1
10
4
-
https://bristoworalhistory.org/files/original/b6438bd81c99f5f79932802cf014d578.jpg
36d19139284163f00d3fc3ff007e1319
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Early Drilling Near Bristow
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral Histories of Drilling in the early 1900s
Description
An account of the resource
Oral accounts of drilling for oil and natural gas near Bristow in the early 1900s
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Bristow Historical Society, oral history collection
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
N/A
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Ralph R. "Brick" Kirchner
OHMS Object
This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS
Viewer)
https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0015-01_Kirchner,_R_R_Rotary_Club.xml
Interview Keyword
This field adds keywords to the Omeka Oral History item type. Keywords are
included in the OHMS XML, this field in Omeka will allow for full data migration
between OHMS XML and the Omeka Record. This field does not impact the
OHMS / Omeka integration and is optional if you do not need to map the
“keywords” field in the OHMS XML to the corresponding Omeka record.
oil drilling, Bristow Rotary Club, Ralph Kirchner,
OHMS Object Text
This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the
contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka
5.4 OHP-0015-01 Ralph Kirchner at Bristow Rotary Club OHP-0015-001 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Oil Drilling - The Early Years Bristow Historical Society, Inc. oil drilling, Bristow Rotary Club, Ralph Kirchner, Ralph R. " ; Brick" ; Kirchner N/A MP3 1:|17(6)|27(6)|44(7)|61(15)|70(12)|80(2)|93(2)|106(2)|122(3)|135(2)|146(14)|158(2)|170(8)|178(6)|188(3)|198(9)|216(2)|226(13)|236(13)|245(13)|256(7)|266(10)|277(15)|285(7)|295(6)|308(7)|318(9)|327(1)|338(10)|349(10)|369(3)|382(11)|389(14)|401(8)|417(13)|425(15)|436(9)|450(12)|460(1)|473(4)|482(5)|496(16)|513(12)|524(14) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0015-01 Kirchner, R.R. Rotary Club.mp3 Other audio 0 Introduction of Ralph " ; Brick" ; Kirchner EM: We’ll have to be real quiet on this now. (Pause in recording) EM: [inaudible] He has attained the ripe of age of ninety-one. His father made the run in to Oklahoma territory in…1889? BK: Ninety-three. EM: Ninety-three, back here when the state [inaudible]. BK: That’s correct. EM: Brick attended the Oklahoma A& ; M College, for those of you who are not familiar with that, it’s now Oklahoma State University. Brick is also the dean of the Bristow District Rotary Government, having served since 1931 and 1932. There are many more facts about Brick Kirchner that I’d like to bring out is that Brick Kirchner is—or was, at one time—in the newspaper publishing business. Brick Kirchner owned half interest in a newspaper in Ada, Oklahoma. Having seen the error of his ways, he took his money out of the newpaper— Guest speaker Ralph " ; Brick" ; Kirchner is introduced by Ed Mackenson Brick ; Bristow Rotary Club ; Congress ; Oklahoma A& ; M College ; Ralph R. " ; Brick" ; Kirchner Introduction of Ralph " ; Brick" ; Kirchner 143 Ralph Kirchner Early Years BK: [inaudible] No, I don’t care. Am I speaking into this? Okay. Mr. Steward, thank you very kindly for that very nice and very liberal education, and I’m happy that my [indecipherable] section is here, too. (chuckling) BK: And the [indecipherable] section’s been here for a long time. I thought, too, it was kind of odd, Doc Yourman got the program for Don Kitchens, and Don Kitchens couldn’t be here, so Ed McMillan—I mean, Ed Mackenson introduced me for Don Kitchens. Now that beats around the bush a little bit. (laughter) Ralph " ; Brick" ; Kirchner speaks about his early years in college and in the military. Army ; Ed Mackenson ; Gulf Oil Production ; Gypsy Oil Company ; J.D.Ward ; Oklahoma A& ; M Ralph Kirchner Early Years 372 Ralph " ; Brick" ; Kirchner sells real estate BK: Now that’s something, too! And I went to Perry. That’s my old hometown. And Perry is—was about eighteen, twenty miles—about twenty miles, I guess—southeast of Garber, and Garber was really booming then. Plenty of production around there, but Garber was really booming of that fine, high-grade oil. And my dad was in the real estate business and he would buy royalties. So he and two other gentlemen that I knew bought royalty under the Wolf (ph) farm about two miles south of Garber. And my dad had told me, and so had Mr. Mauser (ph) that they would like to sell their interest if they could get $15,000 for it. So I thought that I’d use that as a starter and I went to Enid and I managed to sell that royalty—represented that I owned its individual interest and could deliver it for $22,500. And that’s quite a bit of profit. So I had to buy it first, so when I came home that evening I went to my banker, Mr. John Hanson (ph), the Bank of Commerce, and explained the deal to him and I said, I’d like to borrow the money from you to buy this. He said, Alright, I’ll do it. I’ll tell you how I’ll do it: I’ll do it for half of the profit. (laughter) Ralph " ; Brick" ; Kirchner talks about buying and selling royalties in Oklahoma. Enid ; Garber ; Mr Hanson ; Perry ; royalty Ralph " ; Brick" ; Kirchner sells real estate 537 Ralph " ; Brick" ; Kirchner goes into the oil business So I was acquainted with Jim Sloane (ph). Jim was the tool pusher for the Roxanna Oil Company. And a tool pusher—that means he had charge of all their drilling tools, and hiring the men and so forth and operate the rigs. And so Jim and I decided to go into partnership and buy a string of tools, which we did. And Jim was fortunate enough to get his assistant pusher—to get his assistant pusher appointed to fill his position at the Roxanna. Here’s the deal: that enabled us to borrow from [indecipherable], this assistant, any tools that we didn’t have! So that made a nice deal for me, too. Brick begins a partnership and starts Kirchner & ; Sloan, Inc. Billings Petroleum Company ; doodlebug ; Jim Sloane ; Kirchner & ; Sloan, Inc ; oil ; Roxanna Oil Company ; tools ; Yukon Ralph " ; Brick" ; Kirchner goes into the oil business 759 Getty Oil Company Contract But by that time, it was necessary that we got our rig moved because we had a contract with the Getty Oil Company. The Getty Oil Company was owned by J. Paul Getty. This location was on a main (ph) six miles east of Billings. J. Paul owned the Getty Oil Company. His father, Colonel Getty, was the big dog Getty in the oil business at that time. He owned the Minnehoma Oil Company and had mass production in the Garber field. We drove this well for Mr. Getty and we had our bunkhouse there, and it was the cook shack also. Some of the crew stayed in the house and we cooked our meals there. And our meals was either hot dogs or hotcakes. Hotcakes for breakfast and hot dogs at the other two meals. Ralph " ; Brick" ; Kirchner drills for Getty Oil Company Bank of Commerce ; drilling ; Getty Oil Company ; Hoover sand ; J. Paul Getty ; Kirchner & ; Sloane, Inc. ; Minnehoma Oil Company ; Mr. Hanson ; oil ; Santa Fe Station Getty Oil Company Contract 1005 Ralph " ; Brick" ; Kirchner drills for J.D. Means BK: Well, I have a lot written down here. (laughter) BK: Our next well, after Mr. Getty’s well, was for J.D. Means, and it was by the northeast offset to Mr. Getty’s. And while we were drilling that well for Mr. Means, Marland Oil Company was drilling in the northeast corner of the section and we were in the southeast corner of that same section. We made a small well for Mr. Means, but Mr. Getty—I mean, Mr. Marland, on his location up there, got a nice well and that was the discovery well for the great Oklahoma Three Sands pool. And incidentally the north offset to that, my dad had some royalty that he purchased under that, too, that offset—that well was dry. The east offset and for a mile and a half or two miles north and south, and a mile and a half wide, was the Garber field, and it was a dandy. [There are a] few wells producing there today. Ralph " ; Brick" ; Kirchner drills for J.D. Means and discusses life in the oilfield boarding house ; Bristow ; bunkhouse ; Caufield Oil Company ; Garber field ; J.D. Means ; John Phillips ; Krumme ; Marland Oil Company ; oil scouts ; Oklahoma Three Sands Pool ; Phillips Petroleum Company ; Red Fork ; rig Ralph " ; Brick" ; Kirchner drills for J.D. Means 1408 Drilling in Slick, Oklahoma Well, we got started at Slick. We were on fuel number one, and after we got a little below a hundred feet we went through the line and left the tools in the hole. We had about three feet of line—the line broke about three feet up above the tools. And those drilling lines, as most of you know, have six strands. They’re six to nineteen line, they’re called. There’s six—there’s three big strands and nineteen little strands in there. Well, we had the casing rolled down to get over the tools to pick ‘em out but I couldn’t get over it on account of that size of wire there. And we ran a light down the hole to see what condition it was, because you could look down there and see it with a light in there. And it was frazzled out, and I said, If that wire was cut off at the top of that socket, we could fish those tools out. And one of the men volunteered to go down and I thought, That’s a foolish trip. And we had [indecipherable] it’d break our company for sure. So I went down myself. And I put a felt hat on and filled it with waste up there because you could hear chunks go down there and hit the water around those tools and go ka-PLUNK and you didn’t know whether it was a big chunk or a little chunk or whether it was a rock or a piece of shale. Nevertheless, I went down and it wasn’t dangerous. However, we were drilling an 18” hole and right on top of the ground was cable tools you stomp, you know, and put a little water in the hole and stomp down there and bail out what you’ve mixed, that’s the way they drill with cable tools. Ralph " ; Brick" ; Kirchner discusses drilling near Slick, Oklahoma and for Caufield Oil Company on the Sewell Farm Barney Sewell ; Caufield Oil Company ; control head ; drilling ; Dutcher ; eight-mile corner ; explosion ; oil ; Sewell ; Sewell Farm ; shell ; Slick Drilling in Slick, Oklahoma and for Caufield Oil Company 1872 Ralph " ; Brick" ; Kirchner discusses Jim Sloane BK: --he said, No sir, mister, [indecipherable], said, We done closed the rolls. (laughter) BK: [Indecipherable.] –my partner in Kirchner & ; Sloane, Inc. was Jim Sloane (ph). Jim wanted to continue drilling on a contract basis. I wanted production. So we dissolved partnership and dissolved the corporation and I got—and divided up the tools. We had two strings at that time. And I got a lease on the Henry Fisher farm south of here, and many of you are familiar with the Fishers and some of ‘em buy their eggs there, I imagine. But we drilled a well on it, I sold some interest in it for to raise a little money to drill it with and I sold Art Stone (ph) on the interest on those. And Art was out there the day we were to hit the sands. And I was in to fifteen-ten (ph) and it was looking good, and I sold Art Stone a ninety-sixth (ph) interest for $3,000 on the derrick floor there just by a shake of the hands—and that’s the way many, many deals were closed, just by a shake of the hands. And it wasn’t an hour until we’d hit—until we hit the sand. And when she started smoking gas we started out of the hole, but the oil beat the tools out of the hole. And did we feel good! And so we had the tanks up anticipating a well, and we had the tanks up so we got out of the hole and tools and closed that control head and turned it into the tanks and it was flowing into the tanks. And we went home that night, nice little fortune between the [indecipherable] bungalow. I figured, I think we’re rich. What in the world could we do now for our poor relatives? Ralph " ; Brick" ; Kirchner discusses Jim Sloane and how they dissolved the partnership Art Stone ; Jim Sloane ; Kirchner & ; Sloane, Inc Ralph " ; Brick" ; Kirchner discusses Jim Sloane 2063 Gotham Oil Company BK: Let’s see. The next one—I moved from there over to [indecipherable] 15-10 for the Gotham Oil Company. The Gotham Oil Company was out of Washington, D.C. And M.M. Wyville (ph) was the major holder in the Gotham Oil Company. And M.M. Wyville (ph) was secretary to William Jennings Bryan when Bryan secretary of war under Woodrow Wilson, to give you a little line-up on that. We drove that well for, for Gotham and when she started smoking gas—we had the control head on—we turned it into the pit, turned the well into the pit in case it wouldn’t flow. And Mr. Wyville (ph) and I went to Bristow to order out the tanks. We did, we ordered out a full tank and two 250s. Tanks then were all folded tanks, they weren’t welded like they are today. But when we got the tanks set—the well’d flowed twice into the pits when we got back. When we got the tanks set we picked up 450 barrels of good oil out of the pits. And [indecipherable] wanted to drill the well six inches, and we tried to hit the string on six inches—six inches above the clamps—and clipped it to the clamps, and it didn’t change the motion at all. And when it drilled off, it came out of that hole. That well made 450 barrels. That was sixty-one years ago now, today. Sixty-one years ago and that well is still producing between seven and eight barrels in the Meisner sand. Drilling for the Gotham Oil Company and discussion of Claude Freeland Albert Kelly ; Claude Freeman ; Corporation Commission ; gauger ; George Fargo ; Gotham Oil Comapany ; Levan ; M.M. Wyville ; Poor Farm ; Prairie Oil and Gas ; William Jennings Bryan ; Woodrow Wilson Claude Freeland ; Drilling for the Gotham Oil Company ; Prairie Oil and Gas 2390 Bristow is a Boom Town BK: Bristow was a—Bristow was a real boom town and my time’s about