The age-herald., 1902-02-23

whom the striking of a gusher or good l pump well, is matter of indifference,
 save for the added excitement over the l country which follows the dissemination
 of such news.
 The oil Speculation. To these people the oil excitement Is a
 means to an end It furnishes them an | opportunity to acquire a little land near 1 enough to the oil field to make 1t possible
 that oil can be found on 1t, form a com
 pany, advertise 1t extensively and then | sell stock far and wide at trifllng price, l which brings the chance for speculation within the reach of the poorest wage | earner in the country.
 | Texas has Its full quota of swinding | operators, who have formed oil companies | with no intention of ever going after oil, 1 but 1t also has a great body of legitimate oil men, some of whom have struck oil already, and others of whom will surely | strike it sooner or later who are market l ing their product and making money for | themselves and those who have invested | with them.
 There is no lack of money for those
 who are honestly drilling for oil in the neighborhood of the charmed circle on | Spindle Top, and there is no lack of faith
 in the future among the men who are doing the drilling. The oil men who have
 come back here from Beaumont after | studying the situation in the new field | seem very confident that the supply will
 last for great many years and that only | a small part of the oil which Is there at various depths, has yet been discovered. Of course the striking of oil in this | remote corner of the country has wrought great changes there, but what amazes the
 man who knew the country around Beau l mont before the oil boom Is the rapidity 1 with which these changes have been | made. From a quiet, slow going little | Texas town, the entire wealth of which 1 was in lumber and rice growing. Beau l mont has become a busy city, full of l capitalists, promoters and investors. It | has grown from town of 5000 people to | city of 30.000, with floating popula-
 tion of 5000, and scores of new buildings, | banks and hotels.
 Out on the prairie, about Spindle Top, 1 the changes are even greater, for the | scrubby ground which grudgingly gave | up bare subsistence to the cattle that
 grazed on it. is dotted with the shelter frames of the drill derricks. huge storage l tanks and work houses, sheds and cabins | Dozens of pipe lines run to tide water | at Sabine Pass, twenty-four miles away
 and Port Arthur, fourteen miles away, 1 and by this means much of the product of | the field Is already being marketed in the
 North by means of tank steamers.
 Prices Go Soaring.
 | Beaumont went through some very in- | teresting experiences before all these | changes were brought about. It saw days and nights of tremendous excite I ment, when men and women went crazy | with the fever of speculation, and twen- l ty-four hours in a day were not nearly
 enough for the people to finish the work l they had to do.
 1 Fortunes were made in few minutes | in land speculation, and parcels of land would change ownership a score of times l in day, and with the last transfer bring
 a price several hundred percent higher
 than in the first sale for the day. Any
 man who had land could sell 1t in two minutes by announcing that he had it. | and whoever bought 1t could turn around | and sell 1t again without any trouble at higher figure than he paid for it. l It didn't matter where 1t was situated 1 so long as 1t was within fifty miles of l the oil fields, and no one bothered to. in-