New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1868-08-06

Prom Our special Correspondent
PETROLEUM CENTER Aug. I, 1868.
Five or six wears ago the VenangO District was
bowling wilderness of crazy spectators and cursing
teamsters The rude farmers who had planted their
corn and buckwheat on the steep hillsdes season
after season. and scraped scanty living out OF the
rocky soil, clearing their fields in cheap. wasteful
way by burning the great forest trees and leaving
the trunks to rot on the ground, and the charred
stumps to fill half the space over which the pow
ought to have passed; who seldom saw schoOhOuse
or n newspaper and never had an idea which they
had not inherited from their fathers-these men, in
toxicated with the sudden wealth which since 1860
had been spirting out of their lands and bewdered
by the prospect of riches to be had for the digging
had either sold their property at enormous
prices and gone TO parade their wealth in the
cities or had caught n sudden fever of enterprise
and were boring wells and cartng barrels with an en-
ergv such as none of their race had shown for many
generation back At any rate the whole face OF the
sleepy country was changed. The smart Yankee the
speculator the swindler, the gambler, and the grog
dealer poured into the land and metamOrphOsed the
sluggish inhabitants, or else drove them out SIX
weeks was long enough TO build city, New maps
were needed almost every fortnight. Outlandlsh
names-Pithole, OleOpols, Oil City-began to appear
in geography. People were so busy gathering
the precious grease which wrought these
wondrous changes so eager to be hrst
in the headlong race for new oil lands, that they
spared little time for the comforts or even the de-
cencies of life The cities" counted their popula-
ton bv tens of thousands yet the houses were moth
ing but shanties and the streets were filthy soughs
Mllionaires trudged through the noisome mud In
cowhide boots and the rudest of clothes, hung
around dirty bar-roems, and slept in rickety slab
houses. The wagons which conveyed the oil to the
hatboats on the Allegheny River or Oil Creek, or,
when the water was low to the distant railways,
could scarcely get through the awful roads where
the mud sometimes covered the aXles, and broken
wheels and shattered barrels Uttered the way There
was no time to mend roads, drivers must get along
as best they could with the help of hard swearing
and a tough whip. 1t is strange that when it cost
the third Of the value of barrel OF oil to carry IL
to the point Of shipment. the economy OF bulcIng
RAILWAYS and LAYING pipes all through the oil cOun
trv was not sooner acted upon The railways came
at last however; but almost before the tracks
were laid the great crash came too; busl-
ness of all kinds depressed, and the OIL trade
owing to various causes suffered moro than al
most any other. The collapse of bogus companies,
the inevitable reaction after overspeculahon, and
the decrease in the produciveness of the wells all had
their effect The price of oil fell to such point that
only few of the best wells could yield profit, and
]
the clang of the drill suddenly ceased
! The revival which has recently taken place
in tho Venango District-the headquarters now
AZ ALWAYS of the oil trade-differs ma
terially from the old state of things. The
facilities for getting the crude petroleum to market
ara vastly improved. The race Of teamsters IS en-
tirely extinct, and the rough frontier character
which they gave to the population is no longer per-
ceptible Railroads run through the valleys OF the
Allegheny. the Venango, and Oil Creek, completely
encircling the producing district and at convenient
points near all the principal oil localities, or arms
immense iron tanks, like gas receivers, OF 5OOo
10000 or 10000 barrels capacity are built by compa-
MES. and the oil is conveyed to them directly from
the wells in iron pipes, laid either on the
surface of the ground or in a shallow
trench. The pipes also owned by company,
which has about thirty miles of piping between Pc
troleum Center and Titusve, and controls nearly
the entire oil business of that rich locality buying
be crude petroleum at the wells and selling 1t from
tanks nj the point of shipment Ii is understood that
they are about to effect sale of their entire business
70 the consolidated railways the Oil Creek and Allie
qhany River the Allegheny Valley, and Others which
surround the district, The cost of putting down
the pipe is about $1,000 mile Steam pumps regu-
late the discharge into the tanks and thence when
wanted into barrels or car-tanks. During the com
paaye inactivity of the past year or two the towns
which did not die outright have had an opportunity
IN brush up a little and improve their appearance
Most of them are ugly enough STILL but little Orna
nent is perceptible here and there, the streets are
tolerabe and generally you will fine plank side
walk The land spectators have gone out OF the
older oil regions and are only beginning to appear
! in the new ones. You hear no more OF the
wonderful buying and selling of p" leases ana re-
I a. aaIa
hear no more of the extraordinary discoveries OF
flowing wells. by which men have become rich IN
single day. The renewed activity is steady, legit-
mate business profitable at the present prices, and
usually conducted by lessees, who pay royalty OF
saw oneGuarter the production. Labor Is not dearer
than i'm other parts of the country The cost OF Vng
is not extraordinary and the expense of sinking wells
is probably not more than half great as 1t used to
be- A well of 500 feet with derrick, engine, and all
necessary TOOLS can be bored and put IN working
order for about $4,000 Oil is worth at the wells -
barrel and about s. of this is clear profit to the
producer
Ientered the oil region by way of the Atlantic and
! Great Western Railway through Meadylue and
Franklin. where the earliest discoveries were made
Scattered evidences of the old fever meet the eye All
along the road which follows the valley OF the
Venango and the Allegheny Derricks, black wlth
the weather, were dropping to pieces every mere anu
there in the river bottom, and broken windlasses
rotten tanks aud now and then the battered
remnants of an engine were strewn over the ground
AS we approached Franklin few wells were found
in operation pumping some four or five barrels day.
and from Franklin down the river TO Emlenton
there is succession of these small wells, the aggre
cate Weld of which is about 1000 barrels day. None
of them are flowing wells; indeed pumping nova
DAVIS Is almost universal. l spent few hours AT
Reno. three or four miles beyond Franklin What