A. R. Dillard Interview - A. R. Dillard Interview [part 3 of 3]

PIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL Topic: Electra, Wichita Falls, Spindletop Name: A. R. Dillard Interviewers: M.C. Boatright, Louise Kelley, J. W. Williams Place: Wichita Falls Tape No. 138 Date: September 5. 1953 Restrictions: ?

Oh, along in the early days, the beginning of the discovery of oil at Electra, of course they had oil, [there was] some oil and gas at, over here at Petrolia, the first of that stuff.

Back along about that time I practically knew every man that was in the, had anything to do with the oil business in the state of Texas an on, almost Louisiana, even the mule skinners and so forth.

Of course, we moved everything by teams in those days, and there's always new blood coming in there, in the oil country, by way of roughnecks and drillers and so forth, but I practically knew all of them,

And after this the Associated Oil Company notified me to come back to California, [it] was starting more drilling tools, rotaries; why, of course I headed back.

I came on in to Fort Worth and after I got to Fort Worth I decided I'd like to stop off at Electra and visit a day or two, you know, on my way to California.

What I had in mind is Fort Worth and then went to Pueblo and [from] Pueblo out of there to Santa Fe and to Bakersfield, and I changed my, well, might say ticket, to let me stop over here for a couple of days, and, no, I didn't.

I just bought a ticket to Wichita Falls. That's where, and I changed, cashed my old ticket out. And I got in here early in the afternoon and got off the train for the first time down here at this old station and came over in town and I found out right away where the hangout was for the oil people.

A little sporting good

house over here on Ohio about three doors up from the seventh street on the west side of the street.

W.- That was in Wichita Falls?

D.- Yes sir. And so I went around to this sporting goods house and a cigar place and a cold drink place and on the way, of course, was this saloon on each side of the, no, it was just on one side.

It was, and across the front. There was about seven saloons over in that block on both sides of the streets then; [they] were those old wide open old-time saloons.

But anyhow, I found out while I was over there that they, they ran a little old "mixed" train every morning from Wichita Falls up to Electra in the morning at seven o'clock and returned to Wichita Falls in the afternoon around six or six-thirty, and they called it the "Coal Oil Johnny."

They had one little passenger coach on the, behind the caboose, and they mixed freight going on it.

Carried light freight, small freight and would pull oil and whatever was switched or transferred from one railroad here to Electra, and I think they got most of the freight here on their through trains and let this little short run, this train, pull it straight on into Electra. And they'd switch up there all day and then come back that afternoon.

Well, I caught that thing next morning. A few of them came into this place that evening and I saw somebody, went back up there the next morning, went up there with them the next morning and they'd just had a blizzard up there and a terrible storm few days before I got off up there.

K. - What year was that?

D.- In 1912, March the 25th, and [it was] oh a little old, very small place. In fact, all the stores fronted the railroad and they

had front porches they called walks. Old board, wood construction, you know, and you'd walk across those things. You could hear a fellow coming for a quarter of a mile walking on those old loose front porches, you know, from one to the other. And I got around on the other side and I ran into a fellow named Frank Winsett(?).

I'd worked in a rig-building gang with him for my daddy, and he was the only rig-building contractor up there at that time.

The old Corsicana Petroleum, which is the Magnolia now, had their own rig-building crews and all they did was just the Magnolia work. But I bumped into him and he said, "My God, where'd you come from?" I said, "Well, I came from Corsicana."

Says, "Well, I'm sure glad to see you." I said, "Now, what in the heck you want to [be] so glad to see me about?" And he said, "Well, we got every doggone derrick in this country flattened out with the storm, and we're trying to get them back and I can't get any rig-builders up here."

Says, "I've called everybody in Louisiana and south Texas and where there's any rig-builders and I've gotten Tom McAdams up here and Luther McAdams and..." oh, he named off some of the old rig-builders "...but still I don't have enough to catch up with."

Says, "You got to go out here and go to work." I said, "No, not me. I'm, I quit rig-building several years ago. No, no rig-building for me."

I finally did go out and I said I'd go out and help them out a bit. I said, "I can't rig-build. I'm too soft."

He said, "Well, you haven't forgotten how to cut out a derrick or cut out a rig and build it." I said, "Well, I'd be a little slow, probably." He said, "Well, anyway, you're going to go out there and go to work for me."

I went out and before I got through with this job, I stayed with him about, oh, not hardly a month, and I got me a drilling job and went to work and

been out here ever since. This has been my headquarters.

B.- If it hadn't been for the storm you might not be here.

D.- Sir?

B. - If it hadn't been for the storm you might not be here.

D.- No, I wouldn't have been here. That's right, that's, right, you're exactly right.

W.- Who did you work for as a driller then?

D.- I worked for an old boy named George Orr, [spelling] double O-r, [probably means O-double r]. I failed to collect all my wages. He kind of light on finances and slow on pay. [laughter]

K.- Where was the first well you drilled up there?

D.- On the Douglas farm. I worked on this Douglas ranch, just east of, not too far from this new discovery up there.

K. - No. It was far out from town then but right in the edge now.

D.- No, it was about a mile and a half.

K.- Yes.

D.- East of, yes, we got a little well there. And it's really a wildcat, though.

