Frank Cullinan Interview - Frank Cullinan Interview [part 2 of 2]

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O.- Mr. Cullinan, I'd like you to tell us your story of how the Sharp-Hughes bit was
developed.
C.- Well, it is my understanding that the idea for the bit was strictly Walter Sharp's.
He was not an engineer, and it needed an engineer to develop it.
And Howard Hughes, who was a good engineer, was assigned the job of developing it, perfecting
it.
May be that there were some other bits that had been made with the same -- partially the
same idea, but I think the -- I don't think that Walter ever saw one of those.
The idea was his alone. They might have run into some slight infractions of other patents.
O.- At what point did you -- do you suppose they recognized the need for a rock bit?
C.- Well, they recognized the need for a rock bit when they found these rocks that were
hard to drill through with a rotary, and that was just a natural development.
O.- Yes, sir. That was -- They found the rock, of course, at Spindletop. That caprock there,
I guess, was the first thing that made them think about a rock bit.
C.- Well, I'm not certain. Of course, I'm not so sure that that's the first time.
I imagine that they had thought about it several -- a good many times before that when they
encountered rock, but that was the -- it was later than that that they developed the Hughes
bit.
O.- Yes, sir. I believe it was 1908.
C.- '07 or '08, along there someplace.
O.- Yes, sir. Well, can you recall the first time you saw one of those bits?
C.- Well, the first time I saw one of those bits run, I really didn't see the bit.
O.- Tell me about it.
C.- It was put in the hole and -- by Howard Hughes and a couple of his own men, and the
drilling crew was not even on the derrick floor. And I wasn't invited into the derrick
floor, but I guess I could have gotten in there.
O.- Yes, sir. When was that?
C.- Oh, well, that was in -- I think that was in 1908.
O.- Where - what well?
C.- Up in -- oh, I wouldn't know what well It was on. It was a well up in North Texas.
O.- Yes, sir. C.- Up in -- I think it was in Wichita or
Wilbarger County.
O.- Yes, sir. Well, did they -- I've heard stories that they kept people away with a
gun. Did they or not?
C.- Oh, no. That's all foolishness. To keep anybody away with a gun. Just tell them to
stay away, and they wouldn't come around.
O.- Well, what was the part of J. S. Cullinan in the development of that bit?
C.- Well, he and Walter Sharp were together in the development of the bit in the -- He
was interested in it. He thought it would cheapen the drilling.
And the Texas Company's -- the Producers Oil Company's wells were used as a guinea pig,
and the special greases were designed.
In the old bits they used a chamber for grease, and that special grease was made by the Texas
Company for that purpose.
O.- Well, I'll tell you some of the stories I've heard about the development of it. I've
heard that the first idea came in McLaughlin and Wynn's machine shop in Sour Lake, when
someone started turning an iron pipe on a concrete floor, and then someone got the idea
of a rock bit from that. Do you believe that story?
C.- No, I think -- I don't think that's the story of this particular bit.
O.- The story was that Walter Sharp and Hughes were in the shop along with others. That's
how it developed.
C.- Well, I don't know what Walter and Howard would be doing in there unless they were working
on their bit at the same time.
O.- Yes, sir. Were you ever in that machine shop when it was at Sour Lake?
C. - Yes, yes.
O.- Did it have a concrete floor? C.- I don't think so. I didn't remember it
as having a concrete floor.
O.- Were there many concrete floors around the oil fields in those days?
C.- Not too many. Not too many at that time.
O.- Is it true that machine shops were moved rather quickly from one place to another?
C.- Oh, that's been true of a good many of them, yes.
O.- So they'd just use a dirt floor and go ahead or --
C.- Yes. Some of them would just set up in a sheet-iron building. Usually --
O.- Yeah.
C.- Just like the old blacksmith shop.
O.- Well, do you know of any connection between the Humason bit and the Sharp-Hughes bit?
C.- No. No, I don't. I don't.
O.- Do you know the circumstances of their getting out of the Hughes Tool Company, that
is, when Sharp and Cullinan withdrew?
C.- Getting out of what?
