as well as they can write it at their office.
And I said if you will take their check tonight, and beat them to the bank in the morning,
you might be able to cash them."
Oh, he was, thought that was awful.
He says, "Why do you say that?"
Well, I says, "I'll tell you why.
Here's a couple of fellows sitting back here by me and I'm sitting here between them.
One of them said he would give you two thousand dollars and I says he has got the money too.
And the other one said he would give you fifteen hundred and he's got the money, that is, he's
got it tonight.
And if he don't get in a poker game before morning he may have it tomorrow.
But you better get it tonight."
And Al says, "Now listen, how much are you going to give?"
I said, "I am going to give him $500, and I've got ray check made out for it and I'll
give it to the, somebody was passing the hat."
Crutch found out later that I was right.
K.- The oil men had money one day and the next day they didn't.
F.- And they'd give it to anybody that needed it.
K.- Yes.
F.- When they had it.
If they didn't have it, course they just couldn't get it.
K.- Well, Mr. Crutchfield should have known that because he was an old timer around in
this community.
F.- Yes.
K.- He's now pastor of the Mineral Wells church.
F.- Well, now he's at ---
K.- Mineral Wells.
F.- Not now.
Mrs. F.- He's been moved.
K.- Oh, is he moved? Mrs. F.- Yes, he's at Ranger.
F.- Ranger.
K.- Oh.
F.- So, now do you know of anything else you want to ask me?
K.- Well, could you tell us anymore about Mr. Cross?
F.- Mr. Cross and I got along about like two strange tom cats.
K.- Well, that was more or less his general reputation.
F.- But in some ways he was a very fine character.
K.- Did he make most of his money in oil?
F.- Yes, he did.
He was a good trader and ---
K.- He wasn't a driller though?
F.- Oh, no. K.- He just dealt in leases and royalties
and so on.
F.- And he was a very good businessman.
And if he told you that he would do anything why you could depend on it, he would do it.
And he'd turn right around and skin you out of your eye teeth and such.
And a lot of folks say that's okay.
But he was a pretty good man at that.
And his daughter married Fred Powell.
She is one of the best businesswomen I've ever known.
A perfect lady in every way.
K.- Well, she carried on her father's business didn't she after his death?
F.- Yes.
K.- And after she got married.
F.- Well, she really carried it on while he was living as far as that's concerned.
K.- Well, as I understand it --
F.- He didn't do many things without asking her now.
K.- He had a good deal of property in other places too.
In Dallas he had investments and so on.
Very wealthy man.
F.- Oh, yes.
Mrs. F.- Mrs. Powell is still there in Electra, still in business, running a business up there.
K.- Yes. Well, what about Mr, Sheldon?
Wasn't he one of the early men interested in oil?
Do you know?
F.- Yes, ma'am.
K.- W. J. Sheldon.
F.- W. J. Sheldon was a very substantial man, very unassuming.
He never
mixed and mingled much with people. But he was always on the right side of the fence.
You could count on W. J. Sheldon doing his part but he never made any noise about it.
And he never accumulated very much wealth. K.- Well, he was always very comfortable.
F.- He was comfortable in such ways. K.- And he was what we'd call a civic-minded person
now. F.- That's right, he sure was. K.- Well, I understand, I understand that Mr. Sheldon
was the first one to really think about commercial oil there for Electra. F.- Him and Faye Woodruff.
K.- He and Faye Woodruff? F.- Yes, ma'am. I think they are the ones that would just
never give up the idea that this would be a good oil field. And neither one of them
ever made a lot of money out of It. I don't know what happened, K.- Well, they were always
very comfortably -- F.- Oh, yes. K.- They were never -- F.- They lived well. But like
all the people from the North they weren't our kind of folks. They --- K.- Came in from
the North? F.- They didn't know this rough and tumble way of living that we PIONEERS
IN TEXAS OIL p. 16 were use to. They kind of wanted things reasonably nice but didn't
give a darn how other folks got along. K.- Well, is Orf (?) Woodruff Faye's nephew or
--- F.- He was his brother. K.- No, Orf. F.- Oh, I didn't know him. K.- Well, he's an oil
man here in Wichita now. F.- I didn't know him. K.- He's either a -- F.- What was Faye's
brother? K.- I don't remember. F.- Younger than Faye, nice kid. K.- Yes. There were the
two brothers there in the field. F.- That's right. K.- And it was on their land, they
owned the farm where this Clay-Co well came in. Mrs. F.- Just north of town. K.- Yes.
