|
COPYRIGHT 2005 Hart Publications, Inc.
The first written record of Native Alaskan reports about oil seeps in various parts of the state were made in the 19th century.
In 1886, W.L. Howard, on an exploration expedition for the U.S. Navy, returned from the North Slope with a sample of oil from the mouth of the Colville River.
Explorers, however, focused on the more accessible areas in the southern part of the state where entry could be gained through the Gulf of Alaska.
Some recorded references to petroleum in Southcentral Alaska can be found in reports from Russian explorers in the 1850s. Those explorers observed oil seeps on the Iniskin Peninsula on the west side of lower Cook Inlet, which opens into the Gulf of Alaska.
But Alaska's oil and gas industry got its official start in either 1892 or 1896 (historical accounts differ on the date) when two men, Pomeroy and Griffin (their first names are undocumented), staked the first oil claims near Oil Bay on the Iniskin Peninsula.
In 1896, Alaska Development Co. staked claims at Katalla, which would later become Alaska's first oil boomtown.
In 1898, under the name Alaska Petroleum Co., Pomeroy and Griffin spud the first oil well in Alaska near Oil Bay. Although they hit pockets of oil at 700ft, by the time they reached 1,000ft, they hit seawater, which ruined the well and ended the flow of oil.
During the next 8 years, Pomeroy and Griffin drilled more wells on the Iniskin Peninsula, but they were all dry. The same fate befell Alaska Oil Co., which in 1902 and 1903 drilled two dry holes at nearby Dry Bay.
Some of the celebrities that backed the hunt for oil on the Iniskin Peninsula included Bing Crosby, Walt Disney, Oliver Hardy, Stan Hardy, Spencer Tracey, Cecil B. deMille, Will Hays and Boris Karloff.
FROM DRY HOLE TO KATALLA
From 1902 to 1904, J.H. Costello drilled two wells, and Pacific Oil and Commerical Co. drilled three in the Cold Bay prospect near Puale Bay. The wells showed signs of oil, but not enough to prove commercial.
The first successful exploration was some 50 miles southeast of the town of Cordova at Katalla on the shores of Controller Bay. A trading post of sorts for gold and copper prospectors headed north, the oil strike right next to Katalla put it on the map.
Native Alaskans had been burning oil from the various seeps around the Katalla area for centuries, but in written historical accounts from the early 1900s, it was a white man, Tom White, who was credited with the discovery of oil at Katalla.
Described as a "live wire" in newspaper accounts, White said he had heard Natives talk of the "black pools scattered along the coast," but said he had never seen one until 1896 when he discovered a thick "puddle" of the stuff while chasing a bear he had shot.
In an interview with William Thornton Prosser that was published in 1912 by the Alaska-Yukon Magazine, White said he had tried lighting the black stuff "on the spot," but was unable to get it to burn. He did, however, take some of the stuff back to his camp and used it with "great success" to start fires.
"It was another year (1897) before I went back to this Katalla Slough meadow, and this time I had a friend with me. We found a little stream of petroleum bubbling out of the ground. I thought this was a fine chance, so I lighted another match and threw it down into the oil. Heavens what a surprise! Instantly, the oil was aflame, and a flow of natural gas issuing with the oil carried a gusher of fire as high as the trees. I was singed about the face before I could get away," White said.
But the fire didn't stop there. He said it leapt from pool to pool and "soon the whole country seemed afire."
White and his companion "beat a hasty retreat" in their canoe. The fires burned for a week and then continued to smolder for several months, he said.
Word of White's experience and the seeps spread as fast as the fire.
By 1904, 15 wells had been drilled at Katalla, half of which struck commercial quantities of oil.
In 1912, a refinery went online at Katalla, supplying local demand and selling products to Valdez and Cordova.
By 1921, 372 permits on 855,000 acres had...
Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.
|
Bookmark this article
Print this article
Link to this article
Email this article
Digg It!
Add to del.icio.us
RSS
