Life in the Oil Patch
When it comes to working in the Oilfield or Oil Patch as some call it, Clyde Owen Martin, could be called the proverbial Jack of All Trades. He has done just about every job there is in getting the black crude out of the ground. This is his story, a story much like others who have worked in the oilfield, but different, as each are all different.
He was born September 24th 1924 in Greenwood County, Kansas. Clyde Martin grew up helping on his family’s farm, milking cows, then selling the cream and butter. When he married, June 3rd 1945, it seemed the most likely choice was to go into the dairy business. In an attempt to improve his herd he borrowed money from the bank and bought two Aryshire cows. Then later an Aryshire bull.
Then in 1948 disaster struck his dairy farm. He lost most of his dairy cows, after a particular rainy season, when mastitis spread through the herd. They were milking quite a few cows by this time, using a milking machine. The state health department made him sell the herd as butcher cattle. Although they weren’t milking the Aryshires at that time, they needed to be removed and quarantined. Later the Aryshires were sold to help pay back the bank loan. For a short time he worked with another dairy, but Clyde knew that with his wife, Gail Lee (McGhee) and two young children, Owen and Susan to feed he needed to find another line of work that paid more. Later his family would grow to include Virginia, Cynthia, Karen and Shannon.
Where he lived at the time, outside of Madison, Kansas, opportunities for employment were few. From his brother-in-law, Tom Baysinger, Clyde heard about openings for work in the oilfields offering top wages at $.90-$1.00 an hour starting pay. “Jobs weren’t too plentiful during this time,” he explained.
Clyde said, “I started out for a short time working on a Spudder.” A Spudder is used as a work-over or completion rig. “We’d either drill out the cement or fix holes in the pipe, test it, treat it with acid or sand crack. Sometimes you have to bail it; lowering a bucket into the well to bring up whatever is on the bottom.”
After that first experience of working on the Spudder, Clyde progressed on to a Rotary Drilling Rig, working as a Roughneck, the one who does most of the hard work. Clyde said, “I did a little truck driving in my spare time. Hauled the oil, hauled iron, moved those rigs with heavy trucks.” As an Oil Hauler, he not only moved the oil; he also helped transport all the equipment from one drilling lease to another. It would take anywhere from eight to ten large trucks to move the derrick, doghouse, and the pipe racks.
As a Tool Dresser his job was to help the Driller. He worked as a Rig Pusher, and as a Derrick Man, handling the pipes from the top of the crows-nest. He also worked as Pumper, and then later, Production Superintendent.
Clyde learned quickly that working in the oil field can be dangerous at times, “but most hazards were caused by carelessness on someone’s part. Anything can happen. There are so many different ways to get hurt in the oilfield no way could you list them all.”
When pulling pipe, he said, “I learned to throw the pipe chain with my left hand after seeing someone pulled into the wrap. Another time someone dropped a nut into the mud pump, with rods running sixty strokes a minute. Instead of using a stick or something he reached in with his hand resulting in a smashed hand and lost fingers.”
While working for Donaldson, Clyde was using a hammer to break loose a roller or drive chain. There were links and pins on it like a bicycle chain and when he hit it, one of the pins broke, a chip flew up, imbedding in his eye. It took eye surgery to remove the metal, with the surgeon using a magnetic instrument to pull the fragment back along the same path of entry.
An oilfield worker needed a variety of clothes and equipment to prepare for whatever Mother Nature sent you during your eight-hour shift. The standard equipment would include a hard hat, with removable lining that provided the ears and neck protection. Plus you needed blue jeans and a long-sleeve, work-shirt. Many pairs of gloves, were usually bought by the box, since the fingers wore out fast when working with iron. One of the most important items other than the hat was the steel-toed (mid-calf) work boots. Also depending on the season he wore lightweight or insulated coveralls and/or hooded sweatshirt. The rain suit or gear consisted of slicker pants and hooded jacket, plus four-buckle overshoes.
You better not forget the food, because hard work builds an appetite. Out on the rig you could be miles from town. There wasn’t any stopping to go get something to eat. Clyde carried a big metal lunch bucket with a large coffee thermos for years.
He said, “We changed clothes at work to keep our going home clothes clean and not contaminate the cars. When the work clothes were real dirty, I’d rinse them out in solvent, then air them out before bring them home for washing. We took turns driving to work, so everybody had to have a dependable car.” This was long before the four-door pickups.
