Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 December 1898 — FORTUNES MADE IN A DAY. [ARTICLE]

FORTUNES MADE IN A DAY.

Ulllione Came and Went in Petroleum’s Early Daye. "There never was a time In the commercial history of the world when so many men were making so much money as were the men who owned the big oil wells OP Creek in the year 1864,” says a pioneer operator in the petroleum field. “Incomes were talculated by the minute, and $1 a minute was a small income. There were men who were making from $5 to $lO a minute, day and night, in tnose days—and they seem like a dream now or some Arabian night’s tele—it was the well owners who made die money. They just sat around and let their wells spout and gathered in the returns as they came. “There had been astounding fluctuI fttions In the oil market ever since the business began in 1859. In that year petroleum brought S2O a barrel. There was no market for it yet, though, and not much was sold. The next year, in ipite of the fact that there was very little Remand for a product as yet almost unknown to the outside world, the wells then producing put on the market 200,000 barrels of oil. Yet the tverage price for the product that year was $lO a barrel, although It fell to W. 50 in January, 1861, and tumbled to a) cents a barrel by April “In 1861 oil tumbled to 10 cents a barrel, and an empty barrel was worth 15 times as much as tjie oil it could Hold. In less than-dT year 1,500,000 barrels of oil came from the ground Xiong Oil Creek, and more than half &f It ran to waste. Oil was so low in 1862 that very few operators shipped iny. There was a good deal of money made In 1863, as the price was about H at the wells, and about 8,000,000 barrels were produced, but 1864 was die star year for well owners. The price had gone to $5 a barrel in February, 1864, and before May was over |7. Some heavy wells were struck ibout that time, but by June 1 oil was telling at $7.50. By the end of th® month it had jumped to $11.50 a barrel. In those thirty days more men were making fortunes every day than ; ( believe ever before in the commercial History of the world. '‘The must notable year of all for luctuatious in the price of oil was 1865 Fhe average was something like $6 a barrel, while the price frequently went up as high as $lO and fell as low as $4 This year saw the end es the gashing lays in Oil Creek. All of the big spoutJig wells were things of the past Th itghest price oil ever go® again was In 1869, when it went to fl? a barrel, ffiver since then the price has steadily grown smaller, and «inc® 1878 has 'tiled h-jlow $2."

klra liauitliug' of Anttlewi&r ■ t has b en said :k*t ‘every rr-tn i var<l in the dark,’ but I Know or who was una le to comprelnz. i. fear is,” said D»vid E. bung. is name is John Junken, and «-■ were schoolmates in Indiana tali'j 7. urs ago—at a time when rattlesn k s •j a liters’ and other noxious ‘va-’/n ; ? w ere plentiful. (.no of John’s^avorit <■. use nents when a boy was to piwok. i atilesnake to strike; then, before ’ > •'< uld recoil, seize him by the tai’ i.n u Ida h.m like a whiplash, snap h. h. ad off. He could jerk a rattler' •xom hts body every time. He woid. •\imb io the top cf a tall hickory a •;ng and, with the assistance of i.i ompanions, bend it to the gro.a. A 1 would then let go but John, wb uouid enjoy the rebound.' When b years of age he outdid Israel P aam’s famous expolic by crawling 1. . 1 hoi ow log, dragging a panther o ; by the tail, and killing it with a hatch lie entired the army St the outbreak <. I,he war, and, while his gallant condu. wa« frequently commended it w_. ie -ed unwise to confer a com n'sr r >n a man entirely destitute of pruden Yfid who fairly reveled in reckless <•, 0 oils ” —St. Louis Globe-Democrat.