Mrs. F.- I kept trying to think who he was. He bought him an old house and built his home
out north of town and that was -- K.- Mr. Sheldon also was civic-minded in the paper.
F.- Yes, his paper still--- K.- When did he found that? F.- It was going on when I went
there in 1912. K.- In 1912. It had been published for a number of years. F.- Yes, ma'am. K.-
But it was sold and the two papers consolidated after his death last year. F.- I didn't know
that. I didn't know they was consolidated. I was up there, oh here around a month ago
I guess to, they made me a life member of the Rotary Club up there. And I didn't know
it. So they said we was going to have a special meeting of some kind and asked me to come
up and that's when I found it out --- (inaudible). K.- Well, you didn't stay in the grocery business
too long though did you? F.- Yes. I was in the grocery business when I came here. K.-
Well, didn't you have a mill for a while? F.- Yes, had the elevator. K.- That was just
on the side, wasn't It, the elevator? F.- Well, the elevator was where I made the money
and the grocery store is where I lost it. K.- Well, that indicates to me that there
was still a great deal of wheat F.- There was. K.- ---around even after the oil came
in. F.- And I -understand Hiss Kelly that this year was the biggest harvest that Electra
ever had. Could you imagine that as dry as it was? K.- As dry as it is and as many oil
wells as there are all around there. F.- In 1900, I bought over 200 thousand bushels -- K.-
What year? F.- In 1900, I mean 1920. PIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL p. 18 K.- 1920. F.- I bought
that elevator, took charge of it in 1920. K.- Was that the only elevator there at that
time? F.- No, there was another little elevator there but it belonged to a Wichita mill. Well,
I was, I had three grocery stores there and so they told me they'd close up their darn
elevator if I'd just let -- (inaudible). I was buying all of the flour that they sold
here so they just had the one elevator. B.- Did these workers come around your store very
much? F.- Oh, yes, they lived around the store. When they weren't work ing they'd come down
town and most of them hung around where they traded, you know. B.- Well, I guess you got
to know some of them pretty well? F.- Yes, sir. B.- What kind of people were they, would
you say? F.- Well, I -- B.- What was their background? Did they mostly come from farms
and things, country boys? F.- Yes, sir, mostly from farms and from mines. Most of the drillers
from the East came from Pennsylvania. And they were off of the farms and from out of
the mines. They were the best peo- ple that I've ever lived among of the oil field people
at Electra You could go into their homes and you'd be treated just as well as you'd be
treated at the finest home in the land. B.- They had their families with them? F.- Yes,
sir, they all had nice families. They were rough, the men were rough. And the ladies,
the women most of them were cultured. B.- Now those from Pennsylvania would be your
cable tool men, I suppose? F.- Yes, they were nearly all cable tool men. B.- And the rotary
men came from South Texas? F.- That's right. They came from Beaumont, Spindletop, every-
where. B.- Well, did they joke and play tricks on each other? F.- Yes, sir, and the jokes
are a little too rough to tell. B.- Oh, I see. F. - Some of them are terrible. But it
was all in fun. B. - Yes. F.- I don't, you know as long as I was at Electra from 1912
to 1926, I never saw a fist fight. B.- You didn't have any liquor there, did you? F.-
Had lots of bootlegging. B.- Well, you didn't have any open -- F.- No. There wasn't any
open saloons only except here for a long time but ó-- K.- Was that because of local
option there, local option --- F.- Yes. K. - ---when the basic people of the town kept
it out? F.- In the town there was lots of bootlegging, of course. But lots of that happens
where there's prohibition as far as that's concerned. B.- Do you remember any of the
tales you would hear them tell around the store, about their experiences or anything?
PIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL p. 20 F.- No, I don't recall anything that --they were always hurrah-
ing and joshing and cussing each other. But I don't remember any stories that I could
tell. B.- Did you ever hear them speak of Paul Bunyan as an oil field hero or strong
man? F.- No, no. I don't guess they knew much about Paul, I never heard, didn't know Minnesota.
