Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1891-08-21
SedrO's Oil Mystery.
IPress-Times. /

Press Times.
1t is not likely that coal oil refining
Will assume great proportions in this
state, or that the discovery of crude pc
troleum will be recorded in the beautiful
valleys or rugged gulches of the fruitful
Nooksack or Skagit valleys just at this
time.
This is magnificent stale, and oil
may be found here and at some future
time spout like ward politician or YER
liable geyser, but it will not be done this
month within voice of the murmur1ng
ripple of the classic Skagit
But short time ago it looked very
much as if, in addition to iron, coal, fish,
gold and silver, petroleum would be
added to the long and dazzling string of
products credited to Washington, This
hope, which animated the hearts of the
Nooksackers, has, with hollow shrek,
fled into the deeper forests and will re-
turn no more.
The reasons are interesting and give
an aftermath to the tragedy which re-
Gently took place at Sedro which will be
news to many and will put a quietus
upon a certain confidence game, which,
but for the trouble between Baird and
Holden at that place, would have been
successfully worked
Some time ago men went up into the
woods about Sedro or beyond that point
and gave out that they had faith the
country as a producer of petroleum.
The formation favored it, and there was
no doubt this mineral would be devel-
oped in paying quantities if little
money were used in finding it. These
explorers had the money.
To this end these coal oil sharps
bonded large acreage, spit on their
hands, and went to work. Machinery
for boring was furnished, and everything
looked like first-class coal oil boom.
The up-couRtry press was worked and
several items about the new oil finds of
the west found their way into the public
print.
Just when the prospect looked most
promising the fatal meeting took place
between Baird and Holden at Sedro. 1t
was thought that large quantities of
opium were hidden in the bushes in that
section. Animated by commendable
desire to prevent fraud upon the govern
ment, the officers searched the woods.
They unearthed barrels Of stuff
thought for moment, amidst great ex-
citement, to be opium. When the bar
rels were bored into crude petroleum
flowed from them and enriched the
ground. They were all filled with the
same freight-not pound of opium,
but hundreds of gallons of crude oil.
The people about Sedro have ever
since that time been wondering what on
earth could be the cause for bringing
petroleum into the woods and hiding it
In the brush. It was not valuable and
there was no sale for oil about Sedro.
simultaneously with the discovery of
this petroleum mine disappeared the coal
oil operators. There have been no more
glowing reports from the oil fields. The
bonded land will not change hands, the
petroleum which lies in the bowels of the
earth in Skagit county Will stay there
at least till the storm blows over, or the
people forget the barreled product and
cease to wonder how it came there, and
why.
The Press Times is in possession of
facts which indicate that several very
sharp oil spectators, gamblers and mine
salters, some of whom have tried the
same game in California, had combined
on a scheme to "salt" great ''oil WE'LL
but that the present discovery stopped
the plot.
The effort to discover coal oil in West
ern Washington has been nipped in the
bud, likewise in the barrel. We shall
still have to import our raw and refined
oils, and the grasping Standard Oil com
pany is safe from the competition which
was threatened by these enterprising i'm
porters of barrrled petroleum via the
Canadian Pacific.