Historic Oil Wells of the Little Spokane River Valley

(all rights to this material retained by author)

A Review of the Historic Oil Wells

of the Little Spokane River Valley

&

Regions Around

(Part One)

by

Wally Lee Parker

  … an excitement …

            The March 28^th, 1901, issue of the Spokane Daily Chronicle reported that, “Another oil district has been found that from reports received promises to excel anything yet located in this section of the country.  On Wild Rose Prairie oil has been discovered that can be taken up by the bucketful and the scent of oil can be noticed for quite a distance from the spring.”

            This article was describing one small part of what might properly be characterized as a general “excitement” over the rumored prospects of paying quantities of oil and natural gas underlying a large swath of Washington State’s far eastern counties — including Asotin, Whitman, Spokane, and Stevens.  The 1901 excitement spilled over into Idaho — especially around Lewiston — and also into Oregon.

            The Chronicle’s article continued, “The place on which the strongest indications have been found is owned by Wilbur H. Lewis, and he has been aware for some time that there was something the matter with the water in a spring on his farm 15 miles north of Spokane.  He attributed it, however, to the presence of substances from the pine trees and gave the matter but little thought till he heard of the Rosalia finds.”

            In fits and starts over the next 43 years three exploratory oil wells were punched down in the vicinity of the above noted find on Wild Rose Prairie — Wild Rose being a gentle rolling segment of the southwestern corner of eastern Washington’s Little Spokane River Valley.  According to information published by the Washington State Department of Natural Resources in 1983, the last Wild Rose well was drilled in 1944, and was reported by the driller to have reached a depth of 3,600 feet — the last 600 feet in granite.  The term “driller,” as we understand it, is something of a misnomer since the Department of Natural Resources described the method used to sink all three of Wild Rose’s wells as “cable tools.”  This is an ancient technology in which a weight suspended by cable or rope is repeatedly raised and dropped to pound a shaft downward.  It would likely be safe to say that by the 1940s the cable tool system for oil exploration was essentially obsolete, having slowly been replaced by improvements in the nearly as ancient rotary drill.  This is not to suggest that the reported depth of the last Wild Rose well was beyond the reach of a sufficiently large cable tool rig.  However, the idea of pounding the last 600 feet through granite — considering that most competent geologists will agree that the chances of finding oil once you have struck what is clearly determined to be solid granite bedrock is zero — suggests something less than total accuracy as far as the driller’s assessment as to the nature of the rock being passed through; or something less as far as the driller’s overall competence as an oil prospector is concerned.

            As for conformation that an oil well was in fact being drilled in 1944, the “Shavings from the Mill” column in the Deer Park Union’s December 21 issue for that year stated, “David (Slim) Cox, a former mill employee, suffered quite severe burns on both hands and his face last Wednesday when water got into the boiler he was firing, causing it to explode.  He was working at the oil well on Wild Rose Prairie.”

            Since steam engines were commonly used to power these early “cable tools” oil rigs, this item falls right into line with the other data.

            Regarding the first two Wild Rose oil wells — those of 1901 and 1911 — the Department of Natural Resource’s “Information Circular” only states “details unknown” as to depth and such.  Though some information was printed in the area newspapers — the Spokane Daily Chronicle and Spokesman-Review — said information often appears to have been biased by a strong promotional motivation on the part of the companies sponsoring the drilling.  In fact, it appears likely that the news releases were on occasion written — partially or solely — by the promoters themselves.

            The wells on Wild Rose were not unique — either as to their lack of actual oil produced, nor as to the longevity of the expectation that they would eventually produce oil.  The 1901 excitement was the first of two major and many minor oil expectations to sweep through the area — the second of the major excitements occurring in 1921.

            Just as before, the 1921 oil excitement covered a broad band of counties from south to north, and also spilled into adjacent states.  This time the Little Spokane River Valley’s speculative excitement reached beyond Wild Rose to touch the valley’s northwest corner and the little town of Clayton.  The August 12, 1921, issue of the Spokane Daily Chronicle related that “over 100” of Clayton’s “residents” had gathered at the local grange hall to hear promoters representing the Clayton Oil Company describe the underground riches just waiting to be exploited.  One of the speakers was Harold P. Collins, geologist for the oil company, who is reported to have said, “The oil in this country has been formed from the marine life which once existed in the Gordon Sea that covered the country east of the Cascades,”

            Collins went on to note, “In this district we have a long anticline running up into Canada.”  Though often inaccurately used when describing local geology — as it is here — oil promoters loved the term “anticline,” since successful oil wells were often associated with that particular geological feature.

