Montana oil and mining journal. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1931-1953, 1942-10-17

Sorry, but you're all through see the red
shale sticking on that bit?"
That was the 1918 prOnOuncement of a
dry hole in Montana. Hundreds of wells
were drilled in this state-enOugh to zen
tirely condemn the oil possibilities north
of the Wyoming line" in the words of
wOrld-famOus authorities employed by
Standard Oil.
But there were a few people who paid
no attention to those warnings and Gordon
Campbell found oil in Montana Develop
ment Of Cat Creek fOIIOwed-One of the
richest little oil pools earth. The writer
once wrote an interview, early in 1921 quot
ing one operator saying that the remarkable
thing about Cat Greek was that oil was
found in formations below the red beds.
And so the red beds of the KOOtenai ceased
to provide stop light for oil prOspectOrs
However recall that during that same
year the Durham interests of West Virginia
among the best oil men in the country
quit drilling in Willow Greek, west of
Choteau, Teton county, when they reached
the red beds. They had framed their casing
program SO that they could 60 no deeper,
since the red beds were the distinctive hOri-
where drilling must stop
We saw scores of wells drilled in central
Montana with the Cat Greek sands as the
objective. 1t was accepted as law that
nothing could be expected below the Cat
Greek sands which were so close to the red
beds that they served as the exception that
proved the rule"
But Gordon Campbell didn't have a col
Iege education in geology SO he couldn't
know the rule that there was no chance for
oil below the Cat Greek sand The writer
once interviewed him on the subject. The
unpublished interview in reply to the re-
pOrter's question was "PHOOEY."
Gordon Campbell had been in Canada
and had seen oil OOzing out of the rocks of
older formations than the CretaceOus, which
had been the objective bottom horizon of
other prOspectors. He said that the DevOnian
was the source Of oil In Montana. We knew
too little about the term "DevOnian" to ask
further questions so asked him to write an
article on ii. And so 1t was that Gordon
Campbell wrote the first report stating that
the DevOnian rocks are the source material
for oil in northern Montana
There was no commercial oil production
in northern Montana at that time SO it in
voIved the task Of proving that there was
ANY oil in northern Montana. Campbell
recited that there was oil in seeps in the
mountains west of Kelvin and in the hills
east of Kelvin and that a well drilled south
Of Kelvin had oil. That was evidence enough.
So he drilled the famous Campbell well
north of Kelvin. There was no oil above the
red beds. He found oil 600 feet below the
top of the red beds in what was then called
the Ellis sand"
Everyone knew that the massive Madi-
son lime could not contain oil because it
was too dense and hard. So it was agreed
that the Kelvin oil came from the EIlis sand
just as the Cat Greek oil was supposed to
have migrated downward from the red beds
into the Cat Creek sands.
Then came a new prOnouncement;
"SOrry, but you're all through: see the
white lime on the tOOls?"
Many an unhappy operator heard these
words and abandoned wells that everyone