The Glenwood post., 1920-10-16
OIL sHA1.8
(By Ava A. swain.)

About quarter of century ago a
company of people interested in Colo
RADIOS welfare spent one day in Rocky
Ford watching former Governor Swink
experiment in the making of sugar
from sugar beets. The governor, as
sisted by Billy Goblin had chopping
block upon which, with an old corn
knife, he cut up some three or four
bushels of beets, then threw them in
sort of wash boiler, cooked them into
a mash, run them into a condenser
still and brought forth beet sugar.
Those who watched him were interested
rot only in the experiment, but in the
thought as to what effect that expert.
ment was going to have upon the fu-
ture industsial life of Colorado.
Twenty-Five years has changed that
still into eighteen immense sugar beet
factories and those two bushels of
beets have grown to one million, seven
hundred and forty Thousand tons Of
beets with value to the farmer of
Colorado of twenty million, eight hun
dred and eighty thousand dollars.
last Sunday party similarly in
terested in Colorado visited the oil
shale beds of the western slope and
spent the day watching the crude pro-
cesses of changing oil shale to com
mereial cl similarly as they watched
those same processes with the beets
twenty five years ago.
Dare anyone hazard a guess on the
future of oil shale in Colorado. Viewed
in the light of the beet sugar industry,
there is just as great an opportunity
for commercial development as there
was for beet sugar development. The
soil of the Arkansas Valley was known
to carry the chemicals that would
grow beets with sugar in them. The
oil shales of western Colorado are
known to carry oil and by-products to
q commercial value far beyond the
value of the beet sugar soil.
The great question in the beet sugar
industry was the development; the
growth Of beet that would carry sac
carine enough SO that it could be sx-
tracted at a profit. This problem was
solved and today the beet sugar indus
try of Colorado represents in farms,
factories and machinery values to the
extent of over two hundred and fifty
million dollars.
The great problem confronting the
oil shale men today is the problem of
transporting those commercial oils
from the shale beds of western Colo
RADIO to the oil tanks of the. grocery
stores and filling stations.
There may be those outside of the
crowd who visited Debeque last Sun
day who feel that the oil shale bust
ness in Colorado will never be COM
mercial success, but there are none who
visited those oil shale beds who do not
feel that American ingenuity, thrift
and commercial progressiveness will
make success OF that great industry.
According to government reports
there is more crude oil between Glen
wood Springs and Salt Lake City, Utah
and between the Grand Valley and the
White River, than he's been found
throughout the entire world to date.
The mere fact that this great volume
of crude oil is deposited in shale
beds is not going to keep the
American capitalist from discovering
mode whereby it can be separated
from those shales at profit.
| The problem of the beet sugar in
dustry twenty-five years ago is the
same problem of the oil shale industry
today. The success of the beet sugar
industry today is but emblematical Of
the success of the oil shale industry .
quarter of century hence.
sTEADFAsT CONFIDENCE