The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-11-18
OIL PUMPS WHIRL
UNDER WINDOW OF
AUGUSTA CHURCH
Oil Wells Also Surround Burial
Place Adjacent.
New Field Is Being Developed
East of the Town.
TO RIVAL OTHER TERRITORY
Kansas Plains and Valleys For
ests of Derricks and Tanks.
Road 20 Feet Wide Yields Many
Thousands Revenue.
TO RIVAL OTHER TERRITORY
Kansas Plains and Valleys For
ests of DerrickS and Tanks.
Road 20 Feet Wide Yields Man.
Thousands Revenue.
BY HARRY f. CAYLOR.

of Augusta, Kan, is being developed
east of that place. The new fleld, I'M
til recently, when drlu was sent
down for oil and oil was found was
gas territory exclusively Al Pres t.le
there are about ITO producing gas
wells on it, the property of the Wien
ita Natural The new territory under
pressure of the high price OF OIL Is
giving fresh impetus to the already eX-
tensive developing of the southern
Kansas fields. =. :.
But at that. the East field, as it is
known. is lust a short chapter in the
fascinating story of the Augusta OIL
fields That story is one OF romance
and millions-of great wealth from the
earth below overnight story that
could have been taken from the pen
of a master novelist. To the oil field
novice the Augusta fields are won
derful revelation. From the top Oh
any of the many hills around Augusta
one can look out on plains and INTO
valleys and see forests-forestS OF DER
ricks. Some are fresh looking and
new They are the wells pelng bored.
Others are black, stained by squirting
of the black. sticky and pungent SUD
stance-oil, the magic of southern
Kansas.
The town of Augusta as it is now
is not the Augusta of little more
than a year go when it was quiet
little village, sheltered under the wing
of its larger neighbor, Wichita. just
now the eyes of Wichita and every
other city in the west are on Augusta.
The Augusta of Today.
The Augusta of today is a flourish
ing oil town. By day the streets are
congested with traffic. In the even
ing they are packed with crowds from
the oil fields. 1t is becoming almost
traditional that a person cannot drop
into Augusta and. without consider
Nfoir
a place to stay Every room in the
town is occupied. with many trying 70
get in WasherWOmen have quit their
tubs and are keeping boarderS. me
territory around Augusta is dotted
with little cities, tent towns towns
built of pine boards and tar roofinS
and soiled tenting and shacks. Many
of the oil producing corporations have
erected modern little towns for their
employees.
When men quit work for lunch or
supper, the fields viewed from any
of the commanding hills resemble
beehive-a modern one. From out of
derricks and pump houses the men
swarm, booted and bearded and
bronZed and some in soiled, oil spau-
tered dungarees or overalls, and they
troop down the roads-a road in an
oil field is where some one happens to
wear a path-toward cook shacks or
towns.
Oil was first discovered in the Au
gusta field about three years ago by
mistake. Some one put in an outfit
and went after gas. The bit struck
oil. Then the price of the product
was low. The drillers plugged the
hole and left it but it went on record
that there was oil at Augusta. When
prices began to soar little more than
a year ago, activities began in earnest,
altho the territory had been more or
less worked back to the time when
the first well went down.
We'll in Church Lot.
The Santa Fe railroad yards in Au-
gusta are the busiest place magma
BILE. Long trains come loaded with oil
field supplies. Long trains go out,
tank cars and products of the region.
In the railroad yard are many cars
waiting to be unlOaded, many waiting
to be loaded
Augusta has its many novel, not to
say, spectacular projects. Neither are
they without wildcat schemes. Not
many months ago a Wichita shoe
maker, bearing Marshall. decided to
get into the game of oil. Everything
it seemed every foot of land around
and in the oil territory had been
leased. Marshall, the story goes, was
looking over lease records and found
that everyone had overlooked the now
famous Church Lot in the heart of a
great field. Marshall negotiated for
the lease of the land and got it and it
was only a small patch. He put down
a we'll and found gas. Another well
went down only a few feet from the
front door of the church and it now
pumps oil. The church is east of the
we'll and just a few feet west is a
little cemetery. All around the cene-
terry a few feet from it are many
wells and offsets.
One new we'll is going down in the
church yard. Services are held in the
little place of worship and Just ont
side the windows the great drills sink
into the earth, driven by gas or steam
engines. There are many offset wells
around the church yard. Not long
ago Marshall sold the Church LOT
project As to what he realized from
it stories differ, but it is RELIABLE
stated that it was many, MANY thou-
sands of dollars.
Neither is the Church Lot Mar
shalfs only project.
Oil in the Road.
About the same time he opened the
little tract, which is three miles
southwest of Augusta. he fonnd
some one had overlooked a privata
road twenty feet wide and d few -ode
long. That he leased. He put down
a well and oil came up. A few feet
south OF the we'll is another derrick
az q right against it on the north is
another well, just going down. The
road is only a short distance southeas.
Of the Church lot.
Thousands of words could be writ
ten about the Augusta field and then
all would not be told u-eIis-new
ones-are going down into the earth
so fast everyone seems to lose track
ct them. All the average Augusta n
knows is that there are hundreds OF
e dollars from ont the ground every
Little while. Wells are going down