Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1919-02-15
DUTCH COMPANY
SEEKS REF |NERY
SITE IN ARIZONA
Oil Men Confident That HoI-
crook Oil Field viii Extend
to San Juan River Country
in State of Utah.


tsPso's- eosResPoroe~er TO sosNrso JOURNAL
Holbrook, Ariz, Feb. 14.--Addi-
tional proof that the possibilities of
the Holbrook oil field make a special
appeal to the men who know most
about petroleum and its development
was furnished during the past week
when Ezra r. Loper came here for
the purpose of securing site for an
oil refinery. Mr., Lopez is n native of
Holland and represents a syndicate
of his countrymen who nave been en-
gagged in the business of refining oil
in this cour try for some time.
These shrowd Dutchmen have been
watching developments in the Iiol-
brook field ara are convinced that
government and other prominent
biologists must he right when so
many of them believe that oil in
commercial quantities will be found in
the Holbrook section--and the enter
prising spirit which they absorbed
during their residence in America
leads to the conviction that the time
to get the most desirable site for
refinery at a low price is before oil is
on.
Mr.. Lopez has picked out several
sites from which he will make a final
selection, and left early in the week
for Phoenix for the purpose of getting
price on one of them. He viii re-
turn shortly.
From information which has come
to f. S. Graham, one of the dillers
for the Hopi Oil company, the pros
pective oil area Of the Holbrook field
may be even more extensive than has
been thought. In professional paper
SO of the United States geological sur
vey, by Herbert Il. Gregory, u map of
Il section from the san Juan river in
Utah (where OIL was found in twenty
out of twenty-five wells drilled) to
Holbrook, shows that the Goodridge
formation of the Pennsylvania series
of the Carboniferous age underlies the
whole section, though it crops to the
surface only in the San Juan country
and in the vicinity of Holhrook Some
of the most prolific fields in the coun-
try are found in this formation.
Mr.. Grahams information is that
oil and gas seopages have been found
in tributaries of the main Colorado
river, about siyty-five miles northwest
of Flagstaff, and that the Indians
for years have caught up the oil from
the surface of the water and used it
for medicine. In the same vicinity
one can dig into the surface and from
the opening gas will come which when
lighted will burn until the sand caves
in This section is inaccessible at this
time, but Mr.. Graham has made ar
engagements to go there in the spring
and make n thorough investigation.
Near his old home in Texas oil was
found on the surface of a small lake
and no attention was paid to it for
years. II is now the center of Il great
oil-producng section and has made
people he knew immensely wealthy.
From the above it seems probable
that the OIL field of which Holbrook
is near the center, will extend some
distance west of Flagstaff. and that
its northern limits will be the San
Juan oil field in Utah Though the
San Juan field is so situated geo
graphically that the expense of mar
keting the oil is almost prohibitive, it
was being successfully developed un-
til in October. 1909, the government
withdrew from the entry the land in
the vicinity
According to Bulletin 4S1 of the
United Statcs geological survey, by
Marius r. Campbell. one of the wells
in the san Juan field. though, only
220 feet down, was a gusher-'oil
spouting to a height of seventy feet.
This well is in the GOodridge sand,
the same which is in evidence near
Holbrook.
Henry Beeler, former state geolo-
gist of Wyoming. arrived here last
Sunday in company with Bob Adams
He came for the purpose of going
over the field thoroughly, and pos
sibly TO spot wells for Mr.. Adams, but
deep mud from recent rains and SHOWS
prevented this and he was forced to
postpone the examination until the
last of the week.
Among other prominent visitors to
Holbrook most of whom invested in
oil lands, are: Thomas Taylor, vice
president of the Bank of Demng, n
NJ; q. f. Tidmore, a merchant of the
same place; j. S. Price. a business
man and investor of Chicago; Henry
A. Cole, an oil man of Los Angeles;
Joseph Rankin, who IS interested in
the Texas fields. and Ben McCloskey,
"a mining man from Los Angeles.