The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1910-07-02

In April, 1899, old Jonathan Ellwood
and his forty-year-old son, sank well
on the north bank Of the Kern river, in
Kern county, California.
They were poor wood choppers and a
then dishonored prophet, "Gassy"
Means, had persuaded the men to lay
their axes by for day or two and
dig for oil. Think of such stupendous
ignorance. Oil wells a thousand feet
deep, taking months to sink and cost
ing thousands of dollars. But they dug
and dug and one worked at the bottom
with an ancient spade and pick, the
other toiled at the rude windlass, while
the wife of the younger man, in their
rough shack in the brush near by, pre-
pared the coarse fare, regretting that
the axes were lying idle under the
hunks.
The distant Sierras encircled the
eastern and southern horizon like an
arm; to the far west the sullen coast
range doomed; to the northwest stretch
ed as forbidding and arid an alkali
desert as a sand lizard ever crawled
over.
They dug and dug; the wife scolded;
the axes rusted-they reached sand.
The oil, like a black spirit, rushed
in and chased them out of the hole.
The California commercial world
took fire. The land Of wonders had
another magic tale for the ages. Thous.
ands of people poured in. Derricks
sentineled ten thousand acres in Kern
county. 1t was a mighty pocket of oil
in the rocky fold Of the tertiary sands.
A long metomorphic dyke cut it of
from the heat of the Sierras The sand
dipped to the southwest, yet out few
miles prospectors found only water.
Then brave souls lead on by visions
of wealth from oil. struggled through
the forty mile journey of alkali desert
to the foothills of the Coast Range on
the southwest. They carried their was
ter, their fuel. their machinery, their
food. There they sat down in the
shadow of the mountains and began
boring for oil. The steady exhaust of
the drilling engines coughed day and
night for months. The bits reached
deeper and the stratum of oil sand was
passed. At last the little hole that
joined this age with an age of the
measureless past was one thousand feet
deep. Oill The pressure blew the
tools out and thousand barrel flow
ran down the ravine for two miles.
Then capital awoke, locked arms
with ambition. and charged on the
black spirits of San Joaquin Valley s
world old grave yard. New districts
were discovered. Stampede followed
stampede. Land, blistering, world.
wasted land. that would not yield
sufficient sustenance for horned toad
and wasn't worth a sand lizards hide
Ieaped into value of $1,000, $4,000
SIS 900 per acre. Teamsters, clerks
farmers and laborers found new for.
tunes.
New oil reservoirs were found, and
vet. every barrel of oil of every kind
that has yet been produced, has been
sold, except what is today in the
tanks. And tomorrow that, too, will,
make its way into the commerce OF
the world.
NOW COMES NEVADA
And now comes Nevada with the dis
covery of oil, destined to be one of the
big oil producing states of the Union
Oil was found on the Black Rock des
ert at Sulphur, Nevada, by the West
ern Pacific railway in drilling a waite,
well. The existence of oil in the des
ert is proven. The geological condj
tions are good. The formations have
been identified as oil formations. Oh
was found at three separate points II
drilling a shallow well. Geological con
ditions clearly indicate that depth viii
disclose great oil measures.
The High Gravity United Oil Com
pany took over the c. o. D. holdings a
Sulphur, Nevada, with the intent an(
purpose of drilling well 1000 or 3,
900 feet if necessary to penetrate tn,
sand measures, but it is believed tina
it will not require more than 1900 t.
500 feet to strike the oil sands. Th'
oil strata encountered in drilling th,
water well prove conclusively the ex