The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-06-28
PAID OUT DIVIDENDS.
Wells Produce Good Results
shortly After Boring.
Standard Oil Not Responsible
for Its Development.

Chanute, Kas., June 2S.-Within "a
months the Chanute oil companies
have paid out more than 100000 in
dividends They are still paying at
the rate Of I per cent. per month
When it is considered that in nearly
every instance the stock in these com
panies was sold for 10 cents on the
dollar or less and that the dividends
of I per cent per month are on the
par value it Will be seen that the peo-
pie who were fortunate enough or
brave enough to invest their money in
the Chanute field two years ago have,
in a number of cases, got their orig
inal investment back.
The fact that there are now more
than twenty companies operating in
this field paying regular monthly d1v1-
dends is something that stagggers the
average investor in oil stocks But
facts are inexorable and the payment
Of the money to the stockholders is
8 matter of such easy proof that it is
ridiculous to dispute it.
From first to last the development
of the Chanute oil district has been
accomplished with less cost to the
stockholders than the development
of any other oil field in the history of
the business. Some instances will suf-
nee: A party of Taylorville, Ill, peo-
pie put up 100000. They bought a
lease close to town; drilled some
wells; erected power house, which
cost $4,000. and put up boarding
houses. What have they got for the
original investment? They have near
~ thirty producing oil wells averaging
more than ten barrels a day and the
price for the last twelve months was
more than 81 a barrel. They have the
power house, the boarding houses and
the lease.
Based on the average of $1,000 per
barrel Of production, these people
fact. the plant earns more than 20
per cent on 100000, and this is
pretty good interest, as things go
these days.
A man from Lincoln, ILL.,, bought
a lease east of Chanute for less than
$500. The people laughed at him and
some irreverent chap even suggested
sending the purchaser to the bug
house" The man owned the lease for
less than eighteen months and sold it
for $4,000 cash. He had drilled
wells in the meantime and it is now
earning more than Is per cent. on
$4,000.
Two young men came from a town
in the interior of Illinois two years
ago and organized a. company which
now has more than sixty wells and is
paying dividends on a capital of more
than 100000.
A doctor in Chanute who had been go
ing around over the towns and the sur
rounding country for years trying to
make enough to keep the terrors of age
from wearing him down, drifted onto a
something more than 5000 month.
a farmer who could not sign his name
and can barely sign it yet leased his
farm to a party of Pennsylvania people
two years ago and in the meantime he
has put up buildings worth more than
$4,000 and all he has to do is to count his
Two young men from Kansas CITY who
had been bitten in the frost which fol-
lowed the Beaumont boom, began taking
leases in this and adjoining districts a
TVrrn 1Tr..-.
then they have invested more than $780,
600 in real estate in Kansas City and are
getting rich at the rate of 100000 a year
A man came from Pennsylvania four
years ago and started the first paying
proposition He could not get a. pipe line
to his wells and it looked for a time as if
ne was going to be bottled up for all
time But he started his own tank cars
and the other day sold the tank cars for
more than S25o,000 to the Standard Oil
Apparently it has been no trick at all
10 make money in the Chanute district.
The few who have failed up to this time
but emphasize the successes. Perhaps it
Is not singular, but it looks, that the
successful ones here should, by one of the
curious turns of the wheel, have been
the untOrtunateS in some other field. The
Chanute district was not developed bv the
Standard Oil company nor by prosperous
oil men. In most instances it was devel-
oped in places where the drills of the
Standard had gone down years ago and
dry holes reported. But those who take
the frowns with the smiles of fortune
for, a poor mans oil district, where wells
can be drilled more cheaply than in any
IN greater quantity than in any other
place. Not only have they developed the
other things They have discovered ana
outlined the greatest natural gas field
which has vet been found. They are
building cities and towns They are max
ing two buildings to show where but one
sands to the population of the southwest
ern part Of Kansas