Black Gold on the Western Frontier

The land Spanish explorers called “Colorado” was an untamed wilderness in the mid-nineteenth century. Yet following close on the heels of western trailblazers came pioneers of a different sort determined to tame the Wild West. They brought economic advancement to a region deemed worthless by their contemporaries, and no other sector of the frontier economy played a more pivotal role in this development than the mining industry. Colorado, in fact, was born and built in a rush-a virtual mineral stampede. Gold and silver formed the foundation stones of statehood. But sandwiched between those stones was an equally valuable mineral-oil-which eventually eclipsed the others in economic importance. Oddly enough, the “Black Magic Rush” is one of the state’s best kept his- torical secrets. The Centennial State marked a mile- stone in 1987—the 125th anniversary of the Rocky Mountain West’s petroleum industry. Discovery and development of the first oil field west of the Mississippi River occurred only three years after ‘’Colonel’’ Drake’s famous well launched the U.S. oil business back east in 1859. While the country was embroiled in civil conflict, a resolute oil man heeded newspaper publisher Horace Greeley’s immortal advice, “Go West, young man.” Alexander Morrison Cassiday, one of Drake’s proteges, carried his newly acquired technical skills west to tap the region’s liquid treasure. His venture was all the more remarkable because of the circumstances under which it was undertaken. Prospecting for and producing petroleum in the Rocky Mountain region the “Great American Desert”—was a risky business at that time. The foothills of the Eastern Slope and the adjacent high plains were inhospitable, and inhabited by warlike Indian tribes. In 1852 U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster asked, ‘What do we want of this worthless area, this region of savages and wild beasts, of shifting sands and whirlwinds
of dust, of cactus and prairie dogs? To what use could we ever hope to put hese great deserts and these endless mountain ranges?”

CASSIDAY HAD a pretty good idea of the value of these “waste- lands.” But he was probably unaware of the trouble brewing in the region when he arrived in search of oil. When Cassiday was staking his first Colorado oil claim in the spring of 1862, a Confederate invasion of the gold-rich territory was imminent. A 1,100-man Rebel army raised in Texas was poised to strike. But thanks to the equally strong First Regiment of Colorado Volunteers nicknamed ‘’Gilpin ‘s Lambs” after the territorial governor the transplanted Pennsylvanian was able to work his claim. The regiment tramped through a blizzard across a mountain pass into New Mexico Territory, and on March 28 con- fronted a column of Confederates in an arroyo near Glorieta. Though defeated in the main engagement, 430 Pike’s Peakers under Major John M. Chivington restored the unit’s reputation by hitting the Rebel rear, utterly destroying the enemy’s supply train. The Texans high-tailed it back to the Lone Star State.

Casualties in the fight-a total of over 230 killed, missing, and wounded-were light by Civil War standards. But the outcome of the combat was decisive. Known as the “Gettysburg of the West,” the battle not only thwarted Dixie’s occupation of the area but also pre- vented Cassiday ‘s petroleum pioneering efforts from becoming an unknown casualty of the Civil War. Cassiday was not a man to shirk danger. Having read Lieutenant Zebulon Pike’s 1806 report about oil on a creek that flowed into the Arkansas River, he had ignored the warnings of “dangerous crossings” and hastened to the territory hell-bent on finding “black gold.” In the vicinity of Royal Gorge—the “Grand Canyon of the Arkansas River” —surface seeps on Four Mile, or Oil Creek, had attracted Indians for generations. The Utes skimmed off the
oil and used it to soothe aching joints and cure other ailments.

The first white man to stumble upon the oil spring, located six miles north of what became
the town of Canon City in Fremont County, was a prospector named Gabriel Bowen, who was looking for bullet lead. Shortly after news of Drake’s discovery reached the West, Bowen claimed 160 acres surrounding the In spring. He and one Matthew G. Pratt unsuccess- fully worked the prospect. Oil was collected by digging shallow shafts near seeps along the creek bed. Since the enterprise was not commercial, the prospector sold the land to Cassiday. The Pennsylvanian and a local partner, James A. McCandless, employed the tried and true technology of the day—“creekology.” Drill sites were selected simply by locating a drilling apparatus near a visible oil seep.Cassiday, who had been a roustabout on the crew that drilled the nation’s first oil well at Titusville, had acquired two years of first-hand experience at digging holes in the Pennsylvania oil patch. The early method of “making hole,” known as spring-pole drilling, required two men who bent a springy sapling which pushed an augur into the ground. The elastic strength of the rod raised the bit, prepared for the next stroke. The larger end of the pole was anchored to the ground, supported in the center by a forked stick with the bit-end positioned directly over the hole. Drillers’ feet were placed in rope loops and kicked downward, hence the expression “kicking down hole.” Holes were encased with wooden, and later iron, “pipe” to prevent the cavity from caving in This back-breaking work required physical strength as well as an iron will. In March 1862, as Coloradans were defending the territory’s borders, the duo struck oil at fifty feet in their first well. A crude pump was installed to remove the petroleum from the well bore. But a year later the yield was still only one barrel a day. After producing fifty barrels of oil it was finally abandoned. A second well was “spudded” (started) in 1863-two years later it reached approximately 500 feet. According to early newspaper, accounts
it found an “inexhaustible supply” of oil, most of which was located up the hole at shallower depths. Cassiday sank a total of six wells in what became Canon City field. Early production from the wells, all of which was froμi above 100 feet, reportedly reached 25 to 30 barrels a day sometime in 1865. Cassiday is also credited with establishing the first commercial oil refinery west of the Mississippi River. He built a rudimentary retort, or still, out of materials acquired in Denver, and operated it near ‘the wells. A skimming plant was also set up to collect surface oil off the water. A decade earlier, one Maurice LeDoux had skimmed oil from ponds and processed it through a small still with a condensing tube made from an old rifle barrel. He used the processed oil in lighted oil pots at his trading post.