B.- No, he hadn't come down. K.- Yes, cut if off. (Break) K.- Will you tell us about
the Brewer's and the Homemaker's (?) I believe they had a tract of land adjoining the Marriot
lease that was rather a good lease. F.- That's right. The Harriot lease was between Brewer's
and Homemaker's. Homemaker had that little, it wasn't even a frame house. It was just
a box house. K.- What we might call a shack? F.- Yes. And he, I don't know that nobody
ever accused old Sam of not being honest, but nobody would trust him for anything be-
cause he had no way of paying it, except Mr. Brewer. They, it's my opinion that they were
brother-in-laws. But Sam wasn't cre- dited with having too much brain power. K.- Sam
Homemaker? F.- Yes. Outside of being lazy. But when he --- K.- He had a family too, didn't
he? F.- He had a family. And now he married a Baker, his wife was a Baker. Mr. Baker,
Lonnie Baker, you remember Lonnie, was this old man's son (?). And the Baker's were good,
hard working, PIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL p. 21 honest people. But they didn't have any money.
But they worked to earn what they had. So Sam leased this land. And they brought in
some mighty good wells. Well, he just went up to Vernon and found a big, brick house
there that he liked and bought it. And it's said that he used to go to town about once
a week to get his tobacco. And they he'd go back home and sit down on the gal- lery and
sit there till the tobacco played out. If he ever gave a dollar to charity or to benefit
anybody nobody ever knew about it. B.- Did he ever give Brewer any? F.- No. K.- What
sort of fellow was Brewer? F.- He was, as I say Brewer was a man that anybody would
be glad to have as a friend. He dealt in cattle a good deal. He bought a ranch out close to
Floydada. And he -- K.- Well, he had a very good farm there at Electra? F.- He had about
a 200 acre farm there. The boys had grown up during this time, Sam and Hugh. And they,
and one of the girls I think went out on this ranch. And Mr. Brewer and Mr. Ben Dickey bought
some land together and they had some 3 or 4, thou- sand acres which finally developed
into very fine properties. K.- But before they got oil why the Homemaker's nearly starved
to death? F.- They sure did, they -- K.- Except for -- F.- Except for living off of the Brewer's.
That was the only thing that kept them going. K.- Well, did they ever repay Brewer? F.-
I don't think so. K.- But the Homemaker's got oil on their old run-down farm. What about
Mr. Brewer? F.- It wasn't a run-down farm, it was a good farm. K.- Yes, It was a good
farm, but I mean he didn't do much -- F.- They just didn't work it, that's all. K.-
That's right. F.- That's right. And Brewer's only got two little dinky wells there right
close to the house, never have gotten any more. I guess it played out right the other
side of the house. Mrs. F.- Tell them about that new one they got up there now, out -- F.-
Well, did you know they brought in a big well out there north of town? K.- Well, it's north
of Faulk's Station (?). Mrs. F.- No, four miles north of Electra, east of Electra. K.-
Oh, you mean another one? F.- Yes. Slaughter bought the property and Morrison was the drilling
contractor. K.- Well, hasn't that been rather characteristic of this whole Electra field,
a small beginning and then gradually going out south and northeast and --- F.- Now this
well is 3,700 feet. And they said it might develop into a 3,000 barrel well. That's a
pretty wonderful well. That's another thing about that Electra field is that it never
played out and never will play out. There's too many different stratas. The first oil
was pretty shallow and then a little deeper and it just keeps going on down. K.- They
have never been very large wells. F.- No. K.- But they have stayed. Now this Clay-Co
was not finally shut down until about 1940. F.- I know it. K.- And I think it was making
about 5 barrels consistently, after they swabbed it out of course. Mrs. F.- You know Charley
Morrison, he's the one that drilled this big one. Lord, all the oil men have been camping
right there the last two days. Gus Anderson and whoever this man is who lives next door
that works for the oil (??) are right there. K.- Well, while Mr. Friend rests awhile you
tell us about what you thought of Electra when you first went there? Mrs.- F.- Those
babies, that house. Shoot, I never will forget about that house. K.- Yes. B.- Well, how many
babies did you have then? Mrs. F.- I remember you was talking about the yarns the oil men
told. I never will forget. I was having a missionary society meeting I guess one time.