O.- Of the Hughes Tool Company. They were in partnership at one point, and Cullinan
and Sharp withdrew.
C.- They sold the stock to Ed Prather.
O.- Yes. For what reason?
C.- Oh, I wouldn't have any idea what reason except that they didn't like the investment,
maybe.
O.- Yes. Did they make any money on it?
C.- No, they didn't.
O.- Yes, the money came later.
C.- The money came later. I think when Ed Prather sold out he had sold out as a profit.
I don't know that --
O.- Yes. C.- But I think he did. I've always understood
he did.
O.- Yes.
C.- A slight profit.
O.- All right. Let's take up another question. Who was the first person who ever used mud
in drilling?
C.- I wouldn't know.
O.- When did you first hear about mud in oil wells, about the use of it?
C.-Well, there was mud in the rotary drilling at Corsicana. That's the first time I ever
saw a rotary was at Corsicana.
O.- Yes. And they were using mud there.
C.- They used mud there, yes.
O.- But you don't know who had started using it?
C.- Now, they didn't add mud. In the process of drilling they'd put the water in, and of
course they'd bring out the gumbo, and that forms the mud.
O.- Yes.
C.- And not very heavy mud. They'd let it out before it got too -- replace it before
it got too heavy. Not like they do now. They add mud to it now.
O.- Yes.
C.- They have a preparation to make heavy mud.
O.- Yes. Well, do you know if anyone ever added mud in drilling a water well before
that time.
C.- No, I never heard of it. They may have, but I never heard of it.
O.- Yes. I've heard that water --
C.- Boughton was supposed to once, I think.
O.- Yes, I've heard that Walter Sharp and Boughton drilled a well over in the Carolinas
and ran into trouble and forced mud into it; but I have no verification of that.
C.- I've never had any verification of that at all. I think that I have heard people say
that Boughton was the first man who used --added mud.
O.- Yes. The Hamills did add mud when they were drilling the Lucas Gusher.
C.- Yes, after they got in trouble.
O.- After they got in trouble, yes; but -- so they must have had some idea from Corsicana
for that.
C.- Well, they drilled at Corsicana.
O.- Yes, they drilled at Corsicana; so they --
C.- Yeah.
O.- They knew about that.
C.- Well, the pumps they used at that time -- a little bit of a Smith-dale [?] pump that
wouldn't put up very much volume -- wouldn't put up very much pressure; and of course,
as long as it wasn't - was no caving, it was better to use the clear water.
O.- Yes. Well, who made the first mud mixers, then? Do you know about that?
C.- No, I don't know. They were just a box built up that they --No, I don't know. That'd
be -- they were being made in 1903 and '04 in there someplace.
O.- Yes. I've been told that Jim Sharp made the first one.
C.- I don't know.
O.- And I have no way of verifying it. I'm trying to find out. I wondered if you could
verify it for me.
C.- I wouldn't know.
O.- Well, did Jim have the turn of mind for inventing things that Walter had?
C.- Well, I don't know. I wouldn't be able to say. I would probably doubt it.
O.- Yes.
C.- Jim was a wonderful shot, and he was everything like that. But I never heard of him doing
any inventing of any sort.
O.- Yes. Well, do you know of anything else that Walter Sharp invented in connection with
the oil fields?
C.- No, I don't know of any.
O.- I'd like to go back to your early days at Beaumont now to ask you about the place
of the Negro in the oil fields there.
C.- Well, the Negro never had any place in the oil business at that time or, to my knowledge,
since except as a common laborer. O.- Yes. Did you ever know of any difficulties
with Negro labor in the oil fields there? Did you have any difficulty of riots or fight
or anything of the sort? C.- Only where some white men were involved.
O.- Yes. C.- The Negroes were always very peaceable,
and they'd fight amongst themselves once in a while --O.- Yes.
C.- But there never was any trouble except where some white men were involved.
O.- Yes. You never ran into a race riot then, of any sort.
C.- No. No. O.- I understand there was one in Sour Lake
in the early days. C.- Oh, well, that was settled by a -- one
man. I think he was a one-armed man at that, just asserting himself correctly; and that
was all fixed up. That was caused by white men interfering with the Negroes.
