The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-11-02
Standard Now Has Five Big
Ones at This Point.
STATION DESCRIBED.
Big Pump Which Forces the
Oil Is a Wonder.
Sending Fluid to Kansas City
$50 Barrels Hourly.

Humboldt, Kan. Nov. 2.-The Union
says:
The ground for twenty-one more
tanks has been surveyed at the tank
farm. and work will likely be com
menced on some tanks in that addition
soon. When the tanks now ordered are
completed, there will be an even thirty
in the Humboldt tank farm. 1t will be
a great big thing for this town, and If
the Standard can get any more land
without having to pay an eXorbitant
price for it they will build several more
tanks here.
The material for the big 600 horse
power pump at the Standard tank farm
has arrived. There were five car loads
of it. This is an immense pump and
supposed TO be of enough power to
pump the oil from here to Sugar Creek,
near Kansas City, distance of 1l6
miles.
The Standards refinery at Neodesha
is AN important industry and represents
a large amount of capital; the tank
farm at Caney looks big to the eye;
the refinery at Kansas City is a monu-
ment to business acumen, enterprise
and capital. But it is not till one stands
beside the big pumps at Humboldt one
realizes fancy and sentiment, mingled
with a sort of awe, have taken an ex-
cursion and are playing tricks with
one T6aSOleG. DeS1u0 Tie us
pump and realizing that every throb
is sending the oleag inous fluid on its
way through what is fast becoming the
greatest pipe line in the world, and
that the marked achievements in the
field have been the result of less than
two years work, ones mind cannot re-
sist its retrospective tendency to go
back over the track of operations
vania, through Butler, Clarion, Venan-
go. Crawford, Mexican and Allegheny
and view again the greasy picture:
There fingers about the old fashioned
pumping station sentiment which can
not be altogether obliterated by the
modern brick structures of more gentle
design.
The station at Humboldt is a model
of perfectnesS. Like all of the Stan
dards large stations it is located on
the railroad and by creek on a 20-acre
farm, adjoining which an So-acre tract
has just been purchased for an addi-
tional tank farm. The buildings con-
sist of boiler house 40x40 feet. a pump
house 46x60 feet and an office 16x30 feet.
all constructed of brick. Instead of the
usual four to eight black iron stacks
there is one immense brick chimney, 100
feet high. When the station is COM
pleted it will present as neat an appear
ance as the state house grounds. There
will be an attractive fence, cement
walks and drive ways, electric lights
and all the modern conveniences.
The pump now in use is known as
the Worthington make, 5x1S. There are
two of them installed, but only one is
being used. 1t is running day time
and is pumping oil to Kansas City at
the rate of $50 barrels an hour. In
few days the second pump will be
started when 500 barrels an hour Will
be sent on it's way to Sugar Creek. 1t
takes a barrel of oil seven days to
travel from Humboldt to. the refinery
at Kansas City, a distance of III miles.
Already 10000 barrels have been pump
When the line was first completed
water was used from the creek to test
it, and it was found $4,000 barrels We're
required to fill the line The water
was forced out by forcing the oil in,
a line scraper being inserted first to
clear the pipe of any possible dirt or
distractions. Several times it stuck
and caused much delay and greater
annoyance. 1t was impossible to tell
where it was. The pressure was put
up to $50 pounds to the square inch
and still it would not move. The pumps
were shut down and the next day the
pressure applied again. After doing
this several times 1t was started. Had
it not started, it is hard to tell now
many times the line would have had to
be opened to find the scraper: The
maximum pressure now permitted on
the line is 500 pounds.
A new compound Cline pump has
lust arrived from Oil City, Pa, and is
being unloaded, 1t will have capac-
ity of 500 barrels an hour. 1t IS 40
feet long, IA feet wide and It's ny
wheel is Is feet in diameter. The nit
for the condenser looks like swim
ming pool. Later a triple compound
pump the largest made, will be in
stalled.
All of the oil produced south of
Humboldt must come through this sta
ton. There are now five $4,000 barrel
receiving tanks completed and four
more are underway. Grades will be
surveyed at once for 20 more on the
Miller farm. There are three at the
sugar Creek refinery The oil from
the south will be received in the tanks
here and pumped to Sugar Creek as
fast as the refinery can handle 1t. 1t
is understood here the refinery has al
ready begun operations farm has
been purchased at Garnett, where a
pumping station will be located to care
for the pools north of here, the Paola