gone, but I wanted to tell you some of the things that aren’t here now that I saw here. We had three refineries here. A Bristow Refining Company out here on the Kelly farm here right at the north edge of town. Wilcox Refinery across the railroad track east of it. And then the Sun Company Oil Refinery up on the hill—one of the old [indecipherable] refineries. We have no refineries here now. We used to have the Republic Supply Company here—that’s an oilfield supply company. Across the street was the Oil Well Supply Company. Then after that was the National Supply Company. A couple of blocks north and a half east was the— Bristow was a " ; real boom town" ; with many refineries and oil businesses. American Tool Machine Company ; Bristow ; Bristow Pipe and Machine Company ; Bristow Refining Company ; Chester ; Cushing ; Ed Abraham ; National Supply Company ; Oil Well Supply Company ; Producer Supply Company ; refineries ; Republic Supply Company ; Sun Company Oil Refinery ; Wilcox Refinery Discussion of Bristow as a boom town In this 1979 interview, Ralph R. “Brick” Kirchner (1893-1990) speaks extensively about the oil drilling industry in Bristow, Oklahoma in the early 1900s, business involvement with J. Paul Getty, anecdotes about Tom Slick, how people handled their new-found oil wealth, and restrictions upon Indians regarding the handling of their own finances. EM: We' ; ll have to be real quiet on this now. (Pause in recording) EM: [inaudible] He has attained the ripe of age of ninety-one. His father made the run in to Oklahoma territory in--1889? BK: Ninety-three. EM: Ninety-three, back here when the state [inaudible]. BK: That' ; s correct. EM: Brick attended the Oklahoma A& ; M College, for those of you who are not familiar with that, it' ; s now Oklahoma State University. Brick is also the dean of the Bristow District Rotary Government, having served since 1931 and 1932. There are many more facts about Brick Kirchner that I' ; d like to bring out is that Brick Kirchner is--or was, at one time--in the newspaper publishing business. Brick Kirchner owned half interest in a newspaper in Ada, Oklahoma. Having seen the error of his ways, he took his money out of the newpaper-- (laughter) EM: Brick also has--I don' ; t know whether this is a distinction or--but Brick has stood for public office. Brick ran for Congress in the fourth congressional district on the Republican ticket and I think that' ; s the reason I got to introduce you today, Brick, is because I ran on the Democratic ticket about twenty years later. (laughter) EM: I asked him what year he ran, he couldn' ; t tell me. He said, What year did you run? I said, I don' ; t remember either. (laughter) EM: Without any further accolades, I' ; d like to introduce to you, our dean of the Bristow Rotary Club, Brick Kirchner. (applause) BK: [inaudible] No, I don' ; t care. Am I speaking into this? Okay. Mr. Steward, thank you very kindly for that very nice and very liberal education, and I' ; m happy that my [indecipherable] section is here, too. (chuckling) BK: And the [indecipherable] section' ; s been here for a long time. I thought, too, it was kind of odd, Doc Yourman got the program for Don Kitchens, and Don Kitchens couldn' ; t be here, so Ed McMillan--I mean, Ed Mackenson introduced me for Don Kitchens. Now that beats around the bush a little bit. (laughter) BK: But I' ; m happy to be here, and I want to endeavor to give you some interesting points about the life of a ninety-one-year--of a ninety-one-year-old oilman. When I got out of school at Oklahoma A& ; M, I went to work for the Gypsy Oil Company in Tulsa. Gypsy Oil Company was the production department of the Gulf Oil Corporation, and I was in the production department at seventy-five dollars a month, if you please. Not bad! It wasn' ; t--I wasn' ; t there too long until I had an opportunity for a better salary and I went to Collinsville for Mr. J.D. Ward at a hundred-and-a-quarter a month, and then I was in tall cotton. I thought that was something. I got my first production-- (pause) Well, I was with Mr. Ward and he encouraged me, and then he said, You ought to get something for yourself. So I acquired a lease on eighty acres east of Owasso, Oklahoma and I sold it the superintendent of the Bartlesville Yanks (ph) Company, provided he would drill a well and carry me into the tanks and first well. That he did. We got a little well on the Bartlesville, around 7,800 feet and didn' ; t amount to very much. So I was fortunate enough to sell the well and lease and get Mr. Gardstock' ; s (ph) money back for him out of the deal. But nevertheless that was--that was my first real introduction in it where I' ; d get a little grease on my hands. That, that' ; s oil business. I [indecipherable] to the Army from Collinsville, and my employer, Mr. Ward, got me a deferment for a while, and then I volunteered in the Army for the--in the F-A-C-O-T-S. That' ; s Field Artillery Central Offices Training School at Camp Taylor, Louisville, Kentucky. I had letters from my employer that when I got out of the Army that he had great things planned. But I had something planned, also. I figured if I had made money for him buying and selling real estate and leases, I certainly ought to be able to do it for myself. So I got my discharge from the army and incidentally I got my discharge and my commission in the same envelope. (laughter) BK: Now that' ; s something, too! And I went to Perry. That' ; s my old hometown. And Perry is--was about eighteen, twenty miles--about twenty miles, I guess--southeast of Garber, and Garber was really booming then. Plenty of production around there, but Garber was really booming of that fine, high-grade oil. And my dad was in the real estate business and he would buy royalties. So he and two other gentlemen that I knew bought royalty under the Wolf (ph) farm about two miles south of Garber. And my dad had told me, and so had Mr. Mauser (ph) that they would like to sell their interest if they could get $15,000 for it. So I thought that I' ; d use that as a starter and I went to Enid and I managed to sell that royalty--represented that I owned its individual interest and could deliver it for $22,500. And that' ; s quite a bit of profit. So I had to buy it first, so when I came home that evening I went to my banker, Mr. John Hanson (ph), the Bank of Commerce, and explained the deal to him and I said, I' ; d like to borrow the money from you to buy this. He said, Alright, I' ; ll do it. I' ; ll tell you how I' ; ll do it: I' ; ll do it for half of the profit. (laughter) BK: Well, now, he didn' ; t hurt himself any--if seventy-five--that' ; s $3,750 is all he was going to charge me for that $15,000 for about thirty days. And that was our last--I was pleased that I could get the money so I told my dad and I went home and I said, I' ; d like to buy your Wolf (ph) royalty. He said, You' ; d like to buy my royalty? Now, how in the hell would you--could you buy it? (laughter) BK: Well, I couldn' ; t have that morning, but I-- (laughter) BK: I could that evening because I had arranged for the credit! He said, Well, I' ; ve decided I don' ; t want to sell mine. Now that was a shock to me, first. The other gentlemen that I knew that had that like interest was in Amarillo. I didn' ; t know whether he' ; d be in, so I did manage to acquire the interest of a gentleman in Pawnee and I delivered it and I got my $22,500, Mr. Hanson (ph) got $3,750 and I got $3,750 out of it, and I thought I had about half the money in the world. Me, with $3,750 and owed no one! I felt mighty good. I wanted to put that money to work. So I was acquainted with Jim Sloane (ph). Jim was the tool pusher for the Roxanna Oil Company. And a tool pusher--that means he had charge of all their drilling tools, and hiring the men and so forth and operate the rigs. And so Jim and I decided to go into partnership and buy a string of tools, which we did. And Jim was fortunate enough to get his assistant pusher--to get his assistant pusher appointed to fill his position at the Roxanna. Here' ; s the deal: that enabled us to borrow from [indecipherable], this assistant, any tools that we didn' ; t have! So that made a nice deal for me, too. And we--we' ; d brought our rig up here north of Yukon, Oklahoma. And we moved it up to Billings where we had a contract for the--for the Billings Petroleum Company. Our company name was Kirchner & ; Sloan, Inc. And we had to have this well started by September 5 to validate Billings Petroleum Company' ; s leases there. So we rigged up and we run the socket out of the back window that you' ; re familiar with, and screwed onto our big-holed stem to bring it into the rig, put the bit on and starts spudding, and we got it up at about a forty-five-degree angle and this thing broke square in two in the middle. We just pulled the top half of it into the rig and spudded with half of a stem, no bit on it! (laughter) BK: Ran the driller, got a little mud out of the hole and dumped it in the cesspit and the lease was validated. Then we were in business, we' ; d made good. (laughter) BK: We had finished that well for the Billings Petroleum Company--finished our contract, I mean--we had no oil. That location that I drilled for them was made by what was called then a doodlebug. A doodlebug were an oil smeller and this doodlebug--this doodlebug or oil finder--he had two black whale bones about that long and about a quarter inch square fastened together at the point with a little bottle on it. And I found out later that little bottle had crude oil in it, and it had crude oil that was produced in the area where he would work. Well, he' ; d made that location, he said, Now there' ; s shallow gas along here, and there' ; s deeper oil along here, so we' ; ll dig this location right where they cross, we' ; ll have shallow and we can get the gas for fuel, ' ; course everything was steam then, and at--do future development on the lease. We completed our contract-no oil, no gas, no nothing. And they paid it. But they wanted to go deeper. That doodlebug knew there was oil down there, so we agreed to drill it deeper at $7 a foot and they paid us over 100 feet. Drill it we did, we drilled it 300 feet deeper and they paid us every hundred feet. But by that time, it was necessary that we got our rig moved because we had a contract with the Getty Oil Company. The Getty Oil Company was owned by J. Paul Getty. This location was on a main (ph) six miles east of Billings. J. Paul owned the Getty Oil Company. His father, Colonel Getty, was the big dog Getty in the oil business at that time. He owned the Minnehoma Oil Company and had mass production in the Garber field. We drove this well for Mr. Getty and we had our bunkhouse there, and it was the cook shack also. Some of the crew stayed in the house and we cooked our meals there. And our meals was either hot dogs or hotcakes. Hotcakes for breakfast and hot dogs at the other two meals. Mr. Getty came out when we were approaching what was to be the objective sand--which was the Hoover sand--and he--I recall he had a little wax moustache, short, that just stuck square off. And when he opened his coat he had a deputy sheriff' ; s badge on his shirt. He wanted to get some Oklahoma tan to carry back to L.A., so he would walk up and down the highway here up by the rig with his hat off and his shirt unbuttoned to get a little tan. Well, he got the sunburn, anyway! We made him a well at twenty-two-sixty. Twenty-two-hundred-and-sixty-feet in the Hoover sand. Made about sixty barrels of that lovely, high-grade oil. And Mr. Hanson, with the present Bank of Commerce, he financed our operation all the way. And I wanted to get the money for the well so I could pay Mr. Hanson and stop that interest. I made out my bill immediately and took that and the log and certificate and I went up to the rig the next morning. And Mr. Whitsun (ph), J. Paul' ; s superintendent, said, Well, now, J. Paul won' ; t be out here. J. Paul' ; s on his way to Los Angeles, and if you don' ; t catch him before he gets away, you' ; re liable to be two months getting your money. I said, Where is he? And he said, He' ; s at the Santa Fe station in Perry. And I hustled right in to the Santa Fe station in Perry. And we had a few [indecipherable] and went in to the waiting room and there was Mr. Getty, and we had a few pleasantries and then I presented my bill and told him the bank and I needed the money. And he said, I' ; m sorry, crookster, but I don' ; t have any checks on my bank. Well, I said, I can fix that. And I stepped up to the ticket window and I got a blank check on the Bank of Commerce at Perry, changed it to his bank in Los Angeles, and made out--filled in the amount of the bill for Kirchner & ; Sloane, Inc. and presented it to Mr. Getty, and he signed it. And we were happy. (laughter) BK: I waited around with him until his train came in and he left. And I haven' ; t seen him from that day ' ; til this. But he' ; s done alright, I understand. (laughter) BK: Richest man in the world. That was quite an experience. He was very pleasant, and very nice. (pause) (papers rustling) BK: Well, I have a lot written down here. (laughter) BK: Our next well, after Mr. Getty' ; s well, was for J.D. Means, and it was by the northeast offset to Mr. Getty' ; s. And while we were drilling that well for Mr. Means, Marland Oil Company was drilling in the northeast corner of the section and we were in the southeast corner of that same section. We made a small well for Mr. Means, but Mr. Getty--I mean, Mr. Marland, on his location up there, got a nice well and that was the discovery well for the great Oklahoma Three Sands pool. And incidentally the north offset to that, my dad had some royalty that he purchased under that, too, that offset--that well was dry. The east offset and for a mile and a half or two miles north and south, and a mile