The Elk Mountain pilot., 1919-07-17
LETTER OF OLD TIMES
John E. Phillips Writes of the Boom
Days a Lifo Time Ago.

Mr.. Editor:-Do you know that
In 1881 an effort was made to sink an
oil well near the head waters of the
Ohio Creek, about 25 miles due north
from Gunnison city. This would be
about five miles south of Irwin and
near what was known in that day as
Kings ranch. This ranch was owned
by w. H. King, D. L. Drake and Dave
Markley, and was the last stopping
place for all travellers going to Irwin.
Freighters would camp there for the
station for passengers on the mail
coach run by Hammond & Sons. Mail
was brought to Gunnison by Barlow
& Sanderson first from Canon City,
and as the Rio Grande railroad built
from Canon City through the Royal
Gorge to Leadville in the summer of
1880, we then got the mail by Barlow
& Sanderson coaches from Salida.
From Gunnison to Irwin, Hammond
& Sons had the contract and run the
passenger coaches. Mail arriving in
Gunnison in the evening 70 miles
from Salida, would remain until the
following morning. Lon Hartman was
postmaster at Gunnison and a man
by the name of Soule postmaster at
Irwin. Mr.. Soule was sent in 1882 by
the U. S. government to establish a
postoffice at Calico, San Bernardino
county, Calf, where rich silver
mining camp had been discovered,
and he is living to this day in Yuma,
Arizona.
About the oil well, through the
influence of the Thompson Bros, at
that time operating the Forest Queen
mine in Irwin this well was started.
The location is about mile north
west of Kings ranch, afterwards
known as Hines ranch, and as you
ascend the long hill going to Irwin
by looking to the left, you can see the
old derrick if it is standing. A Ger
man Baron put up the money for the
enterprise. He brought out from
Bradford, Penn, practical oil man
by the name of Frank Woodward,
and he also had his wife, the Bar
oness, beautiful young American
lady. They all spent the summer of
1881 in Irwin, and were having the
oil we'll drilled. Just how deep they
drilled. what were the indications to
cause them to drill and why they
stopped do not know. 1 frequently
visited the place during the summer,
and any one now desiring to take the
trouble can find the location. 1t was
over the mountain from the Thomp-
son coal mine, now what you call
Floresta There is one thing / do
know and that is that the Baroness
was about the handsomest that ever
came down the pike, and made all the
boys feel good to have her around
the camp. There are but few in the
country today who would remember
her. Possibly your popular banker,
Mr. S. P. Spencer, may remember her
He lived in Irwin at the time and
had an eye for the beautiful in his
younger days.
The Baron, baroness and Mr. Wood
ward were genial people to meet,
and we all had good time in those
days. IF anyone will take the trouble
to do little prospecting they might
find the reasons for starting that oil
we'll. We know more about oil now
than we did at that time. There
was no oil discovered in California,
Texas. Wyoming. Kansas or what is
now Oklahoma, in fact I do not know
that oil was produced any where in
the United States outside of Penn
sylvania up to that time. Possibly
oil had been discovered at Florence,
Colorado, where some Pennsylvania
people had been drilling since 1879.
Irwin and all of the country west
was in the Ute Indian reservation,
and while we had mining locations,
townsites, coal lands and everything
else located, except the Utes, we
were all trespassers, without legal
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