Laurel outlook., 1946-02-20
New Cold Rush
On in Colorado
It's Hottest Oil Strike in
History of the Rocky
Mountain Region.

DENVER.-A new gold rush is
in full swing in Colorado. For eX-
element and get-rich-quick POSSIBLE
tiles it is reminiscent of the famous
stampede to Cripple Creek in the
COS.
Rich oil seeps out of the sand
stone and bubbles over. the surface
of the basin. nesting between lofty
plateaus not far from the Utah
Colorado border, according to the
Chicago Tribune. .
The Rangely oil field is a brand
new baby, but biologists already are
comparing it with the Oklahoma
City pool, which roared into exist
ence with 25, 000-barrels-a-day eush-
ers in the 20s, petroleum's flush and
fabulous era.
It's the hottest strike in the his
tory of the Rocky mountain region.
Only a few score wells have been
completed to date but the United
States geological survey estimates
there will be at least 800, one well
to each 30 acres, and adds that the
limits of the field still have not been
defined.
Speaking conservatively, major
companies with a stake in Rangely
predict that the field ultimately will
produce 418, 600, 900 barrels of oil,
The Salt Greek field in Wyoming,
previously the biggest in the Rockies,
had produced 28l 500, 900 barrels at
the start of this year.
Wide Spot in Road.
Before last summer, when the oil
industry began sending in thousands
of men and huge quantities of drill
ing equipment, the Rangely basin
was a quiet, sparsely settled region
where herds of fat cattle and sheep
grazed with wild deer on purple
sagebrush-covered mountainsides.
The town of Rangely was just a
wide spot in the road that meanders
across the basin, with a post Officer
school, general store, and half a
dozen scattered dwellings.
A few weeks later heavy oil field
trucks had churned the main street
into a sea of mud. Frame business
buildings of every description sprang
up overnight.
j. w. Hays came to Rangely to
open a liquor store and started do
ing a land-office business right
away"
The lumber used in the flooring of
his shop was green, and it kind OF
shrunk, Hays said.
81 had to put linoleum on it so
the boys wouldn't drop any thou
sand dollar bills between the cracks.
I never saw anything like this be-
FORE" he said.
High Rent on Prairie.
Out on a bald prairie far from
town, the owner of a dilapidated n
room log and mud cabin rented it
to a desperate house-hunter-for S75
a month.
At the junction where U. S. high
way 40 turns onto the Rangely road
an entirely new town-Artesia-
blossomed like magic on a few acres
of sagebrush, Boosting two theaters,
stores, pool halls and the inevitable
liquor dispensaries and beer en-
poriums.
On up highway 40 a couple of
miles toward the Utah line lies
Wiley's resort, the property of WI
ley Baucum, whose real bonanza is
an artesian water well, from which
flows the only pure drinking water
in this arid territory. Wiley's water
supplies the oil field and the town
of Rangely-for a price-and it's
generally understood that his water
well is more valuable than any oil
well around.
But Wiley isn't just standing wait
ing for the profits. He's building a
SIS, 900 night club which he says will
be the finest between Denver and
the West coast"
The boom has echoed all the way
to Craig, an established town ITO
miles southeast of the field which
had 1000 satisfied souls before the
upheaval and now has about twice
that many. Craig is the nearest rail-
road point to Rangely and the fun
mel through which flows all the
massive quantities of drilling equip
ment headed for the field.