LeDoux ‘s post was later burned to the ground, and the residents massacred by Indians. “Coal oil,” as it Was then known, was refined into kerosene for use as a fuel in lamps. Cassiday had the only ready supply of kerosene between the Rockies and the Mississippi. Besides providing illumination, crude was used to lubricate machinery and as axle grease. According to one account, Cassiday ‘s operation refined as much as 300,000 gallons of petroleum, the equivalent of 7,143 barrels (a 42-gallon barrel became the petroleum standard in 1866). Petroleum products were transported from the isolated field in wooden barrels atop wagons drawn by teams of oxen or horses. Though travel along wagon trails was hazardous; Cassiday managed to keep the crude moving to the market. It cost up to $1.50 per gallon to freight the oil, depending on the destination. Markets ranged from Denver to Santa Fe, New Mexico, over hundreds of hostile and rugged miles. Still, Cassiday realized a profit of $100 on a barrel when the price sky-rocketed to $5 a gallon during the Indian hostilities of 1864-65. During the Civil War years, the Plains tribes took full advantage of the absence of regular Army troops from the frontier posts. Colorado had long been the domain of nomadic Indians. Only two years before
oil operations began there, Oil Creek was the site of a fight between warring Cheyennes and Utes. Now settlers became the target of choice. Arapahoes and Cheyennes soon began raiding stagecoaches, freight wagons, and ranches and stealing horses along the South Platte Trail. Between the summer of 1864 and March 1865, Canon City and Denver were ‘virtually under siege by warriors on the warpath. Communication with and transportation to the outside world were severed. Prices for all commodities were astronomical. Territorial Governor John Evans wrote, ‘The Indian war interrupted our commerce on the plains so the territory has had a severe back set.” Colorado’s volunteer cavalry engaged hostiles on at least eighteen occasions during the period of open warfare. When the Civil War neared an end, the territorial militia finally managed to clear the overland routes to the mining region. However, there were other causes of concern for safety. Lack of law and order was a major threat to the area. Horace Greeley described Colorado ‘s boom towns as overrun with characters “soured in temper, always armed, bristling at a word, ready with rifle, revolver or bowie knife.” Rough and-tumble miners participating in one of history’s greatest gold rushes generated most of the disorder. One berserk miner shot and killed three men in a single year around Canon City. Canon City had earned a reputation as a wide-open, wild town known for its “depravity,” according to a local newspaper editor, well before Cassiday arrived.

 

Vigilantism and its most lethal weapon—lynching—rose in response to the unrestrained violence. A people’s court was created, and supplemented by “private enforcers.” One dandy gambler, himself of questionable character, tracked and personally lynched a horse thief. On more than one occasion personal justice was dispensed from the barrel of a six-gun. The worst offenses against the towns- people occurred in the spring of 1863- the “time of terror.” A band of Mexican outlaws vowing vengeance against “gringos” went on a murder spree. A local judge was found dead, a crude cross carved in the flesh of his chest. The thrye brothers responsible for this and other killings were trailed by an angry posse. One of the bandits was dispatched quickly. The remaining two were later bushwhacked by a bounty hunter, their heads taken in a gunny- sack back to Fort Garland. The $2,500 reward on their heads was never paid because the territory claimed it was
short of greenbacks. Neither outlaws, Indians, Confederates, nor the harsh elements deterred Cassiday. Lack of cold cash, however, did put a damper on his operations. Consequently, in the late 1860s he sold three-fourths interest in the oil operation for $60,000 to Boston financiers. A stock company called Boston and Colorado Oil Company was then formed. High hopes were held for Colorado’s oil field. On December 13, 1865, the Rocky Mountain News optimistically reported, “We have every reason to believe from the indications and discoveries made that portions of our Territory are as rich jn petroleum as celebrated Pithole District in
Pennsylvania.” Canon City field did, in fact, continue to yield enough liquid gold to supply the needs of Colorado and New Mexico. Colorado crude commanded a higher price than easternoil because of its superior quality. But any kind of economic activity in Colorado Territory outside of a populated center was risky. Indian hostilities flared anew around 1870.

