Word: oil
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...corn-bread-and-collards country around Greensburg, Ky., farmers have known they were sitting on top of oil ever since the first oil was found in a saltwater well in 1828. But geologists and oilmen insisted it could not be produced commercially; too much water was mixed with the oil. Almost the only man who doubted the experts was Milton G. Turner, 63, a local farmer, trader and self-taught oil expert. He thought they were dead wrong. Last week he had the best evidence to prove it. A snaking strip of Green County land running 15 miles east...
There are 500 producing wells-150 of them Turner's-producing 19,000 bbl. of oil a day. Green County oil leases, sold last spring for $1 a farm plus one-eighth of the oil, now are bringing $2,500 to $3,000 an acre, plus a quarter of the oil for the farmer...
What makes the Green County strike rare in U.S. oil history is that it is, says Turner, "a poor man's field." Oil is so close to the surface that ordinary water-well drilling equipment will reach it, and $6,000 covers all the costs of bringing in a well, compared to $100,000 and up in many U.S. fields...
Crazy about Oil. Turner, long indulgently regarded by friends as daft about oil, got his first encouragement in 1957. He persuaded Starr Gas Co. of Midland, Texas to come in and drill by procuring leases for it on 3,000 acres. The first well struck oil, but it was mixed with so much salt water that Starr Co. despaired of getting the oil out of the petroleum-bearing strata. Disgusted, Starr sold the well, equipment and 80 acres of surrounding lease to Turner for $2,500. Undiscouraged, Turner decided to try his own method. He thought an extremely powerful pump...
...offering to give away leases, Turner stimulated others to drill. Last winter, off in the backwoods, two more wells came in. In April the Frank Beams farm on the main Louisville road, which Turner had leased and subleased, came in flowing thick black oil-and the boom was on. Farmer Ellis Hood, 45, who barely scratched out $2,400 a year from his 85 hilly acres, now rakes in $325 a day; ex-Marine Early Vaughn Dulworth, 36, who paid $200 for a part interest in the Beam lease, now gets back $2,000 a month (his mother...