Gas wells

After I was 5 or 6 years old, until I was about 10 or eleven, I got to go to work with dad at least one day in the summer time. Mom was not really happy about me going out to the rig, but dad would take me along anyway. The drilling rig was really an impressive and dangerous place, especially for a curious kid. By the time I got to go to the rig they had quit using steam engines to run the machinery and were using natural gas (from another well), diesel or gasoline as fuel.

The rigs that dad worked on were standard rigs that used a bit, attached to a set of jars, on a stem on the end of a long cable. Rotary rigs were not used in our part of the country until after dad quit drilling. The rig consisted of an engine house, the main derrick, a samson post (a big post that held the walking arm), a jack stand, forge, bull wheels, screw, dog house and lazy bench. There was also an assortment of tools; drill bits stems, wrenches, bailers, rope, cable and sledges. When they were drilling the cable was attached to the walking arm by a large screw. As the drill went deeper the driller let out more screw so the drill would contact the bottom of the hole.

Two men worked on the rig: the driller and the tool dresser. It was the tool dressers job to make sure that everything was oiled and greased, the engine was in good repair, help sharpen the bits and help run the tools in and out of the whole when it was time to bail out the mud from the whole or to change bits. The tool dresser was a busy man. The driller was responsible for the entire operation. He had to know when the bit was actually drilling and had to maintain the size and sharpness of the drill bit. If the driller didn’t gage the bits right the hole would get too small and the tools would get stuck. That was not a good thing.

One thing that always excited me was when they sharpened the bit. They would put the bit in the forge and get it red hot then swing it out using a chain block and lay the end of the bit to be sharpened over an anvil. One man would stand on each side with a sledge and strike the face of the bit on his side. They would hammer until the gage was right and then temper the bit in a tub of water.

I had to stay out of the way when they were doing anything other than straight drilling because there was too much stuff that was happening when they pulled the tools or let them back down the hole: belts running ,ropes running, bull wheel turning, etc. It would have been easy to get killed. A lot of the time I just sat on the lazy bench (it was really a big tool box) and watched what was happening.

I have really strong memories of the smell of gas, and grease and oil from around the rig, the thump of the walking arm, the whir of the bull wheel when they let the tools down the hole. I also remember dad baking potatoes for lunch in the forge