The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1920-01-31
UTAH OIL GUSHERS
HELP NEVADA WORK

With the bringing in of two gush-
ers across the state line in Utah, one
at Thistle. by the Colorado-Utah Oil
Company, and another at Moab. Utah,
within the past three weeks, the in
terest and enthusiasm in the drilling
operations in the oil basin at Illipah,
near the eastern border of the state,
is becoming statewide. A telegram
from the drilling camp received yes
terday by ]. Z. Amenda, president of
the company, who is in Winnemucca
at the Overland hotel, stated that the
drill had passed the 300 foot mark
and is being sent down as fast as
three shifts of experienced workers
can lower it.
Between the 100 and 200-foot levels
the drill passed through a stratum of
rich oil shales and then passed into
a stratum of sand. Samples from the
drilling were brought into Ely, where
some of the reports declared that oil
could be squeezed from the muck.
The excitement in Ely over the
progress at Illipah has reached
high pitch. The presence of oil is
almost undoubted and most estimates
place the depth of striking it at 1900
feet. A fourteen-inch hole is being
started with a drill good for 2500
70 Of drill ;e,
about fifty feet per day.
Mr.. Ira MacFarland, deputy state
engineer, located the field at Illipah
and has subsequently become a di
rector in the Illipah Basin Oil & Gas
Company, which is developing it. Mr..
J. F. Shaughnessy, of the Nevada
public service commission, is like
wise director. The company was
organized slightly more than two
months ago, and within that time its
achievements have been highly COM
mendable. Within two months the
company has been organized and
financed. drilling operations COM
menced and an actual depth of more
than 800 feet reached. On January
2 the drill was spud in with one shift
working. A week later two shifts
were employed and yesterday three
shifts of driElers were put ON to keep
the drill going day and night
The .Illipah Basin is located near
Currant Greek and White River, near
Ely. The company possesses $50
acres of land in the center of which
is a large anticline. At the apex of
this, the drill is now located. The
formation is not broken up and sur
face indications are identical with
those of the richest Wyoming fields.
The belief that no oil can exist in the
Great Basin, lying between the Rock
les and the Sierras has been effect
lively exploded by the gushers brought
in very recently in Utah. well within
the Great Basin. Oil in Nevada will
be next, and Illipah seems to be 60
ing after the honor of bringing in the
first well with it's twenty-four hours
day drilling methods.
Many biologists with the vast ex-
perience in other fields are declaring
without hesitation, that Nevada offers
as good chance as any state for the
development of unlimited oil pools
all the above-surface indications be-
ing present to confirm their belief
that drilling to comparatively shallow
depths will confirm their theories re-
garding the existence of oil. 1t is
folly to try to estimate what an oil
gusher will mean to Nevada, but it is
surety that its stockholders anC
owners could gain a front rank in
the daily increasing throng made rich
by oil.