Sketches in Crude-oil: Some accidents and incidents of the petroleum development in all parts of the globeMcLaurin, John J. (John James)
History
Sketches in Crude-oil: Some accidents and incidents of the petroleum development in all parts of the globe
McLaurin, John J. (John James)
Petroleum -- History; Petroleum industry and trade -- North America -- History
“Hell in harness!” Davy Crockett is credited with exclaiming the first
time he saw a railroad train tearing along one dark night. Could he have
seen an oil-train on the Oil-Creek Railroad, blazing from end to end and
tearing down from Brocton at sixty miles an hour, the conception would
have been yet more realistic. Engineer Brown held the throttle, which he
pulled wide open upon discovering a car of crude on fire. Mile after
mile he sped on, thick smoke and sheets of flame each moment growing
denser and fiercer. At last he reached a long siding, slackened the
speed for the fireman to open the switch and ran the doomed train off
the main track. He detached the engine and two cars, while the rest of
the train fell a prey to the fiery demon. A similar accident at
Bradford, caused by a tank at the Anchor Oil-Company’s wells overflowing
upon the tracks of the Bradford & Bordell narrow-gauge, burned two or
three persons fatally. The oil caught fire as the locomotive passed the
spot and enveloped the passenger-coach in flames so quickly that escape
was cut off.
Bradford, Tarport, Limestone, Sawyer, Gillmor, Derrick, Red Rock, State
Line, Four-Mile, Duke Centre, Rexford, Bordell, Rew City, Coleville,
Custer and De Golia, with their thousands of wells, their hosts of live
people, their boundless activity, their crowded railways, their endless
procession of teams and their unlimited energy, were for the nonce the
brightest galaxy of oil-towns that ever flourished in the busy realm of
petroleum. Some have vanished, others are mere skeletons and Bradford
alone retains a fair semblance of its pristine greatness.
The bee-line for the north was fairly and squarely “on the belt.”
THE SEX MEN ADORE.
A little girl at Titusville, when she prayed to have herself and all of
her relations cared for during the night, added: “And, dear God, do try
and take good care of yourself, for if anything should happen to you we
should all go to pieces. Amen.”
A young lady at Sawyer City accepted a challenge to climb a derrick on
the Hallenback farm, stand on top and wave her handkerchief. She was to
receive a silk-dress and a ten-dollar greenback. The feat was performed
in good shape. It is probably the only instance on record where a woman
had the courage to climb an eighty-foot derrick, stand on top and wave
her handkerchief to those below. It was done and the enterprising girl
gathered in the wager.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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