On one occasion five teamsters were ambushed and killed near Carson. Emboldened, the Indians then attacked a train. Shortly
thereafter 20 settlers were massacred. Perseverance, though, has always been a trait of petroleum pioneers Cassiday, disdainful of the danger and fully aware of the profit to be made, could not stay away long. In the early 1870s he renewed his search for the elusive bonanza. A few years later his undaunted determination led to the extension and development of Colorado’s only producing field of the 19th century. Between 1871 and 1874 the entrepreneur induced four associates to buy large tracts of land near Florence, a town twelve miles southeast of Canon City. All the holes drilled on the tracts languish, and the venture apparently failed, for when Cassiday surfaced again he was in another line of drilling. In1881, Cassiday ‘s ex-partner hired him to drill a water well at the Canfield Coal Mine. Ironically, oil was found insteadof water. Several barrels were recovered before the tools were lost in the hole. Confirmation of the strike was post-poned until proper title to the land was secured. Once news of the discovery spread, interest in the near-dormant field was revived. A virtual boom waslaunched two years later when a new discovery was made. By 1884, Cassiday was on his own again. Investors from Cleveland backed him in the formation of the Arkansas Valley Land and Oil Company. Two of the three wells drilled by the company produced oil. The firm later bought another five wells and built the first refinery at Florence. It was capable of refining one hundred barrels of oil a day. At this juncture, Cassiday’s fate becomes a bit confused. It appears that he was bought out by the Cleveland investors in July 1885. Arkansas Valley Land and Oil then merged with Colorado Trust Company, owned by one D.G. Peabody, to form United Oil Company in 1887. Cassiday’s role in the field no doubt diminished with the emergence of larger companies. He may have died about this time. Whatever the case, he is well deserving of the title of “father of the Colorado petroleum industry.” As the decade came to an end, an oversupply of crude as well as inadequate storage facilities temporarily shut in many of the field’s 20 producers. The area, however, made a quick come-back. A concurrent surge in ore processing and oil production in the early 1890s led to a boom in Florence, the town founded by James A. McCandless, Cassiday ‘s partner in the state’s first oil venture. (McCandless’ family had gained notoriety in western annals when his brother, Colb, was allegedly murdered in cold blood in 1862 by none other than “Wild Bill” Hickock.) Florence soon became Colorado’s greatest industrial center-and its row-diest. Fifteen saloons remained open around the clock, and slick gamblers and “soiled doves “ flocked to the town to fleece workers of their paychecks. Florence’s population reached 7,000, while its annual oil producdion peaked at 824,000 barrels in 1892. One year before, the state’s first pipe- line-a four-inch line stretching some 30 miles from the Florence field to a refinery northwest of Pueblo was engineered by J.H. Caldwell and laid by Rocky Mountain Oil Company, a firm financed by Cleveland interests. The line had a capacity of 5,000 barrels a day, and oil was stored in three large reservoirs. But construction of another refinery near the field quickly put the transporter out of business. Boom times also brought cutthroat competition. Fortunately for Florence, a kerosene war with Cleveland’s capitalists led by John D. Rockefeller ultimately ended in victory for local marketers. Two companies, both formed in 1887, emerged from the war as the leading producers in the field. During the heyday, United Oil con- trolled 40,000 acres, operated 16 producers and employed 40 workers. Florence Oil Refining held 10,000 acres, owned ten wells, and had 35 men on its payroll. By 1900, United controlled most of the production. But within three years the boom settled down. Access to outside markets was maintained through an affiliation with a company destined to become a major integrated oil firm. Continental Oil and Transportation Company, formed in Ogden, Utah, in 1875, was “devoted to the distribution of petroleum products to the pioneers of the West. “ After many years of indirect involvement in the field, Conoco bought out United Oil in 1916. For seventy years, Conoco and its predecessors operated Florence field.

From headquarters in Denver, Conoco maintained a network of tank cars, storage tanks, distribution stations, and agencies. Florence field, with its 20,000 proven
acres—2,000 of which were developed established some interesting records. By 1903 the Number 49 well, which was cated within the city center, had produced one million barrels of oil. It was grandiosely regarded as “the greatest payer in the shape of an oil well that the world had ever known.” At the same time, the Number 357
well at 3,650 feet was purported to be the deepest hole in the world outside of Pennsylvania. Florence’s cycle of boom and bust ran its inevitable course. A new age dawned with the invention of the incandescent light bulb. Kerosene lamps soon went the way of the horse. And the advent of the “horseless carriage” witnessed the wane of the Wild West. By the late 1920s, the number of wells in the field • had surpassed the 1,000 mark, but peak production had long since declined. Though tμe boom passed, the reservoirs kept yielding black-gold. Cumulative output for the field surpassed fifteen million barrels in 1987. Even today, the 14-square-mile field continues to pump oil. About a dozen independent operators work forty wells. Florence’s most famous hole, the Number 42, produced continuously from April 1889 until at least Colorado’s one hundredth petroleum anniversary in 1962, making it the oldest continuous producer in the Rocky Mountain West. The Canon City-Florence field’ importance transcends mere production. This is where an entire region as well as a state launched its petroleum industry. It is also visible testimony to
the tenacity of a disappearing breed of men the wildcatter.