The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-12-10
Jim LOckhart Still Wears the
Same Sized Hat.
$1,000 A MONTH INCOME
Has Money to Burn but Con-
tinues to Work the Farm.
Has Much Land for Which He
Refused $500 Per Acre.

lola, Kan, Dec. 1O.-The Record says:
Jim Lockhart,. oil king, was in lola to-
day and a personal investigation shows
that he still wears the same size hat,
dresses about as he did when he was
3 common populist, member of the board
of county commissioners and general
good fellow His sudden shooting into
the Rockefeller class has not changed
him.
At the court house this. morning he
was relating the story of the big oil
strike on his land. With an income
exceeding a thousand dollars month
he can take life rather easy. but he
still works around the farm, although
he has more hired help than he once
had. Then he has so acres adjoining
the big wells that has not been leased
and he is in quandary whether to
take one Of the hundreds of fattering
offers he has received for the land or
bring in a drilling outfit and sink
well himself. He has about concluded
to do the latter Once he refused 5000
an acre for this land now 1t has risen
TO $500 and still he hesitates.
But it is comparatively easy to get
that amount of money out of the oil
If 1t proves to be under this land and
as strong as 1t is under the adjoining
farms. Therefore he will drill and get
all the oil instead of the one-eighth
that is his share on the leased land.
The really big well flowed, immedi
ately after IT was shot, fifty barrels an
hour. At this rate it was putting
little more than a thousand dollars a
day into the pockets of the company
that drilled it. But it got stonDed up.
and they are now at work opening it
again. There are six wells on his
place. one of them a dry hole and the
seventh well win be drilled into it in a
few days With six flowing wells on
his place he will be able to get through
the winter without asking the county
for aid.
Mr.. Lockhart served for six years on
the board of county commissioners and
today he visited the old place and took
the commissioners to dinner with him.
It was not the elaborate menu that an
oil king might be expected to order,
but it contained everything that the
remaining members wished o eat.
Mr.. LOckhart thinks that If he had
still been on the board he would have
paid too much attention to the county's
affairs and not enough to his own. AS
1t was his defeat gave him time to
look after the oil business. with the
result that he is now a rich man and
growing richer every hour. And there
IS not person in the county who will
begrIdge Jim Lockhart his success.
Mr.. Lockhart was once member of
the POpulist party and was twice elect
ed in this county on that ticket. Rut
he is viewing the financial and polft-
ical conditions with much more COM
pIacency tnan ne once did. He does
not now believe with the same vigor.
at least. that he once did that the
country was ION the verge of moral,
material and political ruin He is not
taking a very deep interest in the
chase his old comrades are making for
the Octopus
He still looks back with some pride
on his official acts as county commits
sioner. but he regrets now that he
ever voted to build a $4,000 court
house when the county was in need of
much larger and more imposing
structural