We'd been there about 15 years then, hadn't we? Stayed there about 15. Anyhow it was not
long before we moved away. And Mrs. Hepler (?), Mr. Hepler was a big driller you know
and Mrs. Hepler was a leader in the church. F.- Hepler was superintendent of the Texas
Company. Mrs. F.- I was going to say that but I didn't know. I thought maybe he worked
for the Magnolia. Anyhow, Mrs. Hepler and Mrs. PIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL p. 24 Dr. Fisher,
and of course, Mrs. Dr. Fisher was from out there on Bee Greek, you know, and accustomed
to that country. And all the other women; Mrs. Kirk from Ohio and Mrs. Richardson from
Indiana, and there was a bunch that was there from church, you know. And they said to me,
"Mrs. Friend, you don't oh, they was complain ing about the sand and the dirt everything
like that, the wind. And they said, "You never do complain about it now. Have you been here
so long, I never hear you say anything about it?" Well, I told them I was like the little
nigger man that married the big fat nigger woman. And she sat down in his lap. I know
you've heard that story. And in a little bit she said to him, "Honey, ain't I awful heavy
on you?" And he said, "Well, you was at first but I'se numb now." When I first came to Electra
I was just about but after I had stayed there fifteen years I was numb so there wasn't any
use in -- K.- Well, where did you first live when you went to Electra? Mrs. F.- That was
in this -- they had anywhere in the world for the men to eat, to have their meals. And
they called this the Dining Hall that we had rented. And Cooper was one of the neigh- bors
that lived right by us. F.- --(inaudible) the Cooper's until you moved down there you
know Mrs. F.- Yes. And --- K.- That was Mrs. Abbie Cooper? F.- No, John Cooper. K.- John
Cooper Mrs. F.- John B. R. Cooper. F.- He worked in the grocery store. He was working
for Fisher PIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL p. 25 when I first come out and just kept him -- (inaudible).
Mrs. F.- On the other side of me was this bunk house that the old man kept. And by the
way that old man was the one that made so much money over in Burk wasn't he when the
Burk field opened. up. He went over there to run a bunk house. And oh, he just made
a fortune. B.- Off his bunkhouse? Mrs. F.- Yes. F.- He had a very nice, just tents you
know and cots. B.- Yes, K.- Just tents, not any plank structures? Mrs. F.- Well, it was
just about a block from town you know from the stores. And Mr. Bashara (?) was one of
the store men that you didn't mention when we went there, wasn't Mr. Bashara there? F.-
I didn't mention his name because I couldn't think who run the dry goods store. Mrs. F.-
The dry goods store, yes. K.- That was N. J.? Mrs. F.- Yes. B.- Well, what about this
tent boarding house close to you? Mrs, F.- The men all could go down to a bootlegging
joint just about half way from there to the store and get them a drink. And boy, they
wouldn't ever, they didn't always get to the bunk when they got home. K.- Well, how did
you manage to keep your children out of the way Were the children curious about the drunk
men? Mrs. F.- Oh, yes, but Max and Ernest was so small then you know PIONEERS IN TEXAS
OIL p. 26 that they didn't, and Ben, you know, wasn't very old. K.- No. Mrs. F.- He wasn't
able to go to school. You know we came on down here to Wichita for him to enter school
when he was seven. B.- Well, did that happen every night? Every night? Mrs. F.- Every night.
B.- Or just the week-end? Mrs. F.- Yes. K. - How long did you live there near the bunkhouse?
Mrs. F.- Till we had a place built. F.- We stayed there about three or four months, --(inaudible)
-- out on the hill. K.- Yes. F.- Can't think of that old boy's name that had a furniture
store there. K.- Austin? F.- Austin? That ain't the one that built the warehouse out
there, is It? Well, built a great big long warehouse right on the lots adjoining this
house that I had built. It was a two story house, pretty -- K.- Clear out in the country
then? F.- Yes. Pretty good house. And Mamma and the kids moved down here and bought a
little place over here on the corner of Broad and Eighth. And she moved down there so the
kids could go to school. Mrs. F.- So Ben could go. F.- And -- Mrs. F.- Course Lorena could
go. F.- And I had another groceryman living in that house and I was living there with
him. And this darn old warehouse was full of furniture and mattresses and excelsior
and everything else that they had in furniture stores. And it caught afire one night just
about sundown. And didn't have any water in town, no way of fighting the fire. So we took
all the doors and windows out of my house and carried them out and stacked them up.