and a half wide, was the Garber field, and it was a dandy. [There are a] few wells producing there today. Now after we finished that well for Mr. Means, I loaded a flatcar. Loaded a string of tool on a flatcar and started for Bristow. And I followed it--that flatcar--in my automobile. And I found out that five bucks here and there in some of these yards will get your car moved pretty fast. It worked in west Tulsa that way--Red Fork, I mean, that way. And we got in to Bristow, there was no trucking contractors then, everything was moved by teams. Most of it was most by teams. So we got Doc Martin (ph), a teaming contractor here, to move us out to Slick, eight miles east and two south of here, for the Caufield (ph) Oil Company. They had claimed this block of acreage there, which acreage and wells in production is now owned by the Krumme brothers. Harlan' ; s here today. By owned by Harlan and George. And I loaded a 14x28 boxcar house for myself and I had the deluxe job: I had a screened-in porch on each end of it and I had a sub-roof over my roof, about eight inches up, where the sun couldn' ; t hit my--the roof of our house directly and the air can circulate under there. So we thought that was pretty deluxe for us. And I built a 14x40 bunkhouse there and I built it right by the bathhouse, and near the boarding house, because all the leases then, if they had any size and employed very many men, they had a bunkhouse and boarding house and a warehouse, just as the Caufield (ph) Oil Company did. I remember, we had a good boarding house there. And it happened that the driller--a driller that worked for me was the husband of the lady that ran the boarding house, and while I wasn' ; t using him on the rig, she was running him around the country buying groceries for the boarding house! So I thought, Well, he can' ; t be doing his work. I went down there about three o' ; clock one morning and there he was, sound asleep on the driller' ; s stool, the tools just swinging, motion very slow, just swinging, wasn' ; t even hitting bottom. So I didn' ; t wake him up, I just wrote his check out because you would carry a time book and a checkbook in your pocket then, and fire a man if you wanted to, because you didn' ; t have to account for his social security or any other take-out. So I just wrote his check out and put it in the headache box there at the rig and told his tool dresser, who was awake, I said, Just call that to his attention when he wakes up. I paid him off. We had a lot of fine experiences out there at that time. I remember at that time the companies--the larger companies--all had oil scouts. And I recall one in particular that came to our rig to get information. They wanted to know how you were coming so that they could buy leases if necessary. I remember one of the Phillips boys--John I think was his name, John Phillips of Phillips Petroleum Company. He wasn' ; t one of the rich ones, that was Waite and his--Waite Phillips and his brother. And this boy, this Phillips, was about my age--around twenty-six I was then. And he came to our rig scouting our rig to see how deep we were, and if he could catch any--take any samples that we had there of sand that we had encountered. And he got to be quite a big shot then. At that time the companies furnished the rig, pipe, fuel, and water on the location for a drilling well. They' ; d build a rig, and the rig was all wooden--no steel rigs then, and they had a 250-barrel tank on both sides of the engine house there for water, and they had water the tracked to the tank. It was filled up, the 250-barrel wooden tank. Well, we got started at Slick. We were on fuel number one, and after we got a little below a hundred feet we went through the line and left the tools in the hole. We had about three feet of line--the line broke about three feet up above the tools. And those drilling lines, as most of you know, have six strands. They' ; re six to nineteen line, they' ; re called. There' ; s six--there' ; s three big strands and nineteen little strands in there. Well, we had the casing rolled down to get over the tools to pick ' ; em out but I couldn' ; t get over it on account of that size of wire there. And we ran a light down the hole to see what condition it was, because you could look down there and see it with a light in there. And it was frazzled out, and I said, If that wire was cut off at the top of that socket, we could fish those tools out. And one of the men volunteered to go down and I thought, That' ; s a foolish trip. And we had [indecipherable] it' ; d break our company for sure. So I went down myself. And I put a felt hat on and filled it with waste up there because you could hear chunks go down there and hit the water around those tools and go ka-PLUNK and you didn' ; t know whether it was a big chunk or a little chunk or whether it was a rock or a piece of shale. Nevertheless, I went down and it wasn' ; t dangerous. However, we were drilling an 18" ; hole and right on top of the ground was cable tools you stomp, you know, and put a little water in the hole and stomp down there and bail out what you' ; ve mixed, that' ; s the way they drill with cable tools. I went down there and [indecipherable] to it, but they let a lantern down on a string so I could see what I was doing and I had a hammer and a sharp chisel and they let me down on derrick line around me so I could stretch out a little bit and sliver myself any time where I didn' ; t figure there was much hazard to it. But I chipped those strands off of there and I [indecipherable] they pulled me out of the hole. However, they did drop the line that had the lantern on it, and it went on down the hole. And then we let the casing roll down over it and put the slips over it and gosh, it came with no difficulty at all getting the tools out once we got over them. But on the next well that I drilled with was for the Caufield (ph) Oil Company and it was the variant north offset to this first well. And we got to the well--I mean, got to the sand around 2,700 in the Dutcher--and the Dutcher over in the Slick area was black oil around thirty-four to thirty-six gradients (ph). And when the--we' ; d shoot a well, they shot all of them over there, when they' ; d shoot on ' ; em, when they' ; d shoot a well, they would load the oil--the well with oil on top of the shot right up to where it was running over the control head because if they didn' ; t fill it clear full they' ; d--when that shot went off it would break the pipe at the top of the fluid. And we tried it once just filling it up into the control head and it broke the control head! So after that, we ran it over. Well, when that shot goes off, it blows that hole full of oil in the air, and that' ; s why it was such a beautiful sight over there. When you come out from Bristow, top that hill by the eight-mile corner--every drilling well was clean, white pine just about the color of that piece of paper, and the producing wells were black because they had been shot, and were all covered with oil. And we used steam for fuel and every drilling well there was that white, crisp steam and it was a beautiful sight. Well that' ; s the drilling well--that fuel drilled up pretty rapidly. Now that-- (pause) Oh, yes, I' ; m on the Sewell (ph) farm there--I mean, yeah. Barney Sewell' ; s (ph) farm, that' ; s where this well was. Second well that I drilled for Caufield (ph). And they were putting the shot in. We drilled the well and we were gonna shoot it. We used shots before--did sixty quarts of liquid nitroglycerin: glycerin shells around four inches in diameter and about five feet long. And you would hang it onto the hook there that would stay hooked as long as there was any tension on the line. And you had to be in there when the shooter was there, some of the crew did. And I' ; m telling you right: when that shooter gets that shell--that glycerin can up there--and poured it down in there, when that hit the bottom of that shell, I mean, it just kind of sets the hair on you a little. (laughter) BK: It looked scary to me! Well, we had a little more gas in that Sewell (ph) than we did in the fuel, and we were putting the last shell in. We got down in the hole a ways and the shooter--the shooter operated the reel that lets the shell down the hole--and his line went slack, which showed that that shell was coming up the hole. And it had unhitched! That gas with [indecipherable] gas in there is gonna blow that--have a good chance to blow that shell out of the hole. And it started going pretty good. The shooter hollered, Catch that shell! And I said, Hell on earth. (laughter) You catch your own shell if you want-- (laughter) And I did like he did, and all the rest of them: I ran! (laughter) And sure enough, the shell came out of the hole and blew the Caufield (ph) Oil Company' ; s rig down. Clear down. None of us were hurt, fortunately, and that wasn' ; t so bad, except for the delay in production and the dollars that it cost to replace this rig. It didn' ; t hurt my tools any. And-- because those shots will go off naturally in seventy-two hours at that depth and in that area. In seventy-two hours that shot will go off by itself due to the heat and pressure on it. And that' ; s what happened on this well of [indecipherable] out there. (Break in recording) BK: --he said, No sir, mister, [indecipherable], said, We done closed the rolls. (laughter) BK: [Indecipherable.] --my partner in Kirchner & ; Sloane, Inc. was Jim Sloane (ph). Jim wanted to continue drilling on a contract basis. I wanted production. So we dissolved partnership and dissolved the corporation and I got--and divided up the tools. We had two strings at that time. And I got a lease on the Henry Fisher farm south of here, and many of you are familiar with the Fishers and some of ' ; em buy their eggs there, I imagine. But we drilled a well on it, I sold some interest in it for to raise a little money to drill it with and I sold Art Stone (ph) on the interest on those. And Art was out there the day we were to hit the sands. And I was in to fifteen-ten (ph) and it was looking good, and I sold Art Stone a ninety-sixth (ph) interest for $3,000 on the derrick floor there just by a shake of the hands--and that' ; s the way many, many deals were closed, just by a shake of the hands. And it wasn' ; t an hour until we' ; d hit--until we hit the sand. And when she started smoking gas we started out of the hole, but the oil beat the tools out of the hole. And did we feel good! And so we had the tanks up anticipating a well, and we had the tanks up so we got out of the hole and tools and closed that control head and turned it into the tanks and it was flowing into the tanks. And we went home that night, nice little fortune between the [indecipherable] bungalow. I figured, I think we' ; re rich. What in the world could we do now for our poor relatives? (laughing) BK: And I went out the next morning: Lo and behold, there' ; s a hundred and thirty-six barrels in the tank and eighteen hundred feet of water in the hole and the well had stopped flowing. (laughing) BK: And, well, we put tubing rods in it and produced it for a while, but it would never pay off. I think I was the only one that got my money back out of the deal on it, and that was on account of that $3,000 I got offered by Art Stone. (laughing) BK: Let' ; s see. The next one--I moved from there over to [indecipherable] 15-10 for the Gotham Oil Company. The Gotham Oil Company was out of Washington, D.C. And M.M. Wyville (ph) was the major holder in the Gotham Oil Company. And M.M. Wyville (ph) was secretary to William Jennings Bryan when Bryan secretary of war under Woodrow Wilson, to give you a little line-up on that. We drove that well for, for Gotham and when she started smoking gas--we had the control head on--we turned it into the pit, turned the well into the pit in case it wouldn' ; t flow. And Mr. Wyville (ph) and I went to Bristow to order out the tanks. We did, we ordered out a full tank and two 250s. Tanks then were all folded tanks, they weren' ; t welded like they are today. But when we got the tanks set--the well' ; d flowed twice into the pits when we got back. When we got the tanks set we picked up 450 barrels of good oil out of the pits. And [indecipherable] wanted to drill the well six inches, and we tried to hit the string on six inches--six inches above the clamps--and clipped it to the clamps, and it didn' ; t change the motion at all. And when it drilled off, it came out of that hole. That well made 450 barrels. That was sixty-one years ago now, today. Sixty-one years ago and that well is still producing between seven and eight barrels in the Meisner sand. George Fargo (ph), who was superintendent for the P-O-N-G, Prairie Oil and Gas, he wouldn' ; t believe it that we' ; d only drilled it that far in. When he--he drilled the offset for his company and he drilled it in two feet. His well was plugged in a year and a half, he got it in the water too far! And this one, I think--this one makes water now, but it still produces between seven and eight barrels. And I drilled a seven-hundred-foot well there and we pumped the water into that, that Boomer (ph) sand, I think it is. Let' ; s see now. (pages rustling) Man, alive. Well, some of you' ; ll want to know how we--how do you get your money for your oil? When you got a tankful, you call the gauger, he comes out and gives you a written--gives your tank top and the bottom and then peeks at it to see how much b.s. and water there is in it and if there' ; s too much of that basic sediment and water in there, why the gauger' ; ll say, Clean your tank, like they told us on this ticket here. (laughter) BK: It says, Clean tank. And they gave you a ticket for each tank and they would pay you on about the twenty-sixth of the month--the twenty-sixth of the following month. Rotary is much faster than drilling with