O.- Yes. Why were they interfering? C.- Oh, I wouldn't know. It was just some
-- It wasn't bad. O.- Yes. Were there many Negroes working at
Batson also? C.- Well, there were a lot of them there working
in the ground storage and teaming and things of that sort.
O.- Yes. C.- There wasn't any of them actually working
on the oil well or the pipeline or -- O.- Did you ever hear of a woman working in
the oil fields? C.- No, I never heard of any woman working
in the -- O.- I just wondered if any ever worked around
the wells or -- C.- I never heard of one.
O.- Yes. C.- They might have. I don't know. I never
heard of one. Some of them have developed fields and wells and things of that sort.
O.- Yes. On the financial side, yes. I meant the actual labor.
C.- Oh, no. I never heard of one. I -- no doubt they could do it if they wanted to.
O.- Yes. But how would the men in the field have regarded such a thing?
C.- What could they do? Not a thing. O.- Now to another kind of question. You were
laying pipes -- pipe-lines at Corsicana. What kind of equipment did you use for digging
there? I should have asked that earlier. C.- Pick and shovel.
O.- Pick and shovel? C. - Yeah.
O.- How many feet of pipe could you lay in a day? What kind of a crew -- what size crew
did you have? C.- Oh, that would depend on the crew altogether.
O.- Yes. C.- And the size of the pipe. But not a great
deal. There wasn't any of these big lines at that time.
O.- Yes. When did they first get the machinery for digging the pipe-lines?
C.- Well, they first had the ditching machines --O.- Yes.
C.- And then they had the other machines followed along just --
O.- Did they use ditching machines in Beaumont in those early days, or was all that pipe
laid by pick and shovel? C.- I don't think there was -- there were
any ditching machines that early. O.- Yes.
C.- Not when Spindletop came in. I think they were a later develop-ment.
O.- Yes. Well, there must have been some problem to lay from Sour Lake down then because the
-- when they went through the Big Thicket, how in the world did they lay pipe through
there with pick and shovel? C.- Well, of course they used an ax, too.
O.- Yes. Even so that makes -- C. - Saw and ax --
O.- A slow job. C.- You couldn't stop them. They could work
pretty fast, too. Don't -- oh, no, it wasn't no trouble. Nothing could stop them. If they
wanted to go someplace, they'd go. O.- Yeah.
C.- The -- nobody ever stopped anybody in the oil business to do anything he started
out to do. You either did it or bust. O.- Yeah. Well, you were talking - mentioning
Jack Innis [?] a little earlier. Could you tell me some of the stories about him? He
was a famous pipeline man, I understand. C.- Oh, he was really the famous old-time
pipeline man, but I wouldn't -- I don't think any of the stories about Jack should be told
because the poor fellow's dead now. O.- Where did he lay pipe chiefly?
C.- Oh, all around down in that area. O.- In that area. Chiefly there.
C.- General area. O.- Well, I'll go back and ask you about some
of the other people. You surely must remember some Jim Hogg stories.
C. - Who? O.- Jim Hogg, Governor Hogg, stories.
C.- Oh, yes. Well, he was a very delightful person, and he had a good many stories. Very
honest man and a good man. O.- But you can't remember any of the stories
about him that --C.- Oh, no. I wouldn't remember any of the stories because they don't -- they'd
probably be a lot of hearsay and nothing that -- nothing of any particular interest.
O.- Yes. He was the kind of person that people liked to make up stories about apparently.
C.- Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Yes. Some of them were very foolish. He was a good man; that's about
all I know about him. All that old bunch were pretty good citizens.
O.- This is April the 14th and a continuation of the interview with Mr. Frank Cullinan.
At this point I'd like to ask you about the time that J. S. Cullinan was put in charge
of fire fighting in the fields at Beaumont. C.- Well, there was already a fire there,
and he accepted the job of fighting it provided that he would be put to complete charge with
the right to handle things as he saw fit. And he was even given the right, if necessary,
to kill to -- of course, it was required for the protection of a lot of men who were there.
He was thinking about their safety as his own.
