Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1914-02-07

height and arranged for one family.
They will contain seven rooms and
his city at the end of his railway.
Sand Springs, he called il, and he
paid bonuses for factories to come,
and graded streets and put in a
waterworks plant and sewers.
Called Surely Crazy.
This cost a great deal of money and
Page had to borrow. Now the oil
country is full of sharks who lie in
wait for Independent operators who
become pinched and close in on them,
and year ago they thought they
had Page squeezed so tightly that he
could not escape failure, and they be-
gan to close their hands.
1t is an axiom of the oil fields that
where there is gas there is oil not far
away. South of the Arkansas river,
directly opposite Pages land, rock
bluff arose sheer from the river bank.
1t was known as Lost City, from the
peculiar formation of the limestone
rocks, that were gashed with raV1nes
like the streets of a city.
1t was a hopeless looking place for
oil, and for that reason no oil spec
ulator had ever leased it or sunk a
we'll there. For that same reason, too,
Page was able to get oil leases upon
nearly all of it for very small sums.
When he hauled the lumber for a
derrick and a drilling outfit to the
top of that bluff people said he was
crazy. As the drills sank through
400 feet of solid limestone and he kept
on drilling they said there was no
lAy Of 7
crazy as a LOOM" and he would soon
be broke again.
But Page drilled on. He said, laugh
ingly, that he was drilling for the
widows and orphans now. From
where his men worked on top of the
rock he could look across and see the
orphans home he had built looming
white and big among the trees.
II was a deep, deep hole, dry and
hopeless, and then one day the oil
shot out of the casing clear up over
the top of the derrick, and Page,
standing in a shower of oily spray
that meant million dollars to him,
took off his hat, let the oil soak his
hair and waved it toward the or
phans home.
''You'll stay. kids he said.
Doesn't Know His Wealth.
Page had oil leases on 10000 acres
of land in the oil fields of Oklahoma,
scattered in spots all over the pro-
ducing territory. If a wild cater"
sank a we'll somewhere and found oil
it was a pretty sure thing that Page
had a lease on tract nearby and he
would sink well, too, and get oil.
Page branched out. He spent $780,
600 laying out his town before he sold
a lot. And when he did sell it was
on q contract of insurance to the
buyer which enabled him to carry it
through sickness or adversely and
gave a deed to his heirs in case the
buyer died before the lot was wholly
paid for
Two years ago the site of Sand
Springs was a jungle. Today there
is town there with 1.500 population.
sidewalks. brick blocks of buildings,
$40 900 high school Page asserts
that he will have 5000 population
there before next July.
The industries are coming in. There
is gas enough under his 1000 acres of
land to operate the big plants for
years and when that is gone there is
four-foot vein of coal.
But the city is only an endowment
for the orphanage and the widows
cottages. The income is to go to
keep those benefactions going. The
railway began to grow. and every
thing is in good financial shape.
Nobody knows how much Page is
worth. Some say S3,000.000, others
SO 900, 600 Page says:
80, / don't know. ! am sure of one
thing-if ! live three years longer I
will have 600 orphans and 100 widows
well provided for, and everything will
be fixed so that many may be main
tanned forever there"
Plain Man, smokes stogies.
Page is a plain-spoken, good-natured
man, who has no hobbies except the
care of widows and orphans, He
sits in his office with his feet on his
desk and smokes stogies.
In his park connected with the or
phans' home Page has $4,000
merry go-round. a moving picture
theatre that cost $1,000 and seats 800,
all for the benefit of the orphans; a
roller coaster, a figure s, a circle
swing. menagerie with bears,
camels, an elephant, four elk, four
buffaloes, many other animals and
birds, and-a monkey house. He has
imported squirrels by the hundred
and turned them loose in the park.
Page has no children. He has pro-
vided that il he dies before his wife
does she shall be well provided for
All else shall go to the widows and
orphans, and at her death her estate
will go to them, too.
Page Is not a member of any church
and never gives a dollar to church.
"A congregation that is able to
build church can get along without
any of my money" he says.
He will not permit any creed to be
taught in the orphanage. He asks
his teachers to inculcate, along with
the education of the children, prin-
ciples of honor. self-reliance and self