The Ward County independent. [volume] (Minot, Ward County, N.D.) 1902-1965, 1919-08-14
MINOT OIL
field IS EXTENSIVE:
Harry Suman, Prominent Oil Man,
Says There is Every Reason Why
There Should Be Oil in This
Territory.

/ have been over about all of the oil
country east of the Rocky Mountains
and if any man can show me one oil
pool that has been opened up withut
effort, would like to see the color of
his hair. On the other hand, show
me man from Colonel Drake at Oil
Creek in 1858 to the present day that
has opened an oil pool which has made
al the progress in the oil business a
success, and I will show you man
who has been laughted at, ridiculed
and called crank.
Jonas B. Smith, of Bradford, Pa
the man that invented the tapering
Joint for drilling tools and converted
the drillers and the operators from the
old straight joint to the tapered joint
was considered out of his head The
actual fact now is that at present it
the only practical joint for drilling
tools, and you never see a straight
joint. The man that modelled the Erie
rope socket, as it is now called, was
laughed at until he would not go to the
trouble of having it patented. This
socket, since 1895, has been the only
practical rope socket used on drilling
tools, and the man who patented it
i
lar for each and every socket. This
shows us where the judgment of wise
men in their own business sometimes
err.
The way that fields of oil and gas
have been opened up might be a good
lesson to consider and bring home with
us to the Minot field. The Pennsvl-
vania fields were opened up by the
Indians skimming the oil off the sur
face of the water of Oil Creek with
wooden blankets and using it as a cure
for rheumatism. This attracted the
attention of Colonel Drake, who drill
ed well sixty feet deep, produced oil
and opened up the oil industry of the
United States.
Now as to oil and gas through the
states of Ohio and Indiana. It was
proven absolutely to the satisfaction
of the wise men in that country that
there was no oil or gas in the Trenton
Rock, and there was a bulletin pub
lished putting forth the reasons why
there could be no oil in Trenton Rock,
basing their judgment on the wells
that had been drilled at Fort Wayne.
Wabash, Lafayette, Terre Haute, and
Kokomo, to the depth of nine hundred
to twenty-six hundred feet. But in
1885 gas was actually struck at Eaton
Indiana, by gentleman who was
drilling in the limestone for water.
Not getting water in the limestone, he
drilled into the slate, and seeing his eff
forts so far proving a failure, he went
through the slate to the Trenton Rock
encountered a flow of gas which at
that time opened up one Of the largest
gas fields in the world, and furnish
ed Chicago and other large cities with
gas for years with pressure of 345
pounds.
AS to the Illinois field, they had been
drilling a long time without success
when Colonel Carter, while driving
along the road from Westfeld south
found there a strip of dust in the road
that would not blow. This lead him to
believe that it was saturated with pc
troleum. He had some of the dust
analysed, found out that his ideas
were correct, leased large amount
of land in that vicinity, interested
other parties and drilled wells to the
depth of two to three hundred feet ir
the shallow territory of Illinois, he op.
ened up boom which has lead to Rob.
inson, Bridgeport and the St. Law