The sea coast echo. [volume] (Bay Saint Louis, Miss.) 1892-current, 1901-05-04
OFFICE Ground Floor,
MASONIC BUILDING, Main street.
Bay 81. Louis, Miss.

telegram companies are made
| quate to keep abreast of the del,
uge of telegrams with which the
wires are continually burdened,
and at certain hours in the day
hours sometime intervene between
the fling and the handling of a
I message. Added 10 all this both
offices are literally besieged all
the time with inquiries for mes
sages. A great proportion of the
people for whom messages are re-
ceived have only temporary ad
dresses, which enhances the di-
ficulties experienced by the tele-
graph companies in delivering the
messages to the proper parties.
This is equally true Of mail and
lucky is the man who, after a brief
residence in Beaumont has no
cause to complain by reason of his
failure to receive mail.
! The Office of every oil company.
oil operator, land lawyer and
broker, or, IN fact, any one whose
business has any relation to oil or
land, is a little nerve center. The
bigger the company, the bigger
the crowd in the office, all intent
on getting the ear and the atten-
ton of the man in charge. Twen-
ty men all waiting for the same
individual, half dozen of them
probably lysurrounding him ut once,
is not at all an uncommon sight.
Maps, lenses, stock certificates,
new wells and additions Just plat
ted, purchased or put on the mar
ket arc to be seen IN the hands or
pockets of every other man, while
the nervous force that drives along
spectators, investors or opera
tors, is something tremendous.
The men who act as the managing
heads of the different companies
have nearly every minute in the
day devoted to engagements and
few can spare more than a hasty
five minutes conference at one
time. The pace is ofthe swifest
and the nerve tension would seem
ITO be enough to produce whole
sale series Of nervous prostration.
There is only the one topic Of
oil and its collary, land, aud any
other has not the ghost Of a show.
Everything bearing on one or the
other is rushed.
Out beyond the pear orchards
that crown Spindle Top with "a
garniture of light green, lie the
great oil wells, the discovery of
which has brought fame and for
tune to Beaumont and caused
Texas to leap with one bound into
the front rank of the oIl-produc-
ing zones of the world. Like q
line Of gigantic finger posts, COM
manding attention, the big wood
en- skeleton-like derricks mark the
place where either oil has been
found or IS being largely sought.
Eighty-fve feet high on any aver
age, and with beams foot and a
half high in thickness, braccd and
reinforced to withstand the shock
of the mightiest gusher ever drill
ed, they are on every hand along
the crest of the ridge in a long,
Estraggling, serpentine-like trail.
For u distance Of seven miles the
derricks rise out of the ground
and stand out in bold relief against
the sky. They vary all the way
from half a mile to so or 100 feet
apart.
They are thickest in the imme-
date vicinity of the great Lucas
wells, the parent gusher, where
half dozen tower skyward with
in radius of an acre and half.
The Lucas well is the farthest
Of the spouting wells from Beau
mont, the distance being placed
approximately at five miles 10 a
southerly direction. The first to
be "brought in,' the technical
term which every Beaumonter al
ludes to the success attending the
sinking of a well, it is almost at
the end Of the long line of der
ricks that indicate thetrend of the
oil vein, according to the best ac-
cepted authorities. All the scaf-
folding thatsurroupded the Lucas
well has been removed and the
great levethian confined by the
lcapping of the well. The force
that threw six-inch stream of oil
l58 feet high is compressed and