The Fourth was celebrated by fishing on the Washita, attending the rodeo at Elk City, and threshing wheat. Big oil was centerstage.
Oil development was revived as a gusher was brought in seven miles from Carter. The oil shot over the derrick and flowed steadily! It tested at 3700 barrels a day! The Carter Commercial Club hired people to cut grass for “strawing” the roads across the riverbed leading to the oil field. Volunteers furnished teams to haul and scatter the straw to improve accessibility.
Carter Oil Co., a subsidiary of Standard Oil, owned the big well on the Gray farm south of Sayre. With about 5000 barrels of high-grade oil belching forth daily and nearly 50 million feet of gas, the estimated value of this well was nearly ten million dollars (almost $176 million in today’s values)! Being the finest oil in the whole world, its estimated price was $3.50 ($61) per barrel. Its gravity test was 46.7, equal to the best Pennsylvania crude.
The largest mill in Western Oklahoma, the American Flour Mill at Elk City burned in the middle of the night. The old five-story structure, with a manufacturing capacity of 600 barrels of flour plus meal and feed products, did a large export business; their trade covered Oklahoma and Texas. The heat from the large structure was so intense, it could be felt two blocks away. One early bystander thought the fire started from spontaneous combustion in the warehouse near the stairs where the flames quickly swept over the structure. There were at least ten boxcars of flour and feed in the mill and nearly 2000 bushels of grain in the tempering tanks. Fire consumed it in less than one hour! Attention turned to saving the company office, two elevators, the corn house and storage tanks. Considerable effort was needed to save the Rock Island freight house andsome box cars. The loss was estimated at $100,000 ($1,756,000). Defective electric wiring was thought to be the cause.
Thousands of people attended the “Championship Cow Boys” three-day rodeo over the 4th.
Cowboys and cowgirls were in town by the hundreds. Nearly fifty celebrity contestants from all parts of the Great West competed. Some folks had never seen cowboys and cowgirls ride bucking broncs. bulldog a steer or jump from a speeding car onto the horns of a wild Mexican steer and pin him to the ground. An old cowboys’ roping contest for those over 50 years of age was a special feature.
Cortes Lee shot and killed Jim Jackson at Hammon. A dispute arose over Lee’s herd lawing Jackson’s cow and demanding a dollar’s damage for its release. Jackson refused to pay. As Jackson was shot in through the abdomen, there was no chance for his recovery. Lee was jailed in Cheyenne.
The garden hose heists on Broadway the first of July were solved! The “law” found them at a big still three miles north of Rankin on the Frank Day farm. Day and his wife admitted operating the enterprise. They implicated Frank Bowman who was jailed in Cheyenne and Charles Crabtree and his wife who left for Texas with a carload of corn products. About 1000 ft. of garden hose was also “jailed” in Elk City. It was used to carry water from a windmill to the shinnery thicket about a quarter of a mile away from the still. This was one of the largest stills recently found in the county. Henry Newby, deputy sheriff, found a second one just inside the Beckham Co. line. His advice was “don’t try to economize when making your still” as Pierce Richardson suffered seriously from drinking moonshine where the manufacturers economized by using galvanized tin instead of copper. Quizzed while ill, Richardson admitted that the still was moved. It was found dumped in a nearby canyon.
Mrs. Roberta McComas returned from Oklahoma City where she won honors for being the only student in the Gossard Corset Co. training class to achieve 100% in the final examinations.
Women from all over Oklahoma competed, many having years of experience, which gave even more credit to Mrs. McComas who was a newcomer.
Luanne R. Eisler authored this article, which was taken from items published in The Carter Express, The Elk City Press and The Elk City News-Democrat; these newspapers can be found on microfilm at the Elk City Carnegie Library; https://www.dollartimes. com provided supplementary information.
