An Oily Situation

Ramona grew up in Brookville, Pa, not far south of Titusville, Pa. You may not have heard of Brookville, as it is primarily famous among truckers who like the convenient location of its truck stops. And in recent years it has gained a certain cache among town and city gentrification interests as it has successfully restored its main street into one of America’s more attractive ‘historic downtowns’.

But if you grew up going to school in Pennsylvania, or ever spent any time reading about the American oil industry you probably have read of Titusville.  The small Pennsylvania town where oil was drilled for the first time anywhere by a man named Drake.  And the Drake’s well reconstruction and museum is still a popular place for history buffs to visit in the northwest corner of the Keystone State.

Today we visited an equally important and infinitely more profitable historic drill site.  Called Norman Number One this oil well was not drilled by its namesake but rather on land owned by the Norman family in the small town of Neodesha, Kansas, just about 100 yards off the main drag through town.  As for the town name, pronounce it Neo-desh-A’, with the accent on the last and very hard A, the guide at the museum told me. 

Then she went on to explain that she travels to Quarryville, in Southern Lan-cass’-ter  County, Pennsylvania every year to visit her aunt and uncle’s horse farm so I got to help her with that pronunciation. “ Its Lanc’-as-ter, as the English say it.” She got it then.

She wants to visit Lititz, Pa, next summer to sample the Wilbur Chocolate buds and Sturgis Pretzels at their plants and we both laughed over the way that town’s name gets mis-pronounced.

Back to Norman Number One.

This was the first well ever drilled in the hugely and still successful largest oil field on the planet.  Called the Middle Continent Field it became one of the prime providers of impetus in America’s move up the international super power scale throughout the 20^th century.

  

Today, however, there aren't a lot of new oil wells pumping up crude. With their familiar rocker arms swaying up and down and the putt-putt of their one cylinder engines keeping them going on diesel fuel. Oh they still can be seen all over the west working almost 24/7/365, but few new ones going in.  

The middle continent of America still drills, but not like the Gulf of Mexico, and most of the newer wells don’t go down hundreds of feet.  They go down miles.

So the old Norman Number One closed down almost 100 years ago when its cast iron casing gave out, and today its just a museum and historical site  history and oil buffs like me stop in to see.

But the people who have drilled a million other wells worldwide, whether they came in or not, owe these two wells the first applause.  And if their wells did come in, maybe a generous gratuity as well. Though I’ve never known anyone in the oil business to tip anyone very big. And the once boom-town of Neodesha’ is mostly now, like Titusville, an 'historic down-town'.

Tomorrow we go to… I don’t know.  This lake is so serene I’m just looking forward to getting up, making my coffee, and sitting beside the water with my book again to see what wild life flies in.

-Ken