A Rattlesnake Hills Gusher Sparks a Speculative Frenzy
A massive new natural gas strike in the Rattlesnake Hills has sent local stock prices soaring and raised hopes for a regional energy boom.
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.
The theory that the natural gas well in the Rattlesnake hills which has been flowing for six years was fed through a leak or from an isolated pocket was quickly dissipated last week by the opening of another big well about 20 miles from this city. According to reports given out by Manager Henry D. James, of the Walla Walla Oil, Gas and Pipe Line company, the new well is flowing at the rate of three million cubic feet of gas a day—a flow ten times stronger than the old well. The gas was struck at a depth of 715 feet. Geologists say the strike proves the field for gas and suggests the presence of a high-grade oil field nearby. The Walla Walla company has advanced the price of its stock from 50 cents to $22 a share, and other local firms have followed suit, leading to a boom in leasing state land.
“A flow ten times stronger than the old well which has a measured capacity of 300,000 cubic feet a day.”
The Rattlesnake Hills area remains a site of significant energy and agricultural interest today. This 1918 report captures the breathless, often volatile, optimism of the early 20th-century extraction economy in the Tri-Cities.
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