cable tools, so Claude Freeland--which some of you know, he built that home first--home west of the Presbyterian Church here in Bristow. Claude Freeland drilled a well out in the Poor Farm area, which was discovered--the Poor Farm area was discovered by Albert Kelly, Levan' ; s dad--discovered the Poor Farm pool. Claude Freeland had a well that had started off with 10,000 barrels a day of this black Dutcher oil. A grand well. Carter had the offset. They wanted some of that, so they moved a rotary in. That' ; s the first rotary that was in this country, on that offset. And they drilled it down there, set by to drill the hole dry and drilled the sand and made ten million in gas. No oil. They let it blow wide open in the air thinking that it would blow onto oil. But it didn' ; t. You can' ; t blow one open that way today, the Corporation Commission' ; ll be on ya--you got to shut that well in. If you don' ; t they' ; ll shut it in for ya and charge ya. (noise) Pardon me. And, well--this well of Claude' ; s--and Claude would ride with me out to the rig once in a while and we' ; d visit--he told me about that particular well. He said, That well made a million dollars' ; worth of oil in sixty-seven days and never made another barrel of oil. Not a million barrels' ; full, a million dollars' ; worth. And I imagine then that oil was worth about $2.45 a barrel. That' ; d be nice to have in the family, believe me. (laughter) BK: Bristow was a--Bristow was a real boom town and my time' ; s about gone, but I wanted to tell you some of the things that aren' ; t here now that I saw here. We had three refineries here. A Bristow Refining Company out here on the Kelly farm here right at the north edge of town. Wilcox Refinery across the railroad track east of it. And then the Sun Company Oil Refinery up on the hill--one of the old [indecipherable] refineries. We have no refineries here now. We used to have the Republic Supply Company here--that' ; s an oilfield supply company. Across the street was the Oil Well Supply Company. Then after that was the National Supply Company. A couple of blocks north and a half east was the-- UM: Producer. BK: Producer Supply Company. The [indecipherable] was here. Also the American Tool Machine Company and the Bristow Pipe and Machine Company run by Mr. Cushing. Mr. Cushing had a son, Chester--when you' ; d go in there for any fishing tools, old Chester--you' ; d tell him what you want, Chester' ; d say, Oh hell you don' ; t want that, you want to have this, show' ; d me this or that. But after Chester got to drilling for himself he found out that the people that knew pretty well what they wanted when they went in there. And Chester drilled a well for himself just about a quarter of a mile south of this new project on south Chestnut and a quarter west up on the hill. He drilled it with cable tools ' ; til the [indecipherable] broke sand, made a little, well, and his wife dressed tools for him on that well. Drilled it in daylight, and his wife dressed tools. That' ; s something. I only want to give you interesting things, I think. Out northwest of town we had some big wells. I recall one that was drilled on the Abraham, the Ed Abraham farm out there and it got away and went into the air and the wind was right that it blew oil from that well into Bristow and spotted clothes that were on the line, and oil spots on your car. Three miles away! (papers rustling) That' ; s all of it. (laughter) UM: [Inaudible.] BK: No, I don' ; t want to shoot the breeze all afternoon. I' ; m too [indecipherable] have to go, it' ; s time to go on and [indecipherable] around here. Well let' ; s see if there' ; s anything else that I think you, you can' ; t live without. (laughter) Yes, I tell you what it is! Bristow was a boom town, the streets were full and the sidewalks were full, in fact I' ; ve seen teams lined from Slick two miles north to the eight-mile corner of a morning. Just teams loaded out with pipe and rig stuff. And people would like to see--individuals would like to see people mill up and down those sidewalks, and some of them would park their car at a point of vantage and walk home, and then walk back downtown and get in their car in view of the people walking up and down the streets and sidewalks because it was that interesting. That' ; s the Bristow that a lot of you have never known. Thank ya. (applause) Tape ends. audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0015-01_Kirchner,_R_R_Rotary_Club.xml OHP-0015-01_Kirchner,_R_R_Rotary_Club.xml
Sort Priority
This field should be added if you are using the Philly Theme with your OHMS
Plugin Suite. Consult the Philly Theme User Guide for details.
4420
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Ralph R. "Brick" Kirchner
Description
An account of the resource
In this 1979 interview, Ralph R. “Brick” Kirchner (1893-1990) speaks extensively about the oil drilling industry in Bristow, Oklahoma in the early 1900s, business involvement with J. Paul Getty, anecdotes about Tom Slick, how people handled their new-found oil wealth, and restrictions upon Indians regarding the handling of their own finances.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
OHP-0015-001
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1984
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
-
https://bristoworalhistory.org/files/original/4eaed6c2f7548b736f5a2294202ec60c.jpg
d9d42df37aca8d38bc0a17e0614f44ee
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Early Drilling Near Bristow
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral Histories of Drilling in the early 1900s
Description
An account of the resource
Oral accounts of drilling for oil and natural gas near Bristow in the early 1900s
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Bristow Historical Society, oral history collection
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Robert L. “Bob” McCarty
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Oliver "Tracy" Kelly
OHMS Object
This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS
Viewer)
https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0002-02_Oliver_Kelly.xml
Interview Keyword
This field adds keywords to the Omeka Oral History item type. Keywords are
included in the OHMS XML, this field in Omeka will allow for full data migration
between OHMS XML and the Omeka Record. This field does not impact the
OHMS / Omeka integration and is optional if you do not need to map the
“keywords” field in the OHMS XML to the corresponding Omeka record.
banks
oil
cotton
OHMS Object Text
This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the
contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka
5.4 OHP-0002-02 Oliver " ; Tracy" ; Kelly OHP-0002-02 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Oil Drilling - The Early Years Bristow Historical Society, Inc. First Banks and Cotton gins in Bristow banks oil cotton Oliver " ; Tracy" ; Kelly Robert L. “Bob” McCarty MP3 1:|13(3)|28(11)|52(5)|66(5)|75(3)|84(4)|94(4) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0002-02 Kelly, Tracy.mp3 Other audio 0 Cotton Gins in Bristow BM: October 13, 1976, 10:45. pause in tape BM: To your knowledge, when was the first gin built in this part of the county? TK: Bob, I don’t know about the first gin, but I do know of my father, Albert Kelly, and W.O. Baker were partners, and their gin was established in Bristow right down by the railroad track where the old ice plant, and the Farmer’s Custom Gin started in 1913. And they were gin and cotton, they had all set up—gin and cotton in the fall of 1913. And they—some very interesting stories about how they, getting that equipment in from the old Loomis Gin people, into Bristow and getting it set up. And I’m sure they wouldn’t have started the gin unless there was a substantial amount of cotton in the area to support a gin facility. So if I were estimating, I would say that cotton came into the Bristow community in the nineteen-nines and nineteen-ten and –eleven, around in there. That’s the best of my—you know, that’s to, about as good a target date as I would, could get. Cotton gins in Bristow Albert Kelly ; Bud Long ; cotton ; cotton gin ; Farmer's Custom Gin ; Joe Abraham ; Loomis Gin ; Mills Friarson ; W.O. Baker cotton gin 148 Banking and Oil Drilling BM: What year did your father go into the banking business? TK: 1932. BM: 1932? TK: Back during the lean days of the banking world. He was invited in to the American National Bank stock ownership because of desperate need at that time to shore up their capital positions, because banks were having a very difficult time in those days. Discussion of the early bank in Bristow as well as agriculture and oil agriculture ; American National Bank ; banking ; banks ; Community State Bank ; Fath ; FDIC ; First State Bank ; Frisco ; oil ; rail ; stock agriculture ; banking ; oil drilling In this brief 1976 interview, Oliver “Tracy” Kelly (1926-2012) discusses the first banks and cotton gins in Bristow, Oklahoma, as well as the nature of the industry in the area at that time, which was primarily agriculture and oil. BM: October 13, 1976, 10:45. pause in tape BM: To your knowledge, when was the first gin built in this part of the county? TK: Bob, I don' ; t know about the first gin, but I do know of my father, Albert Kelly, and W.O. Baker were partners, and their gin was established in Bristow right down by the railroad track where the old ice plant, and the Farmer' ; s Custom Gin started in 1913. And they were gin and cotton, they had all set up--gin and cotton in the fall of 1913. And they--some very interesting stories about how they, getting that equipment in from the old Loomis Gin people, into Bristow and getting it set up. And I' ; m sure they wouldn' ; t have started the gin unless there was a substantial amount of cotton in the area to support a gin facility. So if I were estimating, I would say that cotton came into the Bristow community in the nineteen-nines and nineteen-ten and --eleven, around in there. That' ; s the best of my--you know, that' ; s to, about as good a target date as I would, could get. BM: What year, Tracy--you stated the other night that there was five banks in Bristow at one time. TK: Yeah, and before we get off of the cotton gin, there were five cotton gins in Bristow at one time. BM: There were five-- TK: --operating at the same time, that' ; s when cotton was king, back in the late teens and twenties. BM: Do you know the names of all of them? TK: The banks or the cotton gins? BM: The cotton gins. TK: No, but I can, I think I can do a little research and come up with some of them. Joe Abraham had a gin, Albert Kelly had a gin, Mills Friarson (ph) had a gin, there was--Bud Long (ph) had a gin, and anyway, there was-- BM: That' ; s four. TK: That' ; s four of them. BM: What year did your father go into the banking business? TK: 1932. BM: 1932? TK: Back during the lean days of the banking world. He was invited in to the American National Bank stock ownership because of desperate need at that time to shore up their capital positions, because banks were having a very difficult time in those days. BM: How many banks back in the --nine, -tens, up until this Heritage (ph) came in, how many banks were there in the city of Bristow? TK: Well, at one time I think, Bob, there were five banks and that was before they had to do a lot of--that was before the days of FDIC and federal insurance and that sort of thing. BM: Offhand, do you know the names of those banks? TK: No, I could--again, I could research them and find out, there was--I, off the top of my head I can' ; t tell you the names of them. I know that there was a First National and there was a First State and there was a Community State and there was American National, but BM: In your opinion, would you say that the banks that were in the Bristow area was a major factor in the development of that--this community? TK: I would attribute part of the inertia in the development in this area, certainly, but more importantly than that, in my judgment, was the fine agriculture and ultimately the oil production. Agriculture and oil is really what put Bristow on the map and thank goodness it had some good arteries of transportation, it had a rail--the main line of the Frisco was through here. But the natural resources of agriculture and oil really were the reason for Bristow being the quality of town that it was. BM: Do you remember hearing say--it had been brought to my attention that there was a geographical survey made of this country by the United States whenever they laid out the railroad. Do you think possibly that this survey was the cause of oil being established? TK: Bob, the U.S. Geodatic Survey, the engineers, when they came through this country, they performed certain geological findings that were bound to have attracted the early day oilman because there was a man by the name of Fath, and there is still talking around the oilpatch about the ' ; Fath highs.' ; These were the geological high structures that were even identified by the Fath engineering and geological surveys back in the early days. It' ; s been amazingly accurate, some of those geological pronouncements that were back there at the turn of the century. BM: At one time was there a Bristow geographical survey company that surveyed out of Bristow? TK: To my knowledge, Bob, I' ; d have to defer that to someone else. To my knowledge I don' ; t know of any, but I' ; m kind of a johnny-come-lately in that score. There are other old oilpatchers around here that would probably have a better feel for that than I. I don' ; t know. end of interview 1 audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0002-02_Oliver_Kelly.xml OHP-0002-02_Oliver_Kelly.xml
Sort Priority
This field should be added if you are using the Philly Theme with your OHMS
Plugin Suite. Consult the Philly Theme User Guide for details.