O.- Yes. You don't know which particular fire that was?
C.- Well, it was the one -- it was the big one that happened. No,
I wouldn't -- O.- Was it the Hogg-Swayne fire by any chance?
C.- Yes, it was -- O.- It was the Hogg-Swayne fire, yes.
C.- The whole thing was on fire at that time. O.- Were you down there at that time?
C.- Not of the fire, no. O.- Yes. So you're not an eye witness of what
went on. C.- No.
O.- But you kept hearing reports about it, I suppose.
C.- Oh, yes. I knew about the requirements and everything.
O.- Yes. Well, there's another thing I'd like to go into with you, and that's the matter
of the development on oil on roads to lay the dust. That began, I believe, with J. S.
Cullinan, also, did it not? C.- No, it had been used in California.
O.- It had already? C.- The petroleum had been used in California
in -- on sandy roads. O. - Yes.
C.- But this was a fuel oil from the refinery that he put on the roads and streets into
Corsicana, and streets of Corsicana which were not paved.
O.- Yes. And that was the first use of oil in Texas that you know of?
C.- In Texas, yes. Any place -- every place except some had been used in California.
O.- Yes, Did the use of asphalt grow out of that or do you know?
C.- Well, no, I don't know. Asphalt's a different, entirely different thing.
O.- Yes. C.- Asphalt, of course, solidifies, and this
was just a fluid put on to mix with the sand. O.- Yes.
C.- And it was very effective. O.- Yes. Did he have anything to do with the
development of the use of asphalt on the --C.- Very largely, yes.
O.- I'd like to know about that if you can tell me?
C.- Well, I think maybe that would be -- I think that would be in that book.
O.- Yes, sir, in the Texas Company history. C.- I think it would be.
O.- Yes, there is, I believe, mention of it. C.- Un-huh. That was at Port Neches.
O.- Yes. C.- That's where they put the -- they developed
a roofing and asphalt for paving streets and things of that sort.
O.- Yes. You had nothing to do with that yourself, sir.
C.- No. No, I was -- that was before I was down there at all.
O.- I see . C.- Well, it wasn't before I was -- it happened
about that time. That was a different department altogether, you see.
O.- Yes. Can you think of anything else in the way of inventions or developments that
J. S. Cullinan did? C.- No, I wouldn't -- of course, there were
a lot of them, but -- no, I wouldn't know of anything special.
O.- Do you think he had a particularly inventive mind?
C.- Far-seeing mind would be better -- O.- Yes.
C.- Rather than inventive. O.- Will you explain why?
C.- Well, because he could visualize things that would happen in twenty or twenty-five
or fifty years in advance. He demonstrated that in a good many cases -- had a good many
-- on a good many occasions. O.- Yes. How do you account for his particular
strength of mind and will? He was the strongest one, apparently, of the children in the family,
do you think? C.- Yes.
O.- How do you account for that? C.- I wouldn't know. I think he was probably
-- He had the brain of my mother, and he was absolutely fearless of -- feared nothing at
all. He could take care of himself in any situation physically or mentally or any other
way, and he was absolutely fearless and had a wonderful memory. All of the men that worked
for him knew that about his memory --O.- Yes. C.- Because they'd tell him one thing one
time, and two years after-wards tell him another on the same subject; and he'd call their at-tention
to what they had told him the first time, O. - Yeah.
C.- He'd always say, "If you don't know, say so, I don't want any mistake to get into my
mind." And he'd welcome the "I don't know"; but don't guess at something to tell.
O.- Well, that would have helped a great deal in his being a good executive, I think.
C.- Yes, it was - it did. O.- Did he ever run into any labor disputes
in the oil fields? C.- Only one time, and he settled that very
promptly. O.- Could you tell me about it?
