A Gas Well Roars to Life in the Sagebrush — and Yakima Comes to Watch
Sixty North Yakima men drove out to a wildcat well 14 miles north of Benton City, where escaping gas hissed like a locomotive, then lit into a 20-foot tower of flame — and raised fresh hopes of oil under the desert. Spoiler: the gas wasn't there in commercial quantities yet.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Sixty North Yakima men who are interested in the activities of the company which owns the gas well 14 miles north of Benton City made the trip to the well last Sunday. That is, 45 of the 60 who started visited the well, the other 15 having spent the day in the sagebrush desert doctoring sick automobiles. The trip was made under the direction of M. J. Bond, fiscal agent for the gas and oil company, which was recently organized with a capitalization of $100,000.
In reporting the trip, the Yakima Republic says:
"That there is gas in the well no one who visited it yesterday doubts. When the valve which confines the gas in the 2-inch pipe was opened at 3 o'clock, there was a hissing sound resembling the blowing off of steam from a railroad engine. When the first attempt was made to light the well the force of escaping gas extinguished the lighted newspaper which was being used for the purpose. After two or three minutes the pressure subsided very slightly and the gas was ignited. The flames burst into the air with a roar, and the blaze shot about 20 feet in the air. Spectators standing within 25 feet of the well were forced to retire to a greater distance on account of the heat.
"Men who watched the burning well for 15 minutes saw the flame gradually diminish in size for five minutes, after which it appeared to maintain a uniform length of about 15 feet. Men from Hanford, 18 miles distant from the well, were interrogated, and A. McConnachie, who has a general merchandise store there, said when the well was first opened two years ago, he had seen the flames issuing from the well almost every night for three months from his home in Hanford. This statement was also made by a brother of the merchant and by T. E. Kamarer, also of Hanford.
"The well is 700 feet deep, 500 feet of which are lined with 8-inch steel casing. The larger pipe is capped with a 2-inch pipe, which extends 10 feet above the ground; the well is at the base of a ridge, four miles from the summit, and at an elevation of about 200 feet, and is 14 miles northwest of Benton City.
"Gas is not issuing from the well in commercial quantities, according to men of this city who made the trip Sunday. The owners of the well admit this, but express the hope that deeper strata, if penetrated by drilling, will confirm their expectations of greater quantities of gas or possibly oil."
“The flames burst into the air with a roar, and the blaze shot about 20 feet in the air.”
This wildcat well near Benton City predates the Hanford reservation that would transform the surrounding desert within a generation. Then as now, a flare of gas in the sagebrush set off dreams of fortunes beneath the ground — and the same question of whether the find was real or just a show for investors. The detail that the trip was subsidized by the company's own fiscal agent is a reminder that resource booms are sold as much as they are drilled.
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