4210
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Oliver "Tracy" Kelly
Description
An account of the resource
In this brief 1976 interview, Oliver “Tracy” Kelly (1926-2012) discusses the first banks and cotton gins in Bristow, Oklahoma, as well as the nature of the industry in the area at that time, which was primarily agriculture and oil.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
OHP-0002-02
Subject
The topic of the resource
First Banks and Cotton gins in Bristow
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1976-10-13
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
-
https://bristoworalhistory.org/files/original/cd1168c93325d2d2c2919056bd1767b1.jpg
36d19139284163f00d3fc3ff007e1319
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Early Drilling Near Bristow
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral Histories of Drilling in the early 1900s
Description
An account of the resource
Oral accounts of drilling for oil and natural gas near Bristow in the early 1900s
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Bristow Historical Society, oral history collection
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Robert L. “Bob” McCarty
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Ralph R. "Brick" Kirchner
OHMS Object
This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS
Viewer)
https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0002-03_Ralph_Kirchner.xml
Interview Keyword
This field adds keywords to the Omeka Oral History item type. Keywords are
included in the OHMS XML, this field in Omeka will allow for full data migration
between OHMS XML and the Omeka Record. This field does not impact the
OHMS / Omeka integration and is optional if you do not need to map the
“keywords” field in the OHMS XML to the corresponding Omeka record.
oil
geology
OHMS Object Text
This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the
contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka
5.4 OHP-0002-03 Ralph R. " ; Brick" ; Kirchner OHP-0002-03 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Oil Drilling - The Early Years Bristow Historical Society, Inc. oil oil geology Ralph R. " ; Brick" ; Kirchner Robert L. “Bob” McCarty MP3 1:|12(2)|22(2)|47(7)|73(1) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0002-03 Kirchner, R.R..mp3 Other audio 0 Bristow Quadrangle BM: …some of the information that we need. Now then, Mr. Kirchner, on the survey company, what was the name of that survey company that surveyed this community? BK: It was done by Dr. Fath and is called The Bristow Quadrangle and it was made by the U.S.G.S. That’s the United States Geological Survey. BM: And to your knowledge, what year was that done? Discussion of the United States Geological Survey and the Bristow Quadrangle Bristow Quadrangle ; Dr. Fath ; drilling ; George Krumme ; oil ; United States Geological Survey ; Virgil Vann ; W.O. Baker Bristow Quadrangle ; oil drilling 175 Bristow Dutcher fields and Claude Freeman BM: --and who— BK: It was Claude Freeland and some relative of theirs that drilled the first well that I recall in seventeen-nine, they’re the ones that opened the pool in 16-9, they opened the Bristow Dutcher fields. MM: Where was that? The Bristow Dutcher fields? Discussion of the Bristow Dutcher fields and Claude Freeman Bristow ; Bristow Dutcher fields ; Claude Freeman ; drilling ; well Bristow ; oil drilling In this brief 1976 interview, Ralph R. “Brick” Kirchner (RK) (1893-1990) discusses a 1925 United States Geological Survey geological report covering the “Bristow Quadrangle” oilfield area. BM: --some of the information that we need. Now then, Mr. Kirchner, on the survey company, what was the name of that survey company that surveyed this community? BK: It was done by Dr. Fath and is called The Bristow Quadrangle and it was made by the U.S.G.S. That' ; s the United States Geological Survey. BM: And to your knowledge, what year was that done? BK: Oh, let me see, I don' ; t know but it was the first one that had been done in its entirety of the geology and topography of the area and it gives all of the wells that were drilled at that time and the history of them. I would say it was around 1913 or ' ; 14. BM: To your knowledge, I was told--to your knowledge, do you know of the well that was drilled in here on the Violet Williams (ph) or this Jesse Mosquito (ph) say in about 1911? BK: No, I do not, but if that well was drilled there, it would be--there would be a write-up of it in The Bristow Quadrangle. BM: That information was given to me by Virgil Vann, he said the first well to knowledge was drilled a mile south of the W.O. Baker place, which the W.O. Baker place would' ; ve been the Big Mosquito. BK: Yeah, I drilled on the Baker place. BM: You drilled here on the Big Mosquito-- BK: I drilled on the Mosquito. BM: And he said--Virgil Vann told me that well was drilled in about 1911. BK: Mm. BM: But you would say, just personally yourself, without the records, you would say roughly that the first well, that would be roughly the first well that was drilled. BK: That' ; s what I think, but that would be disclosed in that--in the write-up on 17-9 and the Bristow Quadrangle, which you can get from George--Mr. George Krumme. BM: Okay. pause in recording BM: --and who-- BK: It was Claude Freeland and some relative of theirs that drilled the first well that I recall in seventeen-nine, they' ; re the ones that opened the pool in 16-9, they opened the Bristow Dutcher fields. MM: Where was that? The Bristow Dutcher fields? BM: Where was that located? BK: That' ; s on out east of town here in 16-9, east of Bristow. BM: The opened up the one in 16-9 and you' ; re sure that they' ; re the one--reasonably sure that they were the one that drilled the first one in 17-9. BK: Yes, sir, I am. I am. BM: I had talked to Carl Glen (ph) on the phone, I talked to him and he hasn' ; t been much help as yet on it. BK: Well, he' ; s just recovering from eye surgery and he hadn' ; t completely recovered yet. BM: So his thinking isn' ; t-- BK: That' ; s right. BM: --isn' ; t too strong. And at a later date probably his thinking will be better and he will be able to remember a lot of these things that he was in on there with Claude, why he will remember about that. BK: That' ; s right. end of interview 1 audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0002-03_Ralph_Kirchner.xml OHP-0002-03_Ralph_Kirchner.xml
Sort Priority
This field should be added if you are using the Philly Theme with your OHMS
Plugin Suite. Consult the Philly Theme User Guide for details.
4410
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Ralph R. "Brick" Kirchner
Description
An account of the resource
In this brief 1976 interview, Ralph R. “Brick” Kirchner (RK) (1893-1990) discusses a 1925 United States Geological Survey geological report covering the “Bristow Quadrangle” oilfield area.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
OHP-0002-03
Subject
The topic of the resource
oil
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1976-10
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
-
https://bristoworalhistory.org/files/original/7775a6b84593e47aeaa2b71eb7baf3fe.jpg
9e78304aec7410afa4bac86eddb8ac7f
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Early Drilling Near Bristow
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral Histories of Drilling in the early 1900s
Description
An account of the resource
Oral accounts of drilling for oil and natural gas near Bristow in the early 1900s
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Bristow Historical Society, oral history collection
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Harlan Krumme
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Hyatt Chapman
OHMS Object
This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS
Viewer)
https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/render.php?cachefile=OHP-0052B_Hyatt_Chapman.xml
OHMS Object Text
This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the
contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka
5.4 August 2, 1979 OHP-0052B Hyatt Chapman - Part 2 OHP-0052B 00:41:22 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Bristow Historical Society, Inc. bristowhistory Hyatt Chapman Harlan Krumme 1:|26(14)|62(5)|85(3)|104(11)|132(11)|151(16)|170(12)|178(17)|201(4)|224(6)|243(3)|273(3)|293(4)|316(4)|335(16)|364(5)|391(9)|412(6)|432(11)|453(11)|480(5)|505(8)|537(13)|557(11)|586(3)|605(11)|627(18)|652(4)|666(12)|684(8)|709(3)|735(14)|753(5)|775(16)|787(8)|822(11)|823(5)|824(15)|847(7)|871(10)|899(13)|915(18)|940(11)|949(6) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0052B Chapman, Hyatt.mp3 Other audio 0 Pluggin Oil Wells HK: It was some kind of a fishing job. He could make a tool to fish it out.
 ; 
 ; HC: To fish it out, and he could tell you how to run it, and you could go out there and run it like he told you, and you could get your job done.
 ; 
 ; HK: Yeah.
 ; 
 ; HC: Now Chester (Chester Cushing), his son came along. Chester was equally as well with building the tool and telling him how to run it. Chester could take the tool out, and he couldn’t run it. He just couldn’t get ‘er done. But he could tell you how to run it.
 ; 
 ; HK: But he could tell you how to do it.
 ; 
 ; HC: He could build it and tell you how to run it, but he couldn’t go out and do it. And he, I plugged a well for Chester right south of Bristow there that he and his wife drilled. 
 ; 
 ; HK: Did you plug that hole for him?
 ; 
 ; HC: I plugged that hole for him.
 ; Hyatt talks in detail about the process of plugging wells and how many he had plugged while in business. steam kettle tool rig ; Bartlesville (Okla.) ; Oklahoma Corporation Commission ; oil well ; cable rig oil wells ; plugging oil wells 0 610 Bristow's First Gas Well HC: And that’s what made the thing bad. But getting back to the oil and gas wells at Bristow on my dad’s place was the first gas well that was ever drilled around Bristow anywhere. 
 ; 
 ; HK: And it supplied gas?
 ; 
 ; HC: It supplied gas to the City of Bristow.
 ; 
 ; HK: To the City of Bristow.
 ; 
 ; HC: And the cotton gins in Bristow burned gas from this well. And it, they finally, when a fellow named Wolfe and Freeland one or two others formed the Bristow Gas Company. And they used this gas from this well. Then Oklahoma Natural came in and they gave the franchise to Oklahoma Natural, then they didn’t use this little well anymore. But it was the first gas well in that part of the country.
 ; Hyatt tells about the first gas well in Bristow being located on his grandfather's property east of Bristow. gas well ; Bristow Gas Company ; Oklahoma Natural Gas ; Sand Creek gas well 0 741 Life During the Depression HK: Well with the price gas is now, it makes it a worthwhile venture. Okay, then you went through high school and graduated from high school and worked with your father then between high school and WWII.
 ; 
 ; HC: Well, now, my father, I worked for him until the Depression. When the Depression came, why he had men with families that was on starvation.
 ; 
 ; HK: Right.
 ; 
 ; HC: And I had something to eat, and they didn’t, so, I didn’t work for my dad from then on. He kept the family men working so that they could feed their families.
 ; 
 ; HK: Right.
 ; Hyatt remembers hard times and what it was like trying to live during The Great Depression. The Great Depression ; Texas A & ; M College ; Oklahoma City (Okla.) ; oil boom The Great Depression 0 922 Car Prices HK: How’d you travel back to Bristow? Were you able to afford a car?
 ; 
 ; HC: I had an old junker. An old clunker.
 ; 
 ; HK: Your own automobile.
 ; 
 ; HC: Yeah, but then, you could go and buy a real good car for $300.
 ; 
 ; HK: Yeah. Right.
 ; 
 ; HC: Brand new Ford would cost you about six, six and a quarter.
 ; 
 ; HK: I have a receipt in the office where my father bought a Model-T Ford in Okemah, brand new, for $295.
 ; Hyatt talks about car prices and his first car. Ford Model-T ; Okemah (Okla.) ; Ford Model-A first car ; car prices 0 1029 Influential Bristow Citizens HK: Well, do you remember as you were growing up, anybody else outstanding that you thought was an outstanding person at that time? With community spirit and all that sort of stuff. And certainly, Mr. Senter had community spirit or he wouldn’t have done anything like that.
 ; 
 ; HC: Oh yeah. He devoted his time, but at this time, he was like 70-years-old at the time he was doing this.
 ; 
 ; HK: Oh! He was that old?
 ; 
 ; HC: Yeah, he was 68 or 70-years-old.
 ; 
 ; HK: Yeah.
 ; 
 ; HC: Because, see, his sons is all dead, and I’m sure…I think he had one daughter. She’s pretty well dead. But getting back to the early day, Jim Jackson and Jim Fogle, they were merchants there. Farhas (Ellis L. Farha, William E. [Bill] Farha) were merchants. And they uh, fella named Grimes (Stimpson R. Grimes) had the furniture store there, Ford. Not the Ford Hardware there now. It’s his father. And they were all pretty good people. List, Old Man List (Lester M. List), his boys all come along about my age.
 ; Hyatt recalls some of the most influential Bristow citizens back in the early days. Jim Jackson ; Jim Fogle ; Ellis L. Farha ; William E. (Bill) Farha ; Stimpson R. Grimes ; Lester M. List ; Stanley Henson ; Earl Dwyer ; LeeRoy McMurtry ; Albert W. McMurtry ; Mike Foreman influential Bristow citizens 0 1180 Father's First Truck HK: Do you remember, do you remember the year your dad bought his first truck?
