The Kevin review. [volume] (Kevin, Mont.) 1922-1929, 1923-04-12

up to get leases or acreage; some
groups are made up in that way and
have made money. I met a perfectly
strange doctor-told him I was sick
got a prescription and a pint of
fine bonded whiskey for $3.50 keep
this confidential from Joe Pope).
Ninety Blocks of Sidewalks
Shelby has concrete sidewalks on
Main street, built in its first flush of
prosperity years ago. The city is now
advertising for contracts to build 80
blocks of concrete sidewalks. In
every direction it is staked like a
cemetery. Some Main street prop
erty is selling for 5000 a front foot.
Little box-car shacks have been
thrown up and are renting for $50 a
month. A real estate man took me
for an hours spin. He told me he
had made 956 sales since the first of
the year. At a distance Of half or
three-quarters of a mile from the
center of town, corner lots were be-
ing sold at S125, and inside lots at
SIS. If a fellow could guess in which
direction the town was going to grow,
he might do well on a purchase, but
it cannot grow in every direction.
There are eight active real estate
firms doing business in Shelby; if
the town grows in every direction in
larger than an oil town could normal
ly grow in many years. A ley brick
hotel with 80 rooms has just been
built; it is the New Rainbow" and
should be open by this time. Such a
hotel will accommodate about 100
persons, which isn't much to relieve
the present and coming congestion
/ was told that a hundred structures
were in the process of construction.
True, many of them were not very
pretentious, but building there is be-
ing done in a hurry and expert labor
is not in demand. Shelby does not
need carpenters, because I asked.
Much of the building is being done by
unskilled labor.
A Big Oil Field
The oil fields of Sunburst and
Kelvin are about a dozen miles from
Shelby, on the line which runs to
Sweet Grass. The field is large being
about IL miles from edge to edge.
Of 1877 wells drilled or being drilled,
81 are producing, and some have
come in since I was there. A pipe
line runs to Coutts, Canada, and
through this about 1000 barrels are
being pumped daily. A great quanti-
ty of oil, possibly 500 barrels a day
being used for fuel. Many of the
wells which came in, have been
with concrete, to wait until
The feeders of the pipe can be run to
hem. There is natural gas in Shell
)y,piped in six miles. Shelby folks
Jay that this gas will, in time, make
Shelby a great manufacturing center.
The oil wells are not gushers;t there
S a normal flow, but the great area
ind great distances between pro-
wells augurs well for the mag 4.
litude of the fields, which I am told
s the largest producing area in the
United States. The Standard Oil is
n the field; that is, subsidiaries,
which are picking up and which have
licked up a great amount of acreage
nd these companies have some of the :
Producing wells. This speaks we'll
the entire district, if the big fell :
ows haven't grabbed all the good :
I did not go to the Kelvin '
'unburst field. All oil wells look
like to me.
Hand-Me-Down Homes :
Houses are being hauled in all the :
Ime from the dry land farms some y
5 miles distance. The secretary OF
be chamber of commerce, Sam Jo-
ephson, was living with his wife and
everal children in one room, but a a
ouse had just arrived for him-a
1ree-room affair for which he had
ontracted to pay $50 a month. Bob n
Ills had rented a basement under
le postoffice where he was plan Y
ing to install so army cots with
blankets to rent at S1.00 per
IT per night. An elderly man named
.utch, who lived in Butte % years :
90, was selling portable houses and N
ad his models with him.
Colonel A. A. White of st. Paul,
Ut best known in Montana for his n
,nnection with the Great Northern
Id. the villa sites on Flathead lake,
as In Shelby. The Colonel is OPP