When asked about blowouts like you might see on television, Clyde explained, “there’s very little chance of a blowout happening in this country, or any place I ever worked. This was brought about mainly with improved drilling mud. If they thought there was any possibility of a gas blow out they’d put something in the mud to make it heavier, so it would hold the gas down better.”
Although there was one site Clyde worked on south of Winfield that had a shallow gas pocket. “It had enough gas, that every time we shut the pump down to put in another joint of pipe, but then while I was doing that it would build up enough gas to blow mud high up out of the rotary cable. Had to get it screwed on and the pump back in to stop it. Made us half-nervous, you were ready to run at any time.”
Clyde remembered another time on a well where the natural gas was flowing. “We ran a pipe over to run the motors off it. Usually we ran propane or if it was handy, then electricity.”
Size of crews: Clyde explained that on a Rotary, they were a four-man crew, the driller and three roughnecks. On Cable Tools there was just the driller and a tool dresser or two-man crew. On most rigs, there were usually three shifts, those being 7-3, 3-11 and 11-7. If you were working short handed, someone stayed over and worked two shifts or a split for twelve hours.
Shannon Hyle, Clyde’s youngest daughter said she liked it when her dad worked the night shift. He’d bring home in his lunch pail the most beautiful moths for her entomology collection. They were drawn to the bright lights on the rig, she said.
While believing in giving a full day’s work for his pay, Clyde felt those working under him should do the same. Larry Ross, Area Operations Manager for Frontier Refining, El Dorado says, “I remember my first night working with Clyde on a drilling rig, one summer during college days. Clyde was the shift driller. We were changing oil in the engine on the draw works. Clyde told another guy that he’d just hired that day as well, to go get him a wrench and the guy said, go get it yourself. We had just drained the oil into a 5-gallon pail and Clyde picked it up and poured it over the guy’s head.” The guy with oil on his head didn’t come back, but Larry did. Later he married the boss’s daughter, Cynthia Martin, Dec. 30, 1969.
Dale Wilson said Clyde gave him tremendous help after he’d bought out W W Drilling and the equipment needed upgraded. Even though Clyde was still using a cane after a terrible car accident, he’d stand and run the equipment while I ran up the new lines. Dale said he donated the orange rig that he once owned to the Kansas Oil Museum. Clyde worked on that rig for him. Dale said, “when he worked for me, he’d be there every day.”
Dale remembered a winter day thirty years ago, when Clyde and him went out on a Sunday to the rig. “It was snowing and we were finishing up a well, although we didn’t generally work on a Sunday, we had stuff on the ground, thought we’d just run out, get it in the hole and finish it up so it wouldn’t be buried. We had tarps up around the work area so we didn’t pay any attention to how much it was snowing. We got done around 2:00 or so and started in. We were three hours getting the six miles.”
South of town, near the landfill, Dale said they went in to plug an abandoned well and when they took the cap off the pipe, found a big bunch of snakes in there. Some times snakes would find their way under the rig, the racks or even in the doghouse.
Clyde worked for many different oil companies through the years. You had to go where there was an opening. An oil company didn’t pay when they were between drilling wells; so you wouldn’t have any money coming in. Many of the companies he worked with for several years, others for a few months. Some jobs, too numerous to mention, were taken just for a day or even two when a crew was short handed.
“We used diamond-head drill bits. If we were lucky they’d run eight to ten hours. They’ve got bits now that will run two or three days. We’d run eight to ten bits a well when I started. You’d have to pull the pipe and change it, now days a bit may last for a whole well.” In the early days a drill bit may have cost $150.00, but a diamond drill bit was anywhere from $1,400.00 or $1,500.00.
The mud pits, from off to the side of a rig, were circulated by a big pump. “We’d pump it down the pipe, down the hole and when the bit cut the ground out, the mud would wash those cuttings up. The bit had to have a continuing flow of mud. We’d drill with water to start with until we’d get down so far and then depending on where you were at and who you were drilling for, down around 1,500 or 2,000 feet you’d mix this special mud to keep the hole in shape, keep it from caving in. We’d pump it down there under 500 or 600 pounds of pressure going into the pipe.”
Most rigs had what was called a doghouse. It was used to store lunches; spare clothes were hung on wall hooks, and first-aid kit. Besides a heating stove, there were tool bins with lids to store extra equipment. With the lid down on the bin they became a place to set and get out of the cold weather. There were no bathrooms. Fresh drinking water was brought from home by the person who’s turn it was to drive.
“Also in the doghouse was the geograph, with a twelve-hour chart above it.” The geograph or tattletale recorded every movement in the hole. Depending on where you were on drilling, you were required to catch a sample every five to ten feet. “Even from his geology trailer, Earl seemed to know exactly when you should have taken a sample. As a geologist, in my opinion, Earl Brandt was the best there was,” Clyde said.
When Clyde retired in 1986, he said most crews were making from $8-$9 an hour. The last ten years he worked on salary with Brandt. When asked about retirement benefits, Clyde just laughed. “Very few companies offered anything. One thing about the oil field, on the rigs and stuff---as long as you showed up every day, done what you were told to do, you had a job. If they felt like keeping ya, or if you could do the work of two, you were pretty sure of having a job. If you got where you couldn’t do the hard work any more they’d just hire someone younger that could.”
About retirement, “I did come by a little oil royalty, (about a $100.00 a month) Brandt was good enough to give me that. Well, I was getting lots of good work done and he (Brandt) was getting some ungodly good oil there. When everything was going good they gave me a tiny piece of an oil well.
There was one tank battery near Derby, Kansas being supplied by 10 or 15 oil wells. They were producing anywhere from 380 to 500 barrels a day. We had to take out at least three loads a day to keep going.”
“At that time Brandt gave me a small royalty on a well across the road from a well that was flowing 80 barrels a day. I thought, ‘boy, I’m ready to retire right now.’ We never got more than three barrels of oil out of that darn well he gave me. Didn’t fool with it but two or three months, finally plugged it cause it wasn’t no good. Unfortunately that makes 1 percent of nothing. Just 900 feet away from a well that was flowing 80 or 90 barrels a day.”
Although the constant thunderous noise coming from the machines after all those years has cost Clyde some of his hearing, he doesn’t let that stop him. Now at 76 years old, he spends a lot of time gardening. Selling the produce at the local farmer’s market where he and his wife, Gail, set up a booth from late spring through the summer months. In the fall he stays busy harvesting, shelling, cracking and selling pecans and black walnuts. Plus if you haven’t eaten any of Clyde’s homemade bread, then you haven’t tasted the best yet, rather it’s garlic, raisin, wheat, sugar free or cinnamon.
In an article published in the Kansas magazine, spring issue, titled There’s Black Gold in them thar hills, Kenna Bruner Pierce writes about the Kansas Oil Museum in El Dorado. “The museum’s collection represents the heart and soul of hardy crews who wrestled huge sections of pipe deep into the earth to harness the oil that lay 1,000 feet or more under ground.”
Though it was and still is a hard dirty job, someone has to do it if we want to drive using fossil fuels, be it cars, trucks, or planes. For that hard work I would like to thank Clyde and all the others who’ve worked in this industry who have made life easier for the rest of us.
Take a minute to think about the backbreaking labor that it takes to get the crude from the ground to your car’s gas tank the next time you drive to the grocery store or take your child to the doctor.
In the oil field you had to know all the jobs, yours and the guy’s job next to you, because the next week you may have to do it on another rig. You’d have to be the Jack of All Trades to stay in the business as long as Clyde did, nearly forty years.
Oil Companies Clyde Martin work for through the years:
Hart & Cross Drilling Co. Madison, KS
Jackman Oil Co. Madison, KS
White & Ellis Drilling Co. Madison, KS
Gene Brown Trucking Madison, KS
Simtherman Drilling Co. Arkansas City
McNab Drilling Co. Arkansas City
Falcon & Seaboard Oklahoma
Red Drilling Company (Orlan ‘Red’ Wilson) El Dorado, KS
Hinie Uhl Drilling Co. Wichita, KS
Augusta Oil Augusta, KS
Economy Drilling El Dorado, Ks
Frontier Oil El Dorado, KS
Triangle Drilling Co.( Harry Hughes) El Dorado, KS
Seerobe Drilling Co. El Dorado, KS
Edwards Drilling Co. El Dorado, KS
Donaldson El Dorado, KS
Squeak Drilling (Kenneth Brooks) El Dorado, KS
W W Drilling (Dale Wilson) El Dorado, KS
Brandt Drilling/Production (Earl Brandt) El Dorado, KS
Research References
1.) Taped interview: Clyde Martin, former local oilfield worker,
El Dorado Kansas, on February 23, 2001.
2.) Taped interview with Dale Wilson, currant employee of Butler Count Historical Society Museum, March 8, 2001.
3.) Martin Memory book.
4.) Author’s personal memories.
5.) Larry Ross, Frontier El Dorado Refining Co.
6.) Kansas, magazine article by Kenna Bruner Pierce titled: There’s Black Gold in them thar hills.