 ; 
 ; HC: Yes, 1927.
 ; 
 ; HK: 1927.
 ; 
 ; HC: Yes sir. And it was…
 ; 
 ; HK: What kind of truck was it?
 ; 
 ; HC: It was a Chevrolet. And he bought that Chevrolet in 1927 and he hired, now here’s the switch. 1927 he bought the truck and he drove the team himself. Now he had a team that he drove and nobody touched those lines, don’t nobody touch that team. Nobody went up and got on that wagon. 
 ; Hyatt talks about his father's first truck. Chevrolet ; Dodge first truck 0 1283 Team Horses HC: His team. And 1928 when he bought the second truck, he decided he would retire the team. And he drove the horses into the yard, unharnessed them, put them in the barn, and every day he cut one bushel of oats down. He’d feed them a bushel of oats of a morning and a bushel of oats at night and two bales of hay. And he retired them. And this was in 1928.
 ; 
 ; HK: I’ll be darn.
 ; 
 ; HC: He sold the rest of the horses, but…
 ; HK: Kept that team.
 ; 
 ; HC: He kept that team. And that team from 1928, when I went over seas, one horse was still alive.
 ; 
 ; HK: Is that right?
 ; 
 ; HC: He was 34-years-old.
 ; 
 ; HK: Holy cow!
 ; Hyatt talks in depth about his father's team horses. team horses ; Carney (Okla.) ; Ford T-Model team horses 0 1485 Brick Streets HK: Do you remember the old dirt streets, about where…
 ; 
 ; HC: Yeah, I remember the dirt, mud streets.
 ; 
 ; HK: About what year did they put those bricks down? Seemed to me like I asked Arthur (Arthur Foster) and Arthur wasn’t sure.
 ; 
 ; HC: I would say it was in, they started putting them down before WWII, I mean one, WWI. Before WWI. Now I can’t say exactly, but I would say there are some in there, some of those streets was in there in 1915 or ’16.
 ; 
 ; HK: Yeah.
 ; 
 ; HC: Because I was about four or five-years-old, and my grandad was hauling that sand in there, and there was a contractor, cement man in there by the name of Fielder. And if you look around the streets, you’ll see many…
 ; Hyatt remembers the dirt streets and when they bricked the streets. brick streets ; Arthur Foster ; A. Fielder brick streets 0 1616 Cotton Gins HK: Yeah. I have heard, and I don’t know how true this is, that at one time, and I don’t know what year this was, there were actually eight cotton gins in Bristow at one time. But that was before my time.
 ; 
 ; HC: Excuse me, it was…excuse me, now it might have been, I might have missed one or two, but to my recollection, I can count for sure…well, Abrahams had two, Kellys had one, and there was some other people had one. And then the one over there by your place.
 ; 
 ; HK: Yeah there was one across the street from my office, and one where John Bishop…
 ; 
 ; HC: Oh, Friersons, Friersons. Friersons had one.
 ; 
 ; HK: Friersons had one, right.
 ; 
 ; HC: They had the cotton seed mill there.
 ; 
 ; HK: I can remember five myself.
 ; Hyatt and Harlan discuss all the different cotton gins they remember back in the early days.
 ; cotton gins ; John Andrew Anderson ; Anderson's Mill cotton gins 0 1725 Oil Supply Companies HK: Yeah. Do you remember how many oil field supply houses there were in Bristow? I remember National Supply Company was where Martin Pound Drilling Company is now. Oil Well Supply was immediately east of them across the railroad tracks.
 ; 
 ; HC: Okay, just north of the Oil Well was Republic and just, let’s see, across the railroad tracks from where your office is, the light company’s got a building there. Right across there was the old Frick Reid (ph) building.
 ; 
 ; HK: Oh Frick-Reid, now Jones and Loughlin (ph).
 ; 
 ; HC: Jones and Loughlin, Frick-Reid. Then down on first, there was three or four. I say there was possibly eleven or twelve.
 ; 
 ; HK: Oil field supply stores.
 ; Hyatt discusses the different oil supply companies that were important to Bristow's oil history. National Supply Company ; Martin Pound Drilling ; Frick-Reid oil supply companies 0 1802 Railroads HK: Down where it started up there at Bristow. Started off of the Frisco.
 ; 
 ; HC: Frisco track at Bristow.
 ; 
 ; HK: Frisco track at Bristow, and there were supply houses along that railroad at the beginning of that then.
 ; 
 ; HC: Yeah, yeah, that’s right. And where old Sinclair place is there, Arco (ph) yard is there now, used to be an oil field supply store.
 ; 
 ; HK: It did. It was also.
 ; 
 ; HC: Yeah, it was also. Then along the railroad track there, there was pipe yards and supply stores, and I say there was eleven or twelve.
 ; Hyatt remembers the different railroads and how they affected Bristow history. Frisco Railroad ; Sinclair Oil ; Nuyaka (Okla.) ; Slick (Okla.) ; Jesse Allen ; Tom Slick ; B.B. Jones ; Drumright (Okla.) ; R.L. Jones railroads 0 2029 Tough Bristow Characters HC: That’s right. And on this, getting back to early day Bristow, there used to be a bunch of tough characters around here. Boy, I mean they was rough, rough individuals. And there wasn’t hardly a week went by that somebody didn’t shoot somebody or kill somebody there.
 ; 
 ; HK: Yeah.
 ; 
 ; HC: And back when the banks had to run on the banks right after WWI, my uncle’s father, his name was Inman. He was a rough old character, and he wore an overcoat summer and winter. And in them overcoat pockets, he carried two old thumb-busters. He and his boys, my uncle and his brother and the old man hauled their cotton into Bristow and sold it. And at the gins they took the money up and he did, he did business with the Yakish Brothers’ bank (Robert W. Yakish of Bristow National Bank). I don’t remember what that bank is, where the American National Bank used to be.
 ; Hyatt remembers the tough characters that were around Bristow. Robert W. Yakish ; Bristow National Bank 0 2107 Bristow Banks HK: Yeah, on the corner of 7th. Oh it was across the street from…
 ; 
 ; HC: Across the street from American National Bank.
 ; 
 ; HK: Right.
 ; 
 ; HC: There used to be four banks there.
 ; 
 ; HK: Right.
 ; 
 ; HC: On each corner had a bank. Now the First National Bank was here and, I don’t remember what American National Bank, it wasn’t American National Bank back then.
 ; 
 ; HK: Wasn’t American then, no.
 ; 
 ; HC: And the Yakish Brothers, I don’t remember what their bank was, and the other bank, I don’t remember it. But the Groom’s owned the First National Bank. That was where McMillian’s office is.
 ; Hyatt remembers the banks located at 7th and Main Street. First National Bank ; American National Bank ; Robert W. Yakish ; A. Fielder banks 0 2373 Judge William H. Herman, Uncle Billy Freshour & ; John Prince HC: His dad was a judge (Judge William H. Herman), there, back in the early day and he was Chief of Police back there. And he was a pretty, he was a great big fat fella. He was a husky guy. And he might have some pictures of the town.
 ; 
 ; HK: I’ll ask him.
 ; 
 ; HC: John Price, he may have some. I don’t know. And some of the old buildings down at Bristow, down where the original Church of God is now, it’s on third street.
 ; 
 ; HK: Right.
 ; 
 ; HC: And whatever street that is, Uncle Billy Freshour’s old house was a block north there, and it’s on the north side of fourth street there. But it’s about a two-story house. It’s an old house.
 ; 
 ; Hyatt tells about a few more notable characters from the early days of Bristow. William H. Herman ; Uncle Billy Freshour ; John Prince ; U.S. Marshal Notable Bristow characters 0 MP3 Hyatt continues this 1979 interview discussing plugging wells, Bristow’s first gas well, early merchants, brick streets, oil supply companies and the railroad, and the many tough Bristow characters. HK: It was some kind of a fishing job. He could make a tool to fish it out. HC: To fish it out, and he could tell you how to run it, and you could go out there and run it like he told you, and you could get your job done. HK: Yeah. HC: Now Chester (Chester Cushing), his son came along. Chester was equally as well with building the tool and telling him how to run it. Chester could take the tool out, and he couldn’t run it. He just couldn’t get ‘er done. But he could tell you how to run it. HK: But he could tell you how to do it. HC: He could build it and tell you how to run it, but he couldn’t go out and do it. And he, I plugged a well for Chester right south of Bristow there that he and his wife drilled. HK: Did you plug that hole for him? HC: I plugged that hole for him. HK: Did you, did you happen to be smart enough, I wasn’t smart enough…did you happen to be smart enough to take a picture of the last steam drilled well in the Bristow area? Because that was, that was the last one drilled with a boiler. HC: Yeah, that was the last one around anywhere there. HK: And why I didn’t take some movies of it, I’ll never know, but I didn’t. HC: Well, I didn’t, I didn’t take it. That was the last, that was the last steam rig, steam kettle tool rig. HK: That’s right. HC: After that, there was sputters and this, that and the other, but there wasn’t steam, it was… HK: And Chester and his wife drilled that [indecipherable] by themselves. HC: By themselves. Mrs. Cushing, she fired the boiler for him and would do the odds and ends and Chester, he’d do the drilling and the hard work. She took care of, she got out there and worked just like a man now. HK: I bet she helped him sharpen those bits and [indecipherable]. HC: Yeah, she had to. HK: Yeah. HC: He had to have help because one man couldn’t do it! No sir, one man couldn’t do it. HK: Well, it was too bad that was a dry hole. HC: Well, that wasn’t a dry hole. HK: But it wasn’t a commercial well. It didn’t make a commercial well. HC: Bud, let me tell you something right now. I wish I had that well right now. HK: Well, with frack it might have made a well. HC: When I plugged that well, I went down there and then we didn’t put cement in it, not much. HK: Yeah. HC: Got mud in it. Filled it and shot the pipe. And when I shot the pipe, it blowed the mud out of the hole and it blowed oil all over that derrick, 50 or 60 feet. HK: My goodness. HC: All over, all over the old man’s corn field he had out there. I forget what that old gentleman’s name is that owned it that had the place down there, all over his corn field. And they got, they bradenheaded the five and a half and the seven inch, they bradenheaded it, and got their oil to fire the boiler between the strains of pipe. It flowed between the strains of pipe enough. It wasn’t a big one. HK: But it would have, you’re right, it would have probably made a well. HC: Yeah, it would because of the technology we have now. Then after I plugged that well, there was three other fellas come in and drilled wells around close trying to pick this up. HK: Yeah. HC: But they was trying to pick it up out of the Bartlesville and it didn’t come from the Bartlesville. HK: No, it evidently was not the Bartlesville. Hyatt, do you have any idea, you’ve plugged thousands and thousands of wells, do you have any idea how many you have plugged in and around Bristow. Say around the state pool and the east of Bristow and west and north and south of Bristow. HC: Well… HK: You’ve plugged all over the country. HC: I’m just trying to think. I would say, probably, between 1800-2000. HK: Just in the Bristow area? HC: In the Bristow area. HK: I wouldn’t be at all surprised. HC: See I was in business for 32 years. HK: When did you go into business for yourself? HC: 1947. HK: 1947. Right after WWII. HC: Yeah. I had to stay over in Germany extra time because they declared me essential. And I got home, I worked about four months and I went into business for myself. I got home in ’46 and I went into business in ’47. HK: Well now, Hyatt, being in the oil business myself, I’m familiar with how you go about plugging a well, but I’m sure there are a lot of people that don’t know how you plug a well. Describe this procedure for us. They call you and say, I want to plug a well. Okay, then what do you do? HC: Well, if you would call me and say you wanted me to plug a well for you, the first thing I would have to do is come to your office or get with you for all the records you can supply me with that you have about this well. HK: Right, how much pipe is in it. HC: How much cement was put in and how much pipe it was cemented with and what kind of pipe. Then I would take that record… HK: Now why is it important that you know what kind of pipe is in that well? HC: If I didn’t know what kind of pipe was in that well, I could not pull on that pipe as hard as I should have maybe if I knew what kind it is. HK: Right. HC: Because the pipe could be stuck. It’s not setting in there free. It could be stuck, and you’d have to work it under high pressure. And that pipe will only stand a certain amount of pull. And different grades of pipe will stand more pull than the other. And you take lap weld pipe, you can’t, you can pull one and a half times the weight of it. If it’s good. If it’s not good, why you pull ‘er in two. HK: So it’s important for you to know what kind of pipe it is. HC: It’s important. HK: Okay, after you get all these records and you find out what kind of pipe it is in there, you find out how deep it is, what’s next? HC: Then I call the Corporation Commission man and tell him that I want to plug this well and I want to know his requirements on what he will require for the plugging of it. He will tell me how much cement to pump in the bottom of it. I’ll have to have a Haliburton type truck. I’ll have to mix cement with and haul it with rubber gloves and heavy mud pumped down to below the cement on the outside of the pipe. That’s the reason I have to know how cement is on the outside of the pipe, so I will know where