And sat there and watched her burn up. Couldn't do anything on earth. Mrs. F.- I wasn't there.
B.- That was your residence? Mrs. F.- I was here In Wichita. B.- That was your residence
or your home? Mrs. F.- Yes, that was --- K.- This adjoining building you see caught your
house. F.- So that liked to have ruined me. Well, I had quite an expe- rience in Electra.
By George, I went there the first of January and the fourth of March it burned out the
store. The store --- K.- That was in 1921? F.- The whole town burned up except Marriot's
-- Dry goods? General merchandise? F.- General merchandise. The post-office and my store,
everything in that block. Well, you know where the old store was there? Yes. F.- Well, that
whole side of town burned up, every blamed house and the post-office and my -- K.- Well,
there were no brick structures there then? F.- Wasn't anything brick except -- K.- They
were all just hastily put up. F.- Except the First State Bank, it was the only brick there.
K.- Well, it didn't burn. F.- No, didn't get on that side. But there wasn't anything on
that side but Marriot and the bank. So -- Mrs. F.- All the oil people lived In shacks, the
workers. And they had the loveliest furniture and the deepest carpets. They used to tell
tales --- F.- That was the first fire I had. K.- Outside was unpainted, just hastily thrown
up shacks. F.- It was just a shack, that was all. Funny thing about that. I had bought
the blamed store on credit. Fisher Brothers owed Waples-Platter $4,500 for groceries and
the stock invoice was $5,500. Mr. J. A. Puckett, one of my customers at Vernon, and I decided
we'd go into business. So he put in $500 and I put in $500 and that's all the money we
had in the durn thing. And owed Waples-Platter this $4,500. Arid I'd borrowed $500 from Mr.
Trease (?) over at the First State Bank. So that was $5,000 that we owed and I didn't
have a thing on earth. We had $2,000 insu- rance of every penny we could carry and we
paid a $100 a thou- sand for that. So you can imagine, you couldn't afford to carry
insurance and couldn't afford to do without it. But anyhow we had that much. So I didn't
know what the Friend's was going to do. K.- When you burned out? F.- When we burned out.
And I went over to the bank the next morning. You know how long Mr. Trease's neck was from
there to here, his Adam's apple worked up and down. And he says, "Well, kind of hard
luck wasn't it?" I said, "Yes, it was." He says he knew how much insurance we had. And
he says, "Now just forget about this $500 loan, when you get that insurance, you're
going back in business?" I said that I guess I'll go back home and do business in Vernon.
0h, he says something might happen. Says when you get this insurance says divide it out
among customers and --- K.- Your creditors? F.- Yes. But he said don't take us into consideration,
just for- get about that. Well, that made me feel a little better. And during the morning
Mr. Gates, care of Buck Robinson and Gates called up, they had heard about the fire.
And says, "Well, we've got a lot of groceries down here and we've got a lot of empty cars.
We're ready to load them up." I said, "You're pretty --talking that way while you ought
to be listening. I can't even pay you what I owe you now." "Okay," says, "We'll send
you what you want." Mr. Kelm, I'd been doing business with him just a short time. He called
me and told me to draw on them for $5,000 for a loan. And I said, "Boy! I'm going back
into business." They was just starting the Masonic building there. K.- In Electra? F.-
In Electra. I say starting it, they was working on it. And I hunted up the Worshipful Master,
Clarence McDaniel (?) and told him I wanted to rent the building. He said okay. He didn't
have the authority but he was sure it would be all right when he got hold of the trustees.
And so I rented the lower floor of that place. In about two weeks they had it where I could
move in. So Waples-Platter in the meantime had told me just go on like I'd always done.