C.- Yes, I could. I was there. He -- the strike was against the best friend labor had, which
was the Texas Company. Texas Company had raised the price of wages in Louisiana. They had
refused to join others and set a figure for labor at Beaumont -- this was later. And this
strike was at Humble, and they all called a meeting. And they had done a lot of damage
to other people. They had broken a contractor by setting gas off, and finally they had a
meeting. And J. S., who could speak very positively, finally said that, if there's a man in this
audience that can tell me what you're striking for without a conference with others, if you'll
get up and tell me what you're striking for, I'll grant your demands. And there wasn't
a man that knew. O.- You mean the whole thing was sponsored
by leaders, and the men didn't know? C.- Leaders. Leaders -- didn't know -- I mean
the leaders told them what to do. O.- Yes.
C.- To strike, but the strike went out the window.
O.- Yes. C.- That's the only real labor trouble that
I know that they have ever had. O.- Which union was that? Do you recall the
name of it? C.- I don't know. It was just a -- I don't
know what union it was. O.- It was a local --
C.- Oil-workers union. It was one that was formed.
O.- I believe there was one formed in Beaumont around 1904 or '05.
C.- Well, this was later than that. O.- Yes.
C.- This was at Humble. O.- Humble, yes. Then what -- about 1908 or
'09? C.- Well, there was one about 1904. 1904,
I know that they came over to Jennings, Louisiana, where I was at the time, and we of course
knew they were coming, the agitators. And when I told the boys on the rigs, "These boys
are coming over. You talk to them. Do any-thing you want to do. Just keep in your mind who
lays the wages over here, and you just do whatever you think is the best thing to do."
And I was pretty certain about what they would do without telling them. And when the agitators
came out to the rig, they promptly went in the slush pit; and that settled that strike.
O.- Did you see that happen? C.- Yes, from a distance.
O.- From a distance. How many did they throw into the slush pit?
C.- Oh, two or three of them. O.- Do you remember the names of any of those
big labor leaders? C.- No. Didn't know. I don't think the boys
on the rig found out what their names was. O.- Yes. Where do you suppose they were sent
in from? C.- Beaumont and --O.- Yes.
C.- When they organized that union in Beaumont about '04 or '05 there some place.
O.- Does the name Harry Paramore recall anything to you?
C.- No. Un-nuh. O.- I understand he was one of the early organizers
there. C.- No.
O.- How much -- did they do any property damage to the Texas Company at all?
C.- Well, some. O.- At Humble?
C.- Some. O.- What kind of damage did they do?
C.- Well, they -- I don't remember any little damage they might have done. Not very much.
O.- Yes. C.- They just shut them down for a while,
and of course they sent some men out there to protect the properties. But they shut down
the Texas Company drilling rigs that were under contract, and no damage to the Texas
Company or Producers Oil Company. O.- No.
C.- But they shut the gas off and stuck the contractor's pipe and broke the contractor,
who they were not after at all. O.- He was just an innocent victim.
C.- As usual the innocent victim was the one that got -- which had to suffer.
O.- Yes. What was the rate of pay, do you recall, at that time?
C.- No. No, not in general. The lowest pay was three dollars a day. That was the lowest
pay. O.- Yes.
C.- Then, of course, it run on up into -- according to the jobs.
O.- How did that compare with pay, say, in factories or on farms in Texas at that time?
C.- Oh, they couldn't make a comparison. It'd be all in favor of the oil field.
O.- Yes. C.- Different character of work, of course.
O.- Yes. What entered into your decisions to raise the pay at that time -- of the Texas
Company? C.- Well, the raise that was -- there wasn't
any raise in Texas. We were paying three dollars a day for the lowest rate in Texas, and we
went over to Louisiana, where the wages were two and two-and-a-half a day. We paid them
the Texas wage, and that was what the ob-jection was over there.
O.- Oh, I see. C.- And finally they were told that anybody
who wasn't worth three dollars a day wasn't worth anything; so that settled that. They
just -- the others had to raise the pay. O.- Yes.
C.- Haywoods and that crowd were getting off as cheaply as they could.
O.- Were there any paying less than two dollars a day over there?
C.- Well, I don't know as to that, but I know that the rate was gen-erally supposed to be
two and two-and-a-half a day. O.- Well, what else did the Texas Company
give the employees other than three dollars a day? Anything in housing or other assistance?
C.- Oh, of course, that was common for everybody. They -- at isolated places they built houses
for them to live in and charged them a very cheap rent -- charged them a rent that was
less than the upkeep on the house. O.- Yes.