            Mr. Collins concluded by stating, “We can predict a slow-bearing sand, with long-life wells.  This is because the anticline is sharp on the western side, where it comes into contact with the older granite formations, and is sloping to the east side.  With this formation the sand is invariably slow-bearing.  The wells will run as high as 500 barrels and will be put on the pump, but they will yield for a long time.  If the anticline were sharp on both sides we would have gushers and short-lived wells.”

            Despite his remarkably detailed prediction, no oil was removed from the single well subsequently drilled just east of Clayton by Mr. Collins’ company.

            From 1901 on, geologist employed by the state and federal governments were cautioning that despite claims made by geologist hired by oil promoters — or people claiming to be geologist who were themselves oil promoters — the region’s geological formations as then understood did not favor the discovery of oil or natural gas in paying quantities.  These cautions were largely ignored.  And yet, after over a hundred years of exploratory drilling throughout the state — with the exception of some relatively short lived commercial natural gas production and one poor producing, short lived oil well on the Pacific coast — the government’s early assessments are the only ones that seem to be holding accurate.

            The stories of the several oil excitements of Clayton, Wild Rose, and the rest of the region are complex in detail, but simple in that the only oil profits produced were those pumped from the pockets of the investors to the pockets of the promoters.

… to be continued …

"Annie" in 3-D: at Spokane's Civic Theater

“Annie” In 3-D

— at Spokane’s Civic Theater —

by

Wally Lee Parker

            This last Sunday afternoon we went to a matinée showing of the Spokane Civic Theater’s production of Annie.  I’m not a big fan of Little Orphan Annie — or at least I wasn’t.  Probably because I saw the lifeless 1982 movie version of the original 1977 stage play — at least as much of that film as I could tolerate.  But that was a stage production translated into film.  Maybe better said it was a stage production half-heartedly spilled onto film.

            Having attended around two dozen or so Civic Theater productions now — including the Civic’s excellent 1996 rendition of Lost in Yonkers — I’ve come to the conclusion that something very vital doesn’t translate when scripts intended to be played live before relatively small audiences are converted into celluloid.  Lost in Yonkers — also made into a movie — is a fairly good example of that desensitization (though far from being the worse).  And I’m not just talking about the fact that stage productions are naturally three dimensional — meaning a form of 3-D without the eyestrain induced headache.  Unless a movie production begins by taking the essence of the stage script and rewriting it specifically for the camera (think 1978’s film version of Grease), the sad remnants are only going to be alive in the Frankensteinian sense — meaning the movie’s likely to be a lumbering monstrosity with its “vital force” erased.

            Jim Kershner, the Spokesman-Review’s longtime theater critic, said in his write-up of the Civic’s 1996 staging of Neil Simon’s Lost in Yonkers, that it was “technically an amateur production.”  He then went on to say that the Civic’s rendition was “actually superior in many ways to the Broadway Touring version.”  With my community college education, I’m just not sure how one differentiates between amateur and professional theater — except maybe ticket price.  Kershner, who’s seen a lot of both kinds of theater, seems to be suggesting that the proof is in the pudding, not the price.  I know it cost relatively little for a front row seat at the Civic.  (All the seats cost the same.  If you want the front row you’ll need to buy your ticket early.)  I do know that sitting close enough to the stage to see the expressions on the actors’ faces is important.   I do know working class people can’t afford to go to professional plays and sit close enough to really see.  It’s been my experience that sitting fairly close makes it more likely I’ll become absorbed into the play — and absorption is a part of the alchemy of stage magic.  If you’re in the twenty-fourth row of a 3,000 seat amphitheater, you might as well go to the movies.  So — I’m all for amateur theater if it allows me to participate as an audience member should.  And the Civic has always been good about inclusion.

            Not to say there weren’t problems with the Civic’s Annie.  Some words, spoken or sung by the young girls, and, on occasion, even the women wearing electronic assist, dropped below audible level.  Movies solve that kind of problem with post-production fixes.  Actors in live productions need to compensate for the lack of overdubs and re-dubs with technique.  But even with the best of those, having spent four years of my much younger days not that far from the painfully loud dry-planers of Deer Park’s sawmill, my ears are not always up to it.  Then too, girls as young as the actresses in Annie seldom have the lung capacity and projective range to make everything loud.  So I’m going to do something anyone attending live theater needs to do on occasion (at least the amateur kind of theater where you don’t need to do without a month’s worth of suppers to buy the tickets), and that’s give the actors a pass for effort.  The kids were good.  They were putting their hearts into it.  And heart is one of those things that seldom come across in a thoroughly homogenized Hollywood adaptation.

            Another thing Hollywood loses is spontaneity.  It would be easy to think the theater should have no spontaneity either.  After all, it’s all written down beforehand as dialog and set directions.  Just follow the directions, and as any good cook knows, everything will turn out perfect — just like pictured in the cookbook.