Then I worked for Sanders, Bob Sanders, R. C. Sanders, [who] was one of the old contractors, and I worked for he and his partner Bass, E. P. Bass, "Doc" Bass, better known as "Doc" Bass, and I worked for Jerry Kinney, contractor.

Moved a rig down at Thrall and drilled a bunch of those serpentine wells down there right out of, just out of Taylor, you know.

W.- Now, what was that date on that Thrall field?

D.- Oh, that Thrall field, I believe it was 1915.

W.- It didn't last long, did it?

D.- No sir, the boom was over. They got some enormous wells, terrific

wells down there. I only stayed down there a short while. They were having an awful wet year that year and I think here that the water got up to your post office here if I remember.

K.- Yes.

D.- Yes.

W.- That's in '15, I think, yes.

D.- Paddle there in boats down town. I wasn't here but I knew that happened.

K. - They had a boat from Lake Wichita to...

D.- And the mosquitoes so bad I got a dose of malaria and I quit and came to, and I got my brother, [and] Mr. Johnston, my old friend that I spoke of a little while ago.

He ran me down, had a fellow named Faucett to run me down and he wanted me to go to Dallas and drill a water well for that University Park addition that was out.

The water well was really for S.M.U. and so I quit and went up there, right on Turtle Creek there on University Boulevard. You know where the city hall Is there?

K.- Yes.

D.- Well, it was right, that's where I drilled the water well. My brother and myself, and that was, they just had laid some pavement out there at that time and had started in to develop that addition. No homes. They did--

K.- S.M.U. had just been established a short time.

D.- No, they were still building on Dallas Hall and I remember that a right new preparatory school and Powell School, I believe it was Powell School, it was open, running, operating not back towards town from S.M.U. campus. Do you remember that building? It was a little

old three story brown brick building. It was there, I think, but all the rest of that country in there was farm land. Old black, sticky farm land. Of course, where your Austin chalk comes close to the surface of the ground, why, you always find black land on top of it, don't you?

K.- Yes sir.

D.- Yes.

K.- Well, did you drill just that one water well there?

D.- That's the only water well I ever drilled in my life for, just for the water, and that's to the Trinity. That water would flow nicely in those days. In fact, I'd go off a tower every day, I'd pull that pipe up about twenty feet and let the water flow out of the drill pipe you know, take the drill or kelly off and let the water flow back and, had the rig covered, you see, walled up and get a shower bath under that water.

Had to put it up there so it'd cool off before it hit the floor, you see. It was too hot to get right directly out of the well.

W.- Then you--

K.- Well, it--

D.- Even at that date the tools, the rotary equipment was, oh, very crude compared with our equipment today.

W.- It wasn't your rig, then? D.- And I had the, --Sir?

W.- It wasn't your rig yet that you drilled with or was it?

D.- No, it belonged to this Mr. Johnston, American Well and Prospecting Company. I'll say this, you might say that Mr. Johnston was way ahead of all rotary drilling equipment in his day. In other

words, he's the man that really put, I believe, put the punch in the rotary drilling by his--.

Had a wonderful mind and he was a wonderful inventor. Of course, your inventors were not schooled and they didn't have the schooling background that they have today, in all phases of engineering.

I know that and I'm not an educated man, either, because I quit school in my high school days. Haven't been back to school since.

W.- Was that the old rig, was there an old rig called the Johnston rotary then?

D.- That's it. That's the American Well and Prospecting. Johnston rig, that Johnston run. Gumbo Buster equipment.

B.- Now did you get back into the oil business after you finished that well in Dallas?

D.- No sir. I came on up here and I went to work for the Magnolia at Electra and, as a driller. The last drilling job I had was working over the old discovery well in the Electra field. The, what was the name of that well? Clayco, Clayco Oil Company was---

W.- --number one Putnam?

D.- --Magnolia now. It was Clayco Oil Company. Magnolia's changed their name half a dozen times since the beginning. Sir?

W.- Was it, that was on the Putnam? Or Woodruff(?) Putnam farm?

D.- Putnam number one. Putnam number one. Clayco Oil Company Putnam number one, and that's the last drilling job I had right there on that well. This man Bass--

K.- That wasn't number one.

D.- Yes ma'm. K.- Number one was in 1911.

W.- No, but he means he went back over it and was cleaning it out.

K. - Oh, was cleaning out. That's right. D.- No, I went back, that was a work-over. Worked It over in 1916.

K. - '16, yes, that might be.

D.- Then we formed, I formed a partnership with Dr. Bass in, first of August, 1916.

K.- That's E.P. Bass?

D.- Yes ma'm. He's been dead twenty years this year. [Transcription covered over by strong buzzing in tape which continues through major portion of reel. Conversation resumes toward end of tape.]

D.- I used Wilson and National rigs altogether. W.- He's said to be one of the biggest manufacturers of heavy rigs? D.- Of power rigs, of power rigs. W.- That's the, you mean gasoline? D.- Yes, that's, when you speak of power rigs, that's just two rigs, two types of rigs, steam and power. A power rig is diesel or gasoline or natural gas or any internal combustion engines, in other words, and geared to-- (End of Tape)