Searching for Black Gold in the Rattlesnake Hills
A geological assessment suggests the presence of a dome structure in the Rattlesnake Hills, prompting investors to initiate drilling for oil and gas.
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.
It is my opinion that the Rattlesnake hills are the crest of a true anticline. The escarpment seen also indicates that the formation plunges to the northwest and rather abruptly at a point about 4 miles to the northwest from the well. This would indicate that the area in which the well is located is a dome. Such a condition is favorable for a pool of oil or gas. I believe that a pool of oil exists below the gas-bearing stratas and this well will be found to be near its center. I am backing my judgment by taking up leases adjoining, and with my associates, J. W. Eames of Los Angeles and Henry D. James of Tacoma, expect to commence development work at once. We are shipping in two high-power standard rigs. In conclusion, there has been no effort on the part of the different companies operating in this field to start a stock jobbing boom. Everything so far done in the field has been along the line of honest development.
“I am backing my judgment by taking up leases adjoining, and with my associates... expect to commence development work at once.”
The quest for oil and gas in the Rattlesnake Hills was a major, if often speculative, industrial effort in the early 1900s. These geological surveys represent the early attempts to map the subsurface wealth of the region, years before the massive shifts in the land's use during the Manhattan Project.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.