to put cement on the inside of it. Then you run a, do that, you get your tension [indecipherable] pipe. If you know the area, why you don’t have to work [indecipherable] you go in there and shoot the pipe in two with nitroglycerin, and then pull your pipe up 50 feet below the fresh water zone. Now the fresh water zone will be supplied to me from the Corporation Commission man. He will have his chart there where he wants fresh water plugged. Here again, we will pump cement in with a Haliburton type truck and till it circulates. We will dress the pipe out, tear it down and move out and put a cement cap on the top of it and turn it back to you, and you can cover it up, and turn it back to farming. HK: This procedure then protects the producing zones that produced oil and, perhaps, salt water, it has cement covering that. And then it protects the fresh water from contamination by cement plug from below all fresh water clear to the surface of the ground. HC: That’s correct. HK: And it’s a pretty good procedure and it’s too bad all wells weren’t plugged that way. HC: If all wells was plugged that way, we would have a lot more natural gas wells. We would have more oil wells than we have now because in the early day, back in the old steam rig days, when they pulled pipe, they pulled pipe maybe ground a post oak down there or a post down in the top of it and throw a little dirt on the top of it. HK: And that was all of it. HC: And that was all of it. And communications from different zones rounded out to the little gas or little oil that you’d have up the hole. HK: Right. Okay, did you actually start in business in Bristow or were you living in Tulsa at the time you started business? HC: I was living in Tulsa at the time I started in business, but my dad had the home place there in Bristow, and I used that for my yard. His place for my yard. And I started in business at Bristow. And I when I started in business, why, I didn’t have enough money to buy a hamburger. I had to borrow money, and I borrowed money from everybody that would loan me money. And I wound up about $20,000 in the hole before I even got started. HK: Before you ever did anything. HC: That’s right. I started business at Bristow. HK: You started with a hydraulic rig then. HC: Right. HK: And not the old cable tool, cable rig. HC: No. Old cable rig. That’s why our insurance rate was so high was because of the old cable tool rig. They hurt too many people, and they killed too many people. HK: Yeah. They did. They killed a lot of people. HC: And that’s what made the thing bad. But getting back to the oil and gas wells at Bristow on my dad’s place was the first gas well that was ever drilled around Bristow anywhere. HK: And it supplied gas? HC: It supplied gas to the City of Bristow. HK: To the City of Bristow. HC: And the cotton gins in Bristow burned gas from this well. And it, they finally, when a fellow named Wolfe and Freeland one or two others formed the Bristow Gas Company. And they used this gas from this well. Then Oklahoma Natural came in and they gave the franchise to Oklahoma Natural, then they didn’t use this little well anymore. But it was the first gas well in that part of the country. HK: It was eventually plugged, then? HC: It was plugged… HK: It was plugged when you were a youngster or by the time you were, or before you were 15-years-old, say the well was plugged. And you were telling me that it still made gas while you were growing up. HC: Yeah, we’d go down there and the well was supposed to have been plugged but we go down there and strike a match and throw it over there and that well would catch fire. And the creek would get up and flood it out, then we’d have to wait until the creek came up before it flooded it out because that was the only way we could get it out. HK: It would just go ahead and burn all the time. HC: Yeah, it would just burn all the time. It did burn all the time. HK: Until the creek got up and put it out. HC: Put it out. And that’s Sand Creek we are talking about. HK: Right. Talking about Sand Creek there. HC: Yeah. HK: And for your information, as you know, we have discussed, you and I, the possibility of going back in there and drilling down to that gas end and sell some of that gas. HC: We’re gonna do it. HK: We may do it yet. HC: We’re gonna do it. Somebody is with me, I don’t know who, but we’re gonna do it. HK: Well with the price gas is now, it makes it a worthwhile venture. Okay, then you went through high school and graduated from high school and worked with your father then between high school and WWII. HC: Well, now, my father, I worked for him until the Depression. When the Depression came, why he had men with families that was on starvation. HK: Right. HC: And I had something to eat, and they didn’t, so, I didn’t work for my dad from then on. He kept the family men working so that they could feed their families. HK: Right. HC: And I got married about, well I got married right at the time I went to A& ; amp ; M College. I got married at that time and then I came home and I went broke and I couldn’t stay in college any longer. I came back, then went back to high school. My last year of high school, I was a married man going to high school. HK: Yeah. Which for those times was very unusual. HC: Yeah, it was very unusual. HK: Right. HC: And after I had to drop out of college, I thought, well, I better get my high school diploma so I’d have something to show because, at that time, if you didn’t get a high school education, you’d starve to death. HK: Right. HC: So I went back and got my high school diploma and worked around there. When I left Bristow, I walked out of… [Pause] HK: You said you left Bristow owing everybody in town. HC: Right. HK: Go ahead. HC: And I went to Oklahoma City. The Oklahoma City field was just starting, and I went into Oklahoma City field and I had, I had before I got up there, dress tools and worked on a drilling rig. And got up to Oklahoma City, well, I went into the oil, followed the oil line up there because there wasn’t anything else to do. HK: Right, it was the biggest thing going at that time. HC: It was the biggest thing going because they’d just drill while [indecipherable] and the boom was on, so that’s what I followed. And I started in the oil business there. And it took me four years of working like trojan to get my debtors paid at Bristow. I come home on the, round the first of the month, and I’d start up one side of the street and go as far as my money would go, then I’d see the others, so I’ll see ya next time. HK: I’ll see ya next month. HC: And I finally got them paid. It took me about four, four and a half years to get them all paid off finally. HK: How’d you travel back to Bristow? Were you able to afford a car? HC: I had an old junker. An old clunker. HK: Your own automobile. HC: Yeah, but then, you could go and buy a real good car for $300. HK: Yeah. Right. HC: Brand new Ford would cost you about six, six and a quarter. HK: I have a receipt in the office where my father bought a Model-T Ford in Okemah, brand new, for $295. HC: Yeah, yeah. HK: And I’ve forgotten the year, but automobiles were cheap. HC: It was probably about 1916 or 17. HK: It could have been. HC: Because my dad bought a Ford touring car with a little extra on it, and I think he give three hundred, little over $300 for it. HK: Little over $300. HC: But then back at the time, I was going from there, I had an automobile, it was a Model-A, Ford Model-A. HK: Yeah. HC: This was in around ’31, ’32, ’33. HK: Right. HC: And [indecipherable] I believe I give three hundred and some dollars, and it was nearly new. HK: Pretty good automobile? HC: Yeah, it was a good automobile. But I battled it. Got all my debtors paid there at Bristow. Didn’t owe none of them, but I walked out of there broke, boy. HK: Well, do you remember any other people that you mentioned Dad Senter being such a help to the people of Bristow. HC: Yep. He was, he was… HK: Well, do you remember as you were growing up, anybody else outstanding that you thought was an outstanding person at that time? With community spirit and all that sort of stuff. And certainly, Mr. Senter had community spirit or he wouldn’t have done anything like that. HC: Oh yeah. He devoted his time, but at this time, he was like 70-years-old at the time he was doing this. HK: Oh! He was that old? HC: Yeah, he was 68 or 70-years-old. HK: Yeah. HC: Because, see, his sons is all dead, and I’m sure…I think he had one daughter. She’s pretty well dead. But getting back to the early day, Jim Jackson and Jim Fogle, they were merchants there. Farhas (Ellis L. Farha, William E. [Bill] Farha) were merchants. And they uh, fella named Grimes (Stimpson R. Grimes) had the furniture store there, Ford. Not the Ford Hardware there now. It’s his father. And they were all pretty good people. List, Old Man List (Lester M. List), his boys all come along about my age. HK: Didn’t the Lists come there to Bristow from somewhere else? HC: They came, they’re not, they’re not real old… HK: Old timers. HC: They’re not real old timers. But Jim Jackson… HK: They are sort of like me. I didn’t show up in Bristow until 1930. HC: Yeah, well, List showed up there, it was in, oh, before ’29. It was in the, about the time the first oil boom hit, hit Bristow. That’s when they come there. HK: I see that’s been the early or middle 20’s then. HC: Yeah, well, getting back to community spirit, I was trying to, that was about it, other than the people around there that was originally there. Getting back to the lumber yards and the rig builders, these old rig builders. There was a lot of rig builders there that, there was McMurtry Brothers (LeeRoy McMurtry, Albert W. McMurtry), and there was Stanley Henson, Earl Dwyer, and Mike Foreman. And there was two or three more there that… HK: Do you remember, do you remember the year your dad bought his first truck? HC: Yes, 1927. HK: 1927. HC: Yes sir. And it was… HK: What kind of truck was it? HC: It was a Chevrolet. And he bought that Chevrolet in 1927 and he hired, now here’s the switch. 1927 he bought the truck and he drove the team himself. Now he had a team that he drove and nobody touched those lines, don’t nobody touch that team. Nobody went up and got on that wagon. HK: Right. HC: You stayed, just keep your hands off. Dad drove that team. He hired a truck driver, 1927-1928. 1928 he bought a ton Dodge. Now this Chevrolet was a ton… HK: Big truck. One ton. HC: Big truck. And he couldn’t, he was hauling cable tools stuff and a 15-inch bit was all you could haul on the truck because it was overloaded if it was any bigger. HK: Well, did he have a winch to load it with? HC: Had a hand winch. HK: Hand winch. HC: Had a hand winch on the side. Then the Dodge had a hub winch on the side. But he’d have to go out here with a block, come up here with a block [indecipherable]. HK: Right. The winch wasn’t attached to the drive shaft like it is now. HC: No. HK: It was either a hub winch or hand winch. HC: Hand winch. HK: Right. HC: The old hand winch was a back breaker. It was a hard deal to operate. That was my job, a swamper’s job on the truck. I ran the hand winch. HK: He would trust somebody to drive his truck for him, but he wouldn’t trust anybody to drive his team. HC: His team. And 1928 when he bought the second truck, he decided he would retire the team. And he drove the horses into the yard, unharnessed them, put them in the barn, and every day he cut one bushel of oats down. He’d feed them a bushel of oats of a morning and a bushel of oats at night and two bales of hay. And he retired them. And this was in 1928. HK: I’ll be darn. HC: He sold the rest of the horses, but… HK: Kept that team. HC: He kept that team. And that team from 1928, when I went over seas, one horse was still alive. HK: Is that right? HC: He was 34-years-old. HK: Holy cow! HC: That old horse was 34-years-old. My dad raised that horse. He weighed 2001 pounds. HK: Was he black? HC: White. HK: White. White horse. HC: Oh boy, I mean the shoes on that feet on there about like that. HK: Gracious. HC: And when he got ready to… HK: Well, that’s about like a Clydesdale, isn’t it? HC: Yeah, it’s as big as a Budweiser horse. HK: Yeah, that’s what I mean, big as a Budweiser horse. HC: And when he decided to go into the teaming business, he started [indecipherable] made for the horse, the one he raised. He went all over the country. He went to Idaho. He went to, went to Nebraska, and he went here, and he went there and he finally found a horse that was nearly what he wanted. Just a young horse. HK: Yeah. HC: Over at Carney, Oklahoma. So he goes over there to get it. And we have this old T-Model Ford. He drives over there that he bought that I mentioned while ago. HK: Yeah. HC: And he goes over there to get it, and to make the deal with the old farmer, and my dad gave him a $1000 for this horse. And he had a halter and a rope on him, and dad said, well, okay, we’ll just take him now. And the old farmer says, well, wait a minute, I’m not going to sell you that halter and rope. I didn’t include that. HK: Just the horse. HC: Just the horse. So, dad said, well, you stay here and hold the horse. You just hold on to that rope ‘till I get back. Well, I got under a shade tree and sat there. And dad had to come all the way from Carney back to Chandler to buy a halter and a rope and get back out there and get the horse. And we led the old horse home, and dad was driving about two mile an hour. HK: Now you didn’t haul the horse home? HC: No, we led him home and he walked! HK: And he walked. HC: He trotted. And my dad didn’t drive but