            In what galaxy does that work?

            So — the character Annie goes twirling across the stage and slams into a heavy wooden desk.  Was that in the script?  No.  But Annie — played by ten year old Sophia Caruso — just winced, then smiled, then carried on.  Now that’s heart.

            When tap-dancing — keeping rhythm with Daddy Warbucks (Daddy being played by the always excellent Mark Pleasant) — those metal tipped soles would occasionally slide across the stage, threatening to spill Annie on the floor.  Not a trace of fear, and the dance would clatter on.  Now that’s acting on the fly — the spontaneous kind.

            Back at the orphanage, all the little girls were down on their knees, pounding out a rhythm with scrub brushes against the floor and metal mop buckets.  It was perfect.  And then they jumped up.  Wooden mop handles snapped rhythms on the floor.  And through it all, never a self-conscious glance to the side.  They were looking out at the audience.  These kids — third, fourth, fifth graders — they didn’t need to see what the others were doing because each knew they were doing their own part right.  You could tell by the grins.  From our place in the fifth row, those grins were easy to see.  

            Maybe it’s just the parent in me, but when the girls in the orphanage crawled to the top of the stage’s bunk beds, did anyone else in the audience want to tack on some side-rails, or throw extra pillows on the floor.  Those weren’t images up there.  Those were real kids.   

            Perhaps the actors would disagree, but to my mind it takes an inordinate amount of courage to be on that stage.  It’s a crucible for excruciating embarrassment.  And I always worry that something is going to go wrong — even if the actors don’t worry.

            It’s called empathy — something today’s culture, with its love of sadistic reality shows, severely lacks. 

            The truth is everyone in the theater is an active participant in the play — even those who only watch and react.  Because of that, the theater is alive.  Not simply live.  It’s really alive.  The fact that filming a performance or recreating a play as a film seldom seems to carry that spark with it proves that it’s the participatory aspect to the theater that adds that magic ingredient.  It’s the play washing out over the audience and splashing back across the stage that adds that communal sense of rapport.  A movie is just a dry image incapable of responding in return to the audience’s response.  No emotional reverberation.  No 3-dimensional immediacy.

            And there’s always the hazard of accidental events that no amount of stage direction or rehearsal can remove.  Thusly necessitating the axiom, “The show must go on.”

            If there was something to dislike about the performance of Annie, it came from a few, select members of the audience.

            My God, the perfumes men and women drench themselves in are supposed to be a sexual attractant, not an aromatic weapon.  It’s hard to be attracted when you’re being suffocated.  A little bit is a tease.  But when the people around are gasping for air — take the hint.

            Then there are those individuals that find it absolutely essential they run a continual commentary about what’s happening on the stage.  Does the theater need to add more inclusive phrases alongside its “Please turn off your cell phones” reminder?  Things like, “Uses perfumes in moderation.”  And “Save your comments and witticism until after the performance.”

            The theater is so temporal, it’s sad when someone’s thoughtlessness distracts from the moment.

            Speaking of temporal: In this last Sunday’s Spokesman-Review Jim Kershner noted the impending retirement of the Civic Theater’s scenic and lighting designer Peter Hardie.  One thing I don’t believe Kershner mention in his article is that Hardie is also an actor.  I still recall the audience reaction to his excellent rendition of the lead character in the Civic’s production of Moliére’s Tartuffe.  That was back in 1993.  The entire play was spoken in rhyme — but any consciousness of that oddity seemed to dissipate after the first dozen stanzas.  It was magical.

            That’s the only regrettable thing about live theater — when the performance is over — or an actor’s career — everything that has transpired lives solely in memory.  Nothing of real substance lives on — like it would with film.  And that’s what makes distractions from the audience — distractions such as toxic perfumes and chronic nattering — so irritating.  The parts of the play missed can never be replayed.  Theater is totally in the moment.  If members of the audience aren’t respectful of that moment — aren’t respectful of their own part of the theatrical experience — it’s an insult to all those that love the theater.

            The Civic has two productions of note scheduled for this next season.  One is Grease.  It appears — or so I’ve read — that the movie version was far removed from what first appeared on the stage.  It will be interesting to see whether it’s the original stage version or one of the several revival stage versions that the theater intends to produce.  The other is The Producers.  This play has an interesting history in that it was originally a movie (Mel Brooks, 1968), then a stage play (2001), and once again a movie (2005).  The last film version, with Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick and Uma Thurman, suffered to great extent from the lack of intimacy that makes these things extraordinary on stage.  But if the Civic manages to add back the magic, and the world doesn’t end before the September opening, this play is likely to be something spectacular.

            Just to be on the safe side we already have our season tickets and seat reservations — fifth row from the front.