Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 114, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 September 1904 — Fake Oil Companies Again. [ARTICLE]

Fake Oil Companies Again.

State Geologist Blatchley is the avowed foe of fake oil companies says the Indianapolis News, and is waging . a vigorous campaign against them in Indiana, through private letters and public utterances. Ever since the oil field in Indiana became valuable, fake companies have teen operating in this State. Mr. Blatchley says hundreds of thousands of dollars are now being lost by people all over the State. Mr. Blatch'.ey’s attention was called today, to a company with headquarters in Chicago which is advertising heavily in the Chicago papers “The advertisement” said he, “stated that the company had holdings in Jasper county, on which the company wou’d earn 6 per cent on $1,000,003 capital stock; that the company had already sold 60,000 shares of stock at 50 cents a share, and had 4.0,000 more shares to dispose of and that in three months the output from the field could be doub'ed without increasing the expense or fixed charge?,” The State Geologist gave the history of the Jasper county land so advertised. Several years ago, an English syndicate commonly known as the Byrd syndicate of London, leased about 36,000 acres in Jasper county. Nearly $400,000 was spent in trying to develop the field but last y ear only twelve barrels of oil were, obtained a day from the eighty wells. A month ago the Byrd syndicate sold out to the Chicago company for $35,000. ‘‘Tke Jasper county field is dead’’ said Mr. Blatchley. “A number of companies were organized to operate in Jasper county last year, and some of them are still in existence. Their available assets consist of little more than a superb allowance of gall, leases on a few hundred acres cf supposed oil territory snd a hundred or two dollars invested in prospedkuses and stock certificates. ““All persons are warned against investing any money in any company having stock for sale which claims to operate in Jasper county and vicinity. All holdings of importance in that field which are yielding any oil of consequence are owned by the Federal Oil and» Asphaltum Company of London, which is a responsible company, but which has no stock on the market. A few other responsible companies are also operating there on a small scale, but they have no stock for sale. The who'e Jasper county field, at the present rate of production, will not yield in twenty years, what a single one of the fake companies offer to produce in one year. Better it would be for the person who has money to invest, to buy grass seed and scatter it abroad for the sparrows, than to invest in the stock of these or other similar companies,