Embarrassment of Riches

Embarrassment of Riches

In Oklahoma City, capital of the State, the sun rose last week through a yellow murk and set surrounded by weird rainbows. A roaring, shrieking sound filled the heavy air. Fifty city blocks were declared under martial law to prevent a match or spark being struck there. The schools closed. Cause of all this was an oil well just beyond the southeastern city boundary, known as the C. E. Stout No. i. It blew in last week and in eight minutes, seeming well under control, produced 350 bbl. of oil. Then sand came with the driving liquid, cut through the valves, demolished the surmounting derrick. The well turned into the "wildest ever seen," much more powerful and dangerous than the nearby Mary Sudik, which last spring kept Oklahoma citizens alarmed for ten days (TIME, April 14). C. E. Stout No. 1 cast up daily about 100,000,000 cu. ft. of gas, about 60,000 bbl. of oil valued at around $125,000. The oil slimed the State Capitol far to the north on West 23rd St., fouled the Canadian River water 30 mi. away. Fire started in a creek near the well, swept toward the gusher, was doused by all the city's firefighting apparatus. There was grave danger. The gas hung in a dense pall over the frightened city.

State Attorney General J. Berry King began looking for a legal basis to condemn the well to be blasted and permanently spiked--an unprecedented proposal. The State Fire Marshal announced his intention to demand authority to prohibit oil drilling within or near Oklahoma cities.

A hundred expert oil wranglers, white-slickered, steel-helmeted, sought to stem the flow by capping it with a hurriedly forged 3,000-lb. steel cone known as a "Christmas tree." Many-valved, it was designed to shut down on the escaping oil little by little. But the white figures could remain near the huge yellow plumes of spurted oil only a few minutes at a time; the work progressed slowly. Only after a three-day struggle did they screw their giant nipple into place and throttle nature's deluge. Leading the labor was the well's owner, Fred Morgan, a drilling contractor whose first private enterprise this well was. He, a poor man. had congratulated himself on great riches during the well's first eight inches. But during the week he lost a fortune in wasted oil and was faced with heavy damage suits from many an ousted inhabitant. His men hastily erected a skimming plant to recover oil from the river.

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