The age-herald., 1902-02-23

began. On the ninth day the oil was con. | trolled and the well has been working | beautifully ever since
 l Investigation of the Lucas well showed
 that just before the men quit for suppey
 on that memorable night the drill had en- | tered the cap rock The terrific pressure
 on the oil, thought by some to be due to
 salt water and by others to be due to gas. forced 1t through the rock and up
 the well to the surface.
 The first boomers arrived at Beaumont
 on the afternoon of the day after tho
 Lucas gusher was found Every train af
 ter that brought them In, and in twenty I four hours Beaumont, quiet, peaceful Beaumont, was overrun with spectators, | fortune hunters, oil men from every part
 Of the country, fa<irs and swindlers. Capital poured in frcm everywhere ana | the rush for land began. This was in January 19Ol and Beaumont, with it's | few hotels, was totally unprepared for the demands that were made on 1t. Wild Scenes at Beaumont. The following is a brief description
 of what happened in Beaumont in those early days told by New York man who was there throughout the entire excite ment:
 "The usually quiet streets of Beaumont were crowded with people and every train that came in brought hundreds | more oil, oi oil. was all that they talked about. and trading in land began | at once. Men made purchases from men | they had never seen before before they
 had been in the place ten minutes, and
 sold again at big profit before they had eaten their first meal in Beaumont. If a man had anything to sell he rush. | ed at the first man he camo across and told him his price. Nine times out of ten l the man took it. If he didn't the man | with land din't waste any time with 1 him. He just passed along to the next
 man, and so it went on.
 | A man came up to me On the street | before I had been in town five minutes I have a piece of land in the Bullock sur | vey I'll sell you for a thousand dollars, | he said. I didn't know what the Bullock survey was and I started to say so.
 He didn't wait to hear me. but threw l the same offer at a man behind men, who had come on my train and who knew | about as much about the Bullock survey | as did. The man took it without asking any questions. That night I met him l and asked him If he didn't think he was | foolish to buy that way.
 Foolish he exclaimed. Say I've
 seen these boon.s before. I sold that land TOT DOWN dH nOuI alteT bought It. Fortunes Quickly Made. And he did And two days later that piece of land sold fer $20oOo, and good- ness knows what 1t sold for befcre the
 sn ash-up. but 1t probably got up as nigh as S5o000.
 Meantime folks poured into Beaumont. Clerks with the few hundred dollars 1t had taken them years to save came in; and, of course. the demand for land in- creased. Everyone wanted to buy: no one wanted to sell except for enormous amounts.
 oil companies had heen formed by the dozen, and, because there wasn't any other place for them to locate, they es- tablished offices on the front porches of houses and in the bar rooms of hotels. Some officee were in dry goods boxes and others right out on tho curb. "And the companies were getting boxes of gold by every train from subscribers to their stock. and. what was more, they were spending 1t. Money was every where and the trades ran away up in the millions.
 The keen fellows saw that any old land would brirg a price. If they couldn't get land around the charmed circle they got 1t miles away from farmers. and then they hawked it on tho street and got
 fabulous prices for 1t. just because it was land.
 T woke up to tho thing after while