Back with another cry for help, hoping that someone who reads this blog might have some information to help on a longstanding question. Yesterday afternoon, after discovering precise directions on a GeoCaching site, I finally took a visit to Gleason's Crater, the big "hole in the ground" near Shongaloo, caused by an oil field explosion in the early 1920s. The location still remains on the Federal contamination sites, but seems to be largely forgotten except by Shongaloo/Evergreen folks and the GeoCachers.
This was a tremendous explosion and the fire burned for either days or weeks, depending on who is telling the story. The explosion was felt as far away as Shreveport, again depending on who is telling the story.
That's the point of my blog today, I want to find primary source accounts of "the story." Within the space of two months late last year I was contacted by the Town of Sarepta, seeking information about the story to include in the new information kiosk being erected as part of the Scenic Biway program, and by a descendant of the Gleason family from Maryland, seeing if I knew anything more than when he had first contacted me years ago. My response to both had to be a plea of mostly ignorance.
The problem is that the explosion took place sometime in 1923 or 1924 (I think) during the period when the Minden newspapers are all lost. So, without a more precise date trying to find contemporary news stories is looking for a needle in a hay stack. It has been suggested that one locally published source has that information, and I'm hoping that someone here may know the date.
So, if you know when Gleason's Crater was created, let me know.
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John, I doubt if this will help, but there is an oil and bryne museum in Smackover Ar that give the history of the oil industry in South Ark. Seems that if it is on a federal contamination register, they should have information as to what occured. Good luck.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Darrell, I may check that out. I got a couple of e-mail suggestions and it may be that the explosion took place a year or two earlier than I had been led to believe.
ReplyDeleteHere is the story of Gleason's crater.
ReplyDeleteThis location is called Gleason's crater by the folks from around here. It is not natural. This is the story from an old account.
Contributing to the wealth of the community of Shongaloo (the closest town) was the discovery of oil and natural gas in the early 1900's. The discovery well was drilled by the Louisiana Oil Refining Company in the early part of 1921 on the W. E. Gleason property.
It was on this same property that Shongaloo's famous crater was created, a direct result of oil discovery. The well was the Gleason Number Two. Drilling was begun in April of 1921. The men worked day and night until the well was brought in. More than two hundred people gathered to watch the well come in and it was during the peak of this excitement that a pipe in the hole cut loose. It was known within an hour that the well was wild and within only a few minutes gas was coming from in the ground down the hill in the Dorcheat bottoms. Thousands of people, including many oil men, swarmed into the area to see the spectacle. One man yelled to another, “All hell has opened up down there.” All efforts to relieve the pressure failed so the well was abandoned.
A month later, the oil company attempted to salvage the well. John Slack was standing on a board across the slush pit when suddenly the bottom fell in to a depth of about one hundred feet. In a matter of minutes the well fell in and the derrick fell over on the side. No one was injured and the workers were able to save the engine, boiler, cramblock on top of the derrick. The hole began to get wider and wider as the sides caved in and it soon measured two hundred feet across.
Oil and gas continued to shoot out of the hole. About a year later it caught fire and burned steadily for two and a half years. The fire went out when a well drilled on the Bubba Martin land relieved the pressure. Erosion, as well as trash from a sawmill operated on it's edge for years has helped fill in the crater until it no longer resembles the one hundred feet deep hole which old-timers still love to talk about.
My father told me of seeing the glow from the fire in Minden.
Also, when I was a boy going to school in Evergreen back in about 1950, teachers would routinely take classes there for an outing. I remember it well. The bottom was much deeper than today, full of water, oil and it was bubbling. All the boys would try to throw rocks across but I don't remember anyone making it. It is not near as impressive today as it was back then.
ReplyDeleteBut, hell, I could be lying, you decide.
Thanks, Will. Those dates help. I read the Minden newspapers for those events in 1921, but nothing seemed to describe an event significant as I've always heard this was in the local area.
ReplyDeleteI just ran across your blog. My husband is a long time resident of Shongaloo. He says there is an account of what happened in the book titled North Webster Parish: The early years: Tommie O'Bier. His retelling of the story from what he heard from his ancestors only differs slightly from Will's. He did say it burned for 2 to 3 years and that it was so bright that his Aunt said they lived about a mile or two away and her father could sit on the porch at night and read the newspaper, it was that bright. He heard the well blew out and it melted and swallowed up the rig and two cars that belonged to the big oil men that were there at the time. He said there was no time to crank the cars everyone just ran for their life.
ReplyDeleteThe
ReplyDeleteHello, John from this "descendant of the Gleason family from Maryland". I still search for details on the crater as time allows. Google eBooks continues to expand, and I have found additional information there - mostly in oil and gas trade periodicals. Many of those are dated in the early months of 1922, and one mentions that the original incident occurred in August 1921. That's the best I have pinned down thus far. Randy Gleason Herbert, Baltimore, Maryland
ReplyDeleteI used to live in Haynesville and worked in the local oil and gas fields. We used to stop by the site around 1985 and i recall you could drive up to the edge of the location on the road and they had a dirt pile and maybe some logs where you couldn't go any further. The sunk in area seemed to be approximately 250-300' around, the water was about 50-60' below ground level and still bubbling. I could be off on the measurements but its been awhile. I would love to know more about it.
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