C.- A good many did that. O.- Most of them built houses instead of using
tents then. For any long-range plan they'd have to, I guess.
C.- Well, of course, they couldn't use tents over long, long periods.
O.- Yes. C.- But on a lease they would build a house.
Not so much the pipe-line. Pipeline was -- when the Texas Company in the pipeline -- that
was pretty permanent when they built a station. That was to last a long time, and the same
applied to a lease, a producing lease. O.- Yes.
C.- That would not be for a short period. Now, drilling test wells, well, they'd just
put up a tent or anything else, but temporary hous-ing.
O.- Yes. As a matter of fact, I've seen a picture of a Texas well about 1904, I suppose.
There's a ten at one side with a big sign on it, The Texas Company; somebody had painted
on it with white paint. So I think that would be pretty typical of the sort of thing they'd
set up for a wildcat well. C.- Well, I don't know. I don't know. Was
it right at the well? O.- Yes, it was very close to the well.
C.- Well, they would have the housing -- tents as they called them -- they would have them
a good distance away from the well. O.- Because of the danger of --
C.- No, not danger, but the noise and everything. O.- Yes.
C.- These people had to sleep. O.- Well, another question I'd like to ask.
There must have been oc-casional deaths in the field or on the pipelines either from
natural causes or from accidents. C.- I'm not talking so much about the pipeline.
I'm clear away from the pipeline. O.- Yes. All right, then, in the oil fields
themselves. What did the company do for the family of the person who died in service either
naturally or accidentally? C.- Oh, there was different things done. All
of them were fairly treated, all of them. O.- A gift of money or --
C.- Taking care of families or things of that sort for a period.
O.- Yes. C.- And, of course, that depended largely
on the recommendation of the supervisors in charge.
O.- Yes. I'm asking you these questions because I rarely find a per-son who is acquainted
with what went on in that aspect of the work; because welfare is always a problem. What
about sickness? How did they take care of the sick?
C.- They went ahead and paid their wages while they were sick.
O. - Yes. Didn't provide medical care. Co- Well, no, they'd see that they had it
O.- Yes. C.- But there was no provision for that. There
was no contract for the labor. O.- Yes. Or with the individual.
C.- Well, I mean there was no contract with the individual labor.
O.- Individual labor, oh. Or with a union. Of course, there was no union.
C.- Oh, we didn't have unions. O.- Yes, that's right. All right.
C.- That was the time in the oil business when you could run your own business.
O.- Did you have epidemics very frequently or at all in the fields you were acquainted
with? C.- No. Epidemics of what?
O.- Well, of malaria. C.- Illness?
O.- Illness of any kind? C.- Oh, no. No.
O.- How did you fight the malaria problem in that area then?
C.- Well, you just took a lot of quinine, and it was pretty tough.
O.- How often did you take it? C.- Well, now, that was when you -- if you
were ill, that was what the doctor would give you.
O.- Yes. You didn't take it regularly? C.- Oh, no. No.
O.- Just to cure it after you got it. Well, I just got the chronology established. When
did you go to the North Texas fields, then? C.- Early in 1907.
O.- Still with the Producers? C.- Yes.
O.- And how did you happen to go. Did they send you up there to work in new fields?
C.- No. I was vice-president of the company, and the reason I went up there was that I
was ill, and I thought that would be a better climate to live In for a while. And it certainly
was. O.- Where did you settle?
C.- Wichita Falls. O.- How long did you live in Wichita Falls
then? C.- Well, from - oh, 1907 or '08 to 1915.
O.- But during that time you were supervising developments all over that area?
C.- All over the area, yes. O.- What was the first field that you worked
with there that came in? C.- Petrolia.
O.- I don't know about that field. Could you tell me something about it?
C.- Well, there's not much to tell. It was a -- principally a gas field, gas producer.
That's the first gas brought to Fort Worth and Dallas. It was from Petrolia. The first
well of consequence. They had some shallow wells there before, but the first well of
con-sequence was drilled by the Higgins Oil Field Company.
