Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 December 1894 — A UNIQUE INDUSTRY. [ARTICLE]

A UNIQUE INDUSTRY.

How Lubricating OU Is Obtained in Pennsylvania. The lubricating oil field of French Creek, in Venango County, Pennsylvania, is one of the most curious spots in all oildom. The business had its start in the well of Blacksmith Evans, at Franklin, in the ’6o’s, and since then $12,009,100 worth of oil has been taken from the few miles square of territory where this oil alone is found. Around its prescribed limits wells that yie'd argely of the regular Illuminati g oil have been drilled, but none of that kind of oil has ever been found within the lubricating oil limits. This small but rich oil district extends into the village of Franklin, the county scat of Venango County, and there are wells in many private yards in that place. The production has fallen off greatly, thoigh, and the price also. The monthly yield now is not more than 7,G0 barrels, and the price is below -4 a barrel. The oil is refined at Oil City, and eighty different commercial products result, be-ides the oil itself. Fianklin en oys a monopoly of the heavy oil trade, but th * business is conducted on a much more economical basis than when Blacksmith Evans was getting his .00 barrels a day from his pioneer well and receiving $3 ; a barrel for it. There is little or no gas in the lubricating oil rock, and every well has to be pumped. As many as fifty wells are pumped by one engine. This is accomplished by an ingenious device called the pumping rig. The wells to be pumped are connected with sucker rods screwed together, reaching out in all directions, frequently more than a mile from the engine. In the woods around Franklin these sucker rods may be encountered, working slowly back and forth with the regular motion of a piston, and no engine within sight or hearing. The same thing may be seen in the streets of Franklin, where the long arms reach in to connect with the wells in the village boundaries. 1 he wells are not pumped regularly, but by “heads. ” Twice a day there is sufficient accumulation of oil in the wells to be pumped out, and then the many-armed engines are started apd k.pt going until all the oil of that “head" is pumped out Sometimes a new well will start off with a yie d of ten or fifteen barrels a day. but this Phenomenal yield does not last long. 'aking it all in all*the lubricating oil corner of the petroleum fields is altogether unique.