Arizona republican., 1907-09-15

capital. The enterprise has not been kept a secret and many locally have applied for stock A snail amount may be sold merely for a treasury sdr-
 plus during the early equipment of the property that there may De no cessa- ton of operations for the purpose Of
 making the stockholders d.g. The com
 pany thinks it has q good thing and proposes to keep a stranglehold upon it. It considers the sale of share Of
 stock as a personal favor to the buyer and will not consider it only in a lim- ited quantity. The property is paid for and out of debt and once it is
 equipped the only way stock can be secured will be to steal it out of some body's safe.
 Mention has been made of Neil Sin clair. tine superintendent. It Is unnec-
 essary to more than refer tD him as he
 is well known in Phoenix and until last spring has made this his home for
 two or three years. mainly stopping
 here for the health of his family. Mir.
 Sinclair has devoted his entire life to
 the oil industry and has represented American, English and Holland capital in every oil field of any importance in
 the United States, Austria, Italy. Rus sia. Irdia. Java and everywhere else in the world. Moreover he has generally
 made a success of his undertakings
 and it was through him this property was acquired. He declares 1t is the finest oil showing he ever saw in his life anywhere and has put every avail
 able dollar of his own money into the project.
 Naturally the reader will wonder how
 d bunch of Phoenix men cRanced to pick up this good thing in a little Cali fornia settlement where everybody
 knew of the property and had n chance to get it. or it would at least seem that they had such a chance. It is not credited particularly to business acu- men out rather to common everyday good luck. Mir. Sinclair when he left here began a thorough prospect of the California fields for a chance to do something. He visited Wheeler can yon and other places thereabout He heard of the Also field but was told
 he could not get it as it was tied up in
 probate court. He went to see it to satisfy his curiosity and to see it was
 70 develop an enthusiasm that would
 not be quieted until he had possession
 He found that about 1901 or 1902 the
 Union oil company, which owned it,
 desiring to increase its output leased
 it to an oil man on terms similar to
 those recited. though at that time it
 was virgin ground and not a hole had
 been drilled. The lessee mad no mon-
 ey. He applied to five friends who ad-
 vanced him the necessary money to be-
 gin operations. as personal favorS. be- coming silent partners by verbal
 agreement only. About the time the
 wells were brought in oil had dropped
 to twelve cents a barrel for reasons the reading public well know and there was little promise of profits. Then the lessee died and the matter went into probate court. Before it could be ad- justed one of the five silent partners died. leaving an heir who claimed his interest and further complicating mat ters. The court could not permit any of those interested to speculate with the property or exploit 1t until final disposition had been made. That was the condition when MT. Sinclair ap- peared on the scene and went to work ne hHeW lne Ndlue or the property and spent three months. with the help of Mir. Tharaldson and others. in rounding up the interested heirs to the lease and buying out theis individual interests, one of them being found in Europe. The purchase was finally confirmed by the probate court and the title is now clear and unclouded.
 There is only one more phase that the reader will be interested in. Will the oil market slump again to twelve cents? Hardly. The former slump was occasioned by tl.c nght with the Standard and the then very small de- mand. Since them all the coast rail- roads and nearly all manufacturing en- terprises have adopted the use of oil The Union company has got foreign contracts to fill and is trembling for fear it can never secure a sufficient supply. Last winters oil famine is well remembered. The Texas fields have practically quit producing. Oil is a dollar and the demand for 1t is in creasing every day