O.- Was that Patillo Higgins' outfit out of Houston?
C.- Yeah. O.- Was he still with it then?
C.- They called it the Clayco. It afterwards was taken over by the Magnolia.
O. - Well, how much had they been using gas up till that time? Had there been successful
use of gas for fuel earlier than that? C.- Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Well, not In Texas.
There wasn't no big line in Texas. O.- Yes. That's what I meant, in Texas.
C.- Not in Texas. No, that was the first. There was a gas line in Corsicana in the early
days. That's before Spindletop. O.- Yes.
C.- But that was the first long or trunk line, you might say.
O.- Yes. How large a field did it develop into?
C.- Oh, I wouldn't remember the acreage, but it was quite a nice field. Principally gas.
O.- Yes. C.- There was considerable oil there, too,
but it was principally gas. O.- Well, wasn't gas considerably more dangerous
to handle? C.- No. Handle it correctly, there wasn't
either of them any danger. O.- Yes. But a great number of people didn't
handle them correctly, apparently. C.- Well, that was their bad luck.
O.- Yes. Do you recall any big fires at Petrolia? C.- No, I don't think there were any there.
O.- Well, what was the next field after Petrolia, then?
C.- Electra. O.- Electra. You were telling me a story about
Walter Sharp and a black cat. Would you like to repeat that story for me?
C.- Well, I don't think there's anything to it. That happened consi-derably after the
Electra field was first discovered. There was trou-ble in developing it. It was expensive,
and a lot of the experts didn't think there'd be any oil produced that would pay the expense
of get-ting it. But the Texas Company was the -- Producers Oil Company was the biggest
lease holder in that area. One lease that covered five hundred and seventy-seven thousand
acres, and a lot of other leases. But the wells at first were small and not too -- not
very satisfac-tory. The Texas Company felt too much money was
being spent for the results they were getting, and they reached a conclusion to discon-tinue
it, to drop out and quit. J. S. Cullinan, Ira Slate [?] and Walter Sharp had been up
there, and I was driving the car coming p. 27 back. Of course, I had been in on all of
the conversations, and I had been quizzed pretty good, and my opinion was asked of the
future. And I was fairly optimistic, not entirely optimistic; but anyway they decided not to
continue at Electra, spend a lot of money. I was just about Iowa Park, halfway between
Electra and Wichita Falls; and Walter said, "Stop. Stop. Let him get over." I didn't know
what it was. I thought maybe it was a snake, but finally saw a black cat. He crossed in
front of us, and Walter said, "We're going ahead with Electra. If you don't want to go,
Prank and I will take it over, and we'll tear it up." After we got to Wichita Falls nobody
said anything in the back seat -- after we got to Wichita Falls at the Washington Hotel,
Slate said to J. S., "What did he mean by that?" J.S. said, "You heard him." And that
was all there was to it. O.- You went ahead at Electra.
C.- We went ahead with Electra. O.- How did you make out?
C.- Well, pretty good. Plenty good. O.- Do you know any other cases in which he
played a hunch like that? C.- Well, not -- that's just one of the things
about Walter Sharp. He would pull something like that, which doesn't mean that he wasn't
brainy and thoughtful. It's exactly the reverse. He was, but once in a while something like
that -- O.- Did Electra have a boom similar to that
at Batson? C.- Oh, no. No, it was a different type altogether.
No, no boom like that. O.- How do you account for that?
C.- What? O.- The fact that there was no -- there was
just less oil, or did they have things -- C.- No, it wasn't --
O.- Better under control. C.- It wasn't all grouped in one little spot.
It covered acres and acres, and it was a very reasonable development, and there wasn't any
great crowds of gamblers come in. That's what created the trouble at Batson was the gamblers.
O.- Yes. C.- Easy-money people.
O.- What was the next field you worked in after Electra?
C.- Well, now, I didn't work in any of those fields.
O.- I mean as -- I should supervised. C.- That's exactly what it is. Well, after
that, the Archer coun-try and Archer County fields, and then on down into Stephens County,
and finally into Eastland County, and -- oh, just generally all over that area.
O.- Yes. C.- Which was the North Texas area.