three or four miles per hour in that old Ford. HK: Right. HC: We led the horse home, and he walked, he trotted along behind the car. But the old farmer wouldn’t let…dad offered to buy the bridle. HK: Buy the bridle and the rope, and he wouldn’t sell it. HC: He wouldn’t sell it. HK: Sold the horse. HC: He sold the horse. That’s all I sold ya. I’m not gonna sell you that bridle and halter and rope. HK: Okay, do you remember where the streets bricked in Bristow, from the time you can first remember or at least part of them? HC: Uh, no, they wasn’t… HK: Do you remember the old dirt streets, about where… HC: Yeah, I remember the dirt, mud streets. HK: About what year did they put those bricks down? Seemed to me like I asked Arthur (Arthur Foster) and Arthur wasn’t sure. HC: I would say it was in, they started putting them down before WWII, I mean one, WWI. Before WWI. Now I can’t say exactly, but I would say there are some in there, some of those streets was in there in 1915 or ’16. HK: Yeah. HC: Because I was about four or five-years-old, and my grandad was hauling that sand in there, and there was a contractor, cement man in there by the name of Fielder. And if you look around the streets, you’ll see many… HK: Many of the street corners, there’s A. Fielder. HC: A. Fielder. HK: That’s right. HC: And he was, he was a real good concrete man. And he put the sidewalks in and a lot of the streets and a lot of the brick. HK: And Bristow must have been, at that time in ’16 and ’17, a fairly thriving community and fairly prosperous. HC: It was a thriving and prosperous community because of the cotton. HK: Mainly cotton and corn then. HC: Yeah, cotton and corn. And the cotton gins that was there. There was one, two, three…there was five cotton gins there at one time. HK: Yeah. I have heard, and I don’t know how true this is, that at one time, and I don’t know what year this was, there were actually eight cotton gins in Bristow at one time. But that was before my time. HC: Excuse me, it was…excuse me, now it might have been, I might have missed one or two, but to my recollection, I can count for sure…well, Abrahams had two, Kellys had one, and there was some other people had one. And then the one over there by your place. HK: Yeah there was one across the street from my office, and one where John Bishop… HC: Oh, Friersons, Friersons. Friersons had one. HK: Friersons had one, right. HC: They had the cotton seed mill there. HK: I can remember five myself. HC: Yeah. HK: And I’ve heard that there were eight. HC: Well, there was eight at one time. Then there was some people there named Anderson (John Andrew Anderson) that run the feed mill back in the early day when there was just horse and buggy. And I can remember coming in with my dad from his farm out there at Mayes Corner, we’d come in in the buggy to get groceries, and we’d come in once a week, and it would take all day to come in. We’d bring corn to grind. We’d take it to Anderson’s Mill, and Anderson’s Mill was built right where, right where, you know where the J& ; amp ; J Café is? HK: Right. HC: Anderson’s Mill was about the next door down. It wasn’t over at Billy’s there then. It was an old sheet iron building, and they had, they had, they ground meal and wheat and made feed. HK: Yeah. Do you remember how many oil field supply houses there were in Bristow? I remember National Supply Company was where Martin Pound Drilling Company is now. Oil Well Supply was immediately east of them across the railroad tracks. HC: Okay, just north of the Oil Well was Republic and just, let’s see, across the railroad tracks from where your office is, the light company’s got a building there. Right across there was the old Frick Reid (ph) building. HK: Oh Frick-Reid, now Jones and Loughlin (ph). HC: Jones and Loughlin, Frick-Reid. Then down on first, there was three or four. I say there was possibly eleven or twelve. HK: Oil field supply stores. HC: Yeah, oil field supply stores. And that’s, there was a bunch of them, man, there was a bunch of them. When they had the Slick railroad, they had a bunch of the supply house out along old Slick railroad. HK: Down where it started up there at Bristow. Started off of the Frisco. HC: Frisco track at Bristow. HK: Frisco track at Bristow, and there were supply houses along that railroad at the beginning of that then. HC: Yeah, yeah, that’s right. And where old Sinclair place is there, Arco (ph) yard is there now, used to be an oil field supply store. HK: It did. It was also. HC: Yeah, it was also. Then along the railroad track there, there was pipe yards and supply stores, and I say there was eleven or twelve. HK: Well, the railroad then between, between Bristow and Slick and went on [indecipherable] to Nuyaka. Probably, I would imagine, would have hurt the trucking business that your dad was in. HC: Well… HK: The teaming business…or was there enough for everybody to go around? HC: There was enough for everybody to go around then, because it was a slow operation and the railroad couldn’t haul that stuff out to the locations. They could haul it to a central railhead… HK: They still had to unload it, right? HC: They’d haul it to Slick and unload it and then they had to go out to here or there. HK: That’s right. HC: And I can remember going to up where this waterfront is that we got out there, you know where the well is on the big hillside over there? HK: Yeah. HC: My dad, we’d go from Bristow out there, and do whatever we had to do and spend the night down there at that spring there on the, I forget what spring, Turkey Creek Spring, I believe. HK: Yeah. Turkey Creek Spring. And as far as I know, it’s still running. HC: It’s still running. HK: Right. HC: And we’d spend our night there. It was…we stayed all night, we’d spend it right there at that spring because there’s water for the horses and then we’d, when we was just coming out to the eight mile corner, we’d pull to Jesse Allen’s place… HK: Right. HC: That creek is a good hole of water there. We’d make it there and try to make it there by lunch time. And we’d load up in town, make it to Jesse Allen’s place for lunch, then go on to the eight mile corner, and then be 8:00, 9:00 getting back home at night. HK: It was a long, long day. HC: Oh yeah, yeah. And the people that developed the oil business back in the early day around Bristow as the Rolands and the Freelands and Slick, Tom Slick…he developed Slick. That’s where it got it’s name. HK: Actually the Joneses never did, they, as far as I know, they never did actually operate as operators. HC: They operated as investors. HK: They operated as investors. HC: That’s right. And now the Joneses, they were, they made their money on after they come to Bristow from oil. But it was as investors, not as operators. HK: Right. That’s what I understood. HC: They, there was old B.B. Jones, he got into Drumright, made a fortune there. R.L., he made a fortune in the Drumright and then in the south Bristow deal, too. But there’s… HK: Well, there was lots of oil around Bristow. HC: Yeah, a lot of oil. HK: No question, it was a major factor in the growth of the town. HC: That’s right. And on this, getting back to early day Bristow, there used to be a bunch of tough characters around here. Boy, I mean they was rough, rough individuals. And there wasn’t hardly a week went by that somebody didn’t shoot somebody or kill somebody there. HK: Yeah. HC: And back when the banks had to run on the banks right after WWI, my uncle’s father, his name was Inman. He was a rough old character, and he wore an overcoat summer and winter. And in them overcoat pockets, he carried two old thumb-busters. He and his boys, my uncle and his brother and the old man hauled their cotton into Bristow and sold it. And at the gins they took the money up and he did, he did business with the Yakish Brothers’ bank (Robert W. Yakish of Bristow National Bank). I don’t remember what that bank is, where the American National Bank used to be. HK: Yeah, on the corner of 7th. Oh it was across the street from… HC: Across the street from American National Bank. HK: Right. HC: There used to be four banks there. HK: Right. HC: On each corner had a bank. Now the First National Bank was here and, I don’t remember what American National Bank, it wasn’t American National Bank back then. HK: Wasn’t American then, no. HC: And the Yakish Brothers, I don’t remember what their bank was, and the other bank, I don’t remember it. But the Groom’s owned the First National Bank. That was where McMillian’s office is. HK: And Blackstock. HC: Blackstock. HK: There in that building now. HC: That building. Then across the street was where American National Bank, and then Yakish was across there. HK: Across main street. HC: Old man hauled his cotton in. They all brought, I don’t know, three loads of cotton or how much. I don’t know. He sold his cotton and went up and deposited money in the bank. And the next morning, the bank didn’t open. So, about , why, somebody let the old man know the bank didn’t open, so about , he road to town on his horse. He and the Yakish boys was good friends. He goes around the side door, knocks on the door, old head Yakish comes to the door and opens it, and he walks in. The old man walks out with his money after he pulls the six-shooters on them and tells them he come in after his money. He walked out with his money. HK: He’s one that walked out with it. HC: He walked out with it. He got the money. HK: And what was his name? HC: Inman. HK: Inman. HC: Yeah. He killed two or three men on the main street there. He got in an argument or something. The old man was hard. HK: Self-defense, of course. HC: Yeah, yeah, self-defense. Never did serve a day, and they were about half Indians, and my aunt, my uncle’s wife, I guess she still living there at Bristow. I, we didn’t ever visit, because they didn’t hardly claim kinfolks to us. HK: Yeah. HC: But back in the early day there, it was rough. Old man killed my grandad and all that jazz. It was some pretty rough characters. HK: Well, most, most early settlements in this country were rough. HC: They had to be rough to exist. HK: That’s right. Well, when you get back on your feet, now, and when you can get around, why come down and we’ll go take a picture of the sidewalk. HC: Of that sidewalk. HK: Of the sidewalk. HC: Well, that walk will be, it will be, no it will be about 65-years-old. HK: I’d like to get a picture of it. HC: And it may have old A. Fielder’s name on it. I don’t know. HK: It may have. HC: I don’t know, he put it in. It was back there when he first come to Bristow. He put it in. HK: Okie doke, we’ll take a picture of it. HC: Okay, I’ll come down. HK: And we’ll put it with the record. HC: I’ll get with it and see what we can…and you think of anything else that… HK: You don’t happen to have any, any early day pictures of Bristow of the dirt streets or of the oil field or anything like that? HC: I don’t. My dad did. HK: In any of your dad’s stuff. HC: He had it, but I don’t know. I look and see. I don’t know, I may have some pictures of my dad’s team and some of his teams. I don’t know. I had it, at one time, I had a lot of it. HK: If we had some of the down town, you know, and the streets muddy and jammed and that stuff and what they looked like in the early day. It would just be interesting. HC: I’ll check and see, but I don’t believe I have Harlan, because when my first wife and I separate, she took all of my pictures. I had a lot of them, but that’s about it. Now I’ll to you somebody that might, old, not Ted Herman, but Taylor Herman. HK: Taylor Herman. HC: His dad was a judge (Judge William H. Herman), there, back in the early day and he was Chief of Police back there. And he was a pretty, he was a great big fat fella. He was a husky guy. And he might have some pictures of the town. HK: I’ll ask him. HC: John Price, he may have some. I don’t know. And some of the old buildings down at Bristow, down where the original Church of God is now, it’s on third street. HK: Right. HC: And whatever street that is, Uncle Billy Freshour’s old house was a block north there, and it’s on the north side of fourth street there. But it’s about a two-story house. It’s an old house. HK: Old house. HC: He lived there, Uncle Billy did. He was one of the roughest United States Marshals that they had in the country. Oh, he would shoot you and… HK: Ask questions later. HC: Ask questions later. HK: Well, I guess there had to be a few of those around to tame that place down. HC: Yeah, you better know it, because it was rough. All during that oil boom, the “dopies” you talk about dope now, there was dope back then. HK: Yeah, I’m sure there was. HC: And gamblers and the prostitutes coming in. And that… HK: And always the whiskey. HC: Oh yeah, plenty of that. Plenty of whiskey there. HK: Well, unless you can think of something else, I’ve about run out of questions. HC: Well, if you run out of questions, well, let’s closer her off and we’ll think of some more later. audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/render.php?cachefile=OHP-0052B_Hyatt_Chapman.xml OHP-0052B_Hyatt_Chapman.xml
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Hyatt Chapman - Part 2
Description
An account of the resource
Hyatt continues this 1979 interview discussing plugging wells, Bristow’s first gas well, early merchants, brick streets, oil supply companies and the railroad, and the many tough Bristow characters.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
OHP-0052B
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1979-08-02
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio