The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-09-26
LIGHTNING'S VAGARIES
OH, MEN TELL OF FREAKS THEY
 HAVE WITNESSED.
Immune Strip in Indiana--Eighty Acres in Oklahoma Where Lightntng Likes to strike-Experiences or
 Men Who Have Been Hit.

Chanute, Kas.. Letter.
 Lightning has been playing strange pranks in the oil country lately Within three months the tanks of the Louisiana Purchase oil Company at Cleveland. Okla, have been struck by I,9htuinr three times and the loss of TX GOO barrels of oil has been suffered
 No other tanks have been struck In the field during that time. In fact all the lightning which comes around Cleveland seems to centre on that par tIcular eighty acres. All the drtllers and tool dressers and helpers dread the lease.
 Each time the destruction came without warning. In addition to the oil. four drilling rigs have been con stunned and four derricks. It has got all the people around Cleveland guess ing. They think the particular lease is hoodooed and the company IS hndinS 1t n hard job to get men to go to the property to work.
 You can talk to me-" said Tom White. who has been around all the oil fields in the world from Rangoon Ia santa Maria, about this lightning business, but the place Is bewitched. I knew a case of that kind down in Louisiana, just east of Beaumont
 .'There used to be some kind of church on the road to the oil fields from Jennings, It was located on Bayou Nezpique and had all kinds of iiehtring rods on the steeple and down the sides.
 "But lightning took the roof of just the same, and when the congregation put 1t back the lightning came along again and took the whole building. Then the cajuns in that neighborhood got superstitious and they let the church building go to ruins. .,'.-
 ''There was another ease at Beau mont where lightning struck twice in the same place. The big fire of 1909 and the big fire of 1904 broke out in the same place and both were caused by lightning striking the tanks.
 "AlI the other tanks in the fields ex- cept those of Brice escaped. It just looked like something was after Brice and burned up his money as fast as he made 1t. Then there was the same a South Lake. Both of the fires there originated in the same place and they hundreds of thousands of dollars.
 "This lightning business is q queer thing. It seems to have certain spots where it lights and does all the havoc and certain people 1t Is determined to burn out
 "Other people are let alone all the time and their stun Is as safe as If 1t
  bonds. It may be all right. but there Is something queer about if to the av- craze workingman."
 Kruger, an electrical engineer, then got in with his story.
 My brother was killed by elec- tricity." Kruger said. "Tie was killed all at once.
 when the man came along to em- balm the corpse he could not find drop of blood in the body. All the blood had been turned to salt water. It was just as if man had opened all the veins and taken out every drop of blood and substituted a saline solution.
 q have been trying to get the doc- tors to tell me about it, but all they can say is that it happened and that they are at a loss to know how 1t hap pened. Instead of the body of the vie- tim being bruised or dishgursd, his face was as white as snow and when we went to dress the body 1t was white all over.
 There was not a mark on the body nor any sign that the man had ever had blood in his veins"
 Then Bill Myers took hand.
 There was a man down in Texas" he sald-"he lived at Hillsboro. I think. Well, this man was walking dynamo.
 "He had been struck by lightning along about 1898 some time, and enough electricity had gone into his body to start a street railroad system, Yet he lived.
 He told me he felt as if there were 1O.OOO,OOo needles being driven into his body all the time. He had been all over the United States trying to get relief. but could not get the needles out. When I saw him he was going to try the hot water wells at Waco.
 T tried to find out what became of him; but never did. I have. always thought that if some of the New York promoters had got hold of that fellow before the electricity got out of him they would have capitalized him for about ten millions of dollars and or ganized a metropolitan street railway