O.- Yes. C.- And they're finding new fields there right
now at different places. O.- Why did you decide to come back to Houston
then? C. - Well, that was a company business. I
came back here to -- at that time we had a division at Oklahoma,
separate division of which I had nothing to do with. Then I came back to Houston to supervise
all over the Producers Oil Company. O.- Yes. Your general offices were here --
C.- Um-huh. O.- As long as the Producers existed.
C.- Um-huh. O. - As a company.
C.- Yeah. O.- I'd like for you to repeat what you told
me about the Caddo Field. C.- Savage Brothers drilled a well and discovered
production at Caddo, and we had a couple of small tracts with an obligation to drill.
Now, Savage, at this depth where our wells blew out -- both of them blew out at the same
time. And Savage Brothers, they were right close to his -- their wells, but they did
not find any gas at this depth. We were not looking for it and ran into it, and both wells
blew out. One of them caught fire. The other we got the casing in and controlled it, but
one of them blew out and fired and cratered, and we had a very, very big fire. The governor
of Louisiana, the chief geologist of the State, and everybody came up there on a special train
to see what to do to put it out. They thought we were not giving it attention, and they
made the -- they did a lot of political talk-ing, and some of them made the
statement that for five thousand dol-lars it could be put out, not knowing anything
about it. And we immediately deposited twenty-five thousand dollars in the bank in Shreveport
reward for anybody that could put It out. They went out and done all their political
talk; and in the meantime while they were out in the field, this money was put up. When
they came back, they had several say they could put it out for five thousand dollars
and all that, and the chief engineer of the state came up to see me at the Caddo Hotel.
I was the representative of the Producers Oil Com-pany that night after they got back
from the field, and he wanted to know what we had planned to do. "Well," I said, "I think
it might be up to you to tell me what to do, and I'll try to do it. We'll do everything
we can." He said, "I'm lost. I don't know anything about it. You tell me what you plan
to do, and that's what I'll recommend." And that's what he did recommend.
O.- What did you plan to do? C.- Well, I planned to drill a well and let
the gas off. Not drill a well as we do now, but drill a straight hole and pump water in
and flood it; so that's what we did to it. O.- Was that successful? Was that successful?
C.- It was, yeah. O.- Was that the first time that was ever
done? C.- No. Oh, no, it had been done before.
O.- Do you know who first thought of the process? C.- No. No. No, I don't and -- but now, you
see, they drill a hole from off to the side and drill into the sand right at the bottom
of the well. O.- Yes.
C.- Then pump the water in there. First pump water, and then pump mud in on top of it.
O.- How long was that before the Harold Number Seven thing?
C.- Oh, that was a long time. O.- It was?
C.- Yes. I don't remember when Harold Seven was in, but it must have been three years.
It wasn't any -- there wasn't much production of anything, oil or gas or anything over there
where we were. O.- Yes. How did Walter Sharp happen to be
at Harold Seven? C.- He went up there when it blew out.
O.- Went from Houston up to it to -- C.- Um-huh.
O.- Look it over. C.- Well, now, I don't know where he went
from, where he was. O.- In other words, he went there.
C.- Yes. O.- All right. Fine.
C.- Yes. He went, too. O.- He was headquartered in Houston at the
time. C.- Oh, yes.
O.- Um-huh. You can't give me the name of anyone who can describe what went on?
C.- No. No. I know in my own mind. I would quote it. It might be in error.
O.- Yes. C.- And I wasn't there.
O.- You don't know of any injuries that he suffered there that may have affected his
health later on? C.- No. But he might have had an injury that
would have affected his -- [End of reel.]

Details

Title: Frank Cullinan Interview [part 2 of 2]
Identifier: e_toi_0318
Description: Reel 152: Frank Cullinan continues discussing experiences in the oil industry at Spindletop, Batson and Sour Lake, Texas.
Creator: Cullinan, Frank
Owens, William A., 1905-1990
Date: 1954-04-15
Date Created: 1954-04-15
Resource: Oral history of the Texas oil industry collection
Subject Geographic: United States - Texas - Houston
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