By golly, in a year I had them all paid off, out of debt again. K.- Well, you did get,
try to get in the oil business once, didn't you? F.- Oh, boy. K.- Well, tell us about
that. F.- I dug three dry ones all by myself. K.- No partners? F.- No. K.- Where, right
around Electra or ó F.- You know a funny thing. Owens and Wilson brought in the first
well up here In this Iowa Park shallow field. They had that country leased up. And they
both traded there with me. And they had been just as poor as a church mouse. Sometimes
they could pay their grocery bill and sometimes they couldn't. So when they struck that well
there, Mr. Wilson come in the store. Says, "Mr. Friend, we struck a little well down
here in the Iowa Park neighborhood. It's only five or six hundred feet, shallow stuff. Mr.
Owens and I decided we'd just give you 10 acres ad- joining the well." I said, "Bless
your heart, I don't know what to say, but I certainly appreciate it." Said, "All we
want you to do is to drill a well, says it's all yours." "That's fine." I don't know whether
you knew Ralston or not. He was a driller, had a little old spudding machine. So I made
a trade with him PIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL p. 31 to go down there and drill us a well just
300 feet from the dis- covery well. K.- That was the Lockridge there? F.- Lockridge. Well,
he drilled down to where they got oil, not a trace. Dug a little deeper, got a little
showing. And old man, oh, shucks -- Chafey (?). K.- Bill Chafey? F.- Bill Chafey, old
man Bill Chafey, the old man. K.- Yes. F.- He shot wells at that time. Got a trace of
oil and I was talking to Bill about it. And he says, "Well, you might shoot that. Might
bring In a well, you might not." I said, "What will it cost?" He says, "It won't cost much,
this Is shallow, a hundred dollars." I said, "Okay, you shoot It." And he went down there
and shot it, not a cup of oil. Old man Silk had a lease then ó K.- W. W. Silk of
Wichita. F.- --- on Mrs. Jennings' land. And I -- K.- That's south of town? F.- Yes. No,
this was east of town. K.- East? F.- Yes, Mrs. Jennings had some land back in there.
And so, I don't know how I got hold of this lease but I had a lease on, I think it was
about 25 acres. And I got Ralston to drill there and by George -- (inaudible). K.- Wasn't
that right across from the --- F.- Right across.K.- ---the big, pretty good Silk well? F.- Heck,
he got good wells all over there. I bet the lease is worth a million dollars. So I think,
well, I better finish up on that. And then somebody owed me a little something that had
a, old man Baggett had some kind of lease there on the Jennings. And there was little
wells all over that. K.- Shallow? F.- Shallow wells. Went down there and gave another one
a try. So then I got out of that. K.- You decided you couldn't be an oil man? F.- Couldn't
be an oil man. But I thought I was through, but I wasn't quite finished. Old man Baggett,
he owed me about $700 grocery b:tll and he couldn't pay it. And he had 50 acres there
that he owned in fee. He come in there and he says, "I can't ever pay you." And he says,
why he only had a fourth interest in this 50 acres. He said, "I've got 50 acres out
here and I own a fourth of it in fee. I'll give you that fourth for the grocery bill,"
Well, I said you're traded with. And I'd forgotten about the blamed thing. And Jodie Mayfield,
the boy that I was raised with in Erath County had gotten in with Mr. Griffin (?). Jodie
came up there and he asked me if I wasn't interested in the 50 acres out there. I said,
yes, I got a fourth interest in It. He says I made a trade with Dan Boone and Elvie Dale,
they own the other part of it, to drill a well. But they told me you was in- terested
in it. So I said it was all right with me, Jodie, I don't know anything about it. And
so I still didn't pay any attention to it. About a month after that --- ( End of Tape
)

Details

Title: E. M. Friend Interview [part 1 of 3]
Identifier: e_toi_0293
Description: Reel 135a: E. M. Friend and wife discuss experiences in the early oil industry in Electra, Texas.
Creator: Friend, E. M.
Friend, Mrs.
Boatright, Mody C. (Mody Coggin), 1896-1970
Kelly, Louise
Date: 1953-09-04
Date Created: 1953-09-04
Resource: Oral history of the Texas oil industry collection
Subject Geographic: United States - Texas - Wichita Falls
Physical Genre: Oral histories (literary works)
Extent: 7 inches
Collection Strength: American Energy Industry
Texas History
Project: Oral history of the Texas oil industry collection