The evening times. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1895-1902, 1901-06-03
BEAUMoNTs BOOM OVERCOME.
Plenty of Oil There, But Market
Badly Needed

BEAUMONT, Tex, June 3-Beau-
Tuont's great oil boom has gonc astray
anG a fortune awaits the man mo will
bring 1t back to the crooked cowpath
streets of this aspiring village The thing
was overdone at the start and now hun
dreds Of SPECTATORS hang dejectedIy
around the Crosby House and the little
pine shauty known as the Oil Exchange
where were the centres of excitement a
month ago
Three elements OF uncertainty have
knocked the bottom out of the boom
namely, the extent Of the oil sands. the
question Of a market for so vast a guam
tity Of fuel OIL and the attitude Of the
Standard OIL Company. And not. the least
of these is the Standard Oil couunCfrt1u.
Nlseacres assert body that THIS ana
that and the other thing are the handi-
work Of the Standard but one wiseacre
didereth widely from another in his
statements and sUrmises. and the truth
of the situation refuses to reveal itself
Except for those who got IN at top
prices, it is just as well that speculation
has been killed The situation was peril
Gus. Now It can work itse.f out on Ieg7t-
innate lines. There is a greater Droduc-
ton OF petroleum in sight here than the
world has ever known, and fresh SUCCESS
es at the drill tend TO confirm the esti-
mate that the Beaumont field viii start
out with a production Of from 10000 10
100000 barrels a day Fortuues2 WHY.
such flow means wealth untoId-sone
time But for the present the man who
owns black vomiting we'll that at the
turn Of a valve viii throw six or eight
iach stream of oil a hundred feet in the
air, can. II so minded. anuse himself or
the public by turning the geySeTS on. Aft
CT you have caught your hare it Is well
10 nave d fire ana pot 10 cook It with.
An oil field without a market 3 almost
as Dad as no oil field
So it comes that the spectators are de
Jected- Money IS not 70 be made here in
the way that most people started out to
make II in the early DAYS of the excite
ment- The heavy capitalist IS the man
who VIII win out. At present prices it
requires S15,Ge0 to $4,000 to bore one well
hundreds OF thousands VIII have to be
expended before any large proportion of
the product can be disposed Of
More than 100 corporations have been
formed for the oStenSible purpose OF pro
ducing and dealing in Texas oil Many Of
them are legitimate and have fair pros
pect Of success. Others were created
solely for the purpose of floating the
stock, and their shares have been sold all
over the United States
The trick was easily done. Twenty-f0uT
hours are enough under Texas laws IN
which to create 4 Tuli-dedRed CORPORA
ness. This. too. Notwithstanding the fact
that the Lone Star State is famous, OF
perhaps notorious, for its Tabid anti-COr-
porati0n statutes. 4 single instance Of
this rapidity of action will suffice Two
men from Colorado landed here on the
evening train one day in the height OF
the boom. That night they corTalled a
rice farmer who had lands TO sell and at
midnight were deep in maps and title
deeds. BY the next evening corporate
charter had been secured. the property
acquired officers elected, stock placed on
the market and flaming advertisements
placed by telegraph in all the leading
cities of the country
With the bogus companies the property
acquired usually consisted of options
leases on lands remote from the proved oil
district. The advertisements We're judi
cfouSIv vOrded. When distances from the
avoided, and when small enough to be
stated safely. they were given for the
sake of euph0ny in feet rather than miles
Is sounded better to say that the Sure
Thing Company had acquired a tract b.
600 feet from the Lucas guSher than TO
put il bIuutly that II had an option on an
acre OF two with an unse8TCHed title. three
miles from the nearest we'll Title deeds.
by the way. usually express distances
here in ''yaraS." the yara being q Spanish
unit of measure equal 20 about thITty-fOur
inches
With legitimate companies also the "a
pidity with which things wers accomplish
ed was one of the fascinating features OF
early transactions. In one case a well just
outside the ''guSher'' district showed
marked symptoms of oil when the drill
had reached a depth of $40 feet \ Proni-
net young oil man got a forty-eight hour