American Oil and Gas Reporter - October 2016 - 102

ConventionCoverage: Eastern Kansas Oil & Gas Association

Speaker Applauds Industry's Positives
MAYETTA, KS.-Those who fail to
learn from history are doomed to repeat
it, the cliché reads, but as Warren Martin
told the Eastern Kansas Oil & Gas Association, if the people in this country fail
to learn from history about the positive
things that enable them to move forward,
they will never be able to repeat them.
"It is so important for us to learn from
history, not just from profit or production
reports, but to actually learn the stories
that have impacted our lives. In those
stories, we find the building blocks that
move us forward," said Martin, keynote
dinner speaker at EKOGA's annual convention, held Sept. 13-15. He is the executive director of the Kansas Oil Museum
in El Dorado, Ks.
Before Martin's remarks, EKOGA
President Jim Cornish presented Warren
with EKOGA's $5,000 donation to the
Kansas Oil Museum. Cornish is president
of Cornish Wireline Services Inc., in
Chanute, Ks.
The discovery and growth of the El
Dorado oil fields are examples of history's
lessons, Martin conveyed. Four producing
wells out of 100 wildcats was considered
significant drilling success, he pointed
out, and then Charles Gould presented a
paper at the 1914 International Geological
Conference that described how land formations and fossils corresponded with
oil deposits.
The following year, officials with Wichita Natural Gas asked Gould and his
team to locate natural gas deposits near
Augusta, Ks,. using their new system.
Martin said on the train ride into town,
the geologists identified a collapsed dome

structure near the tracks. On the basis of
further surveys, they recommended seven
drilling locations. Six of the wells found
natural gas; the last hit oil, he said.
"Townspeople sent the team to map
the entire county," Martin said. "It identified two major dome structures: the
Boyer and El Dorado. They begin to drill
on the Stapleton lease. On Oct. 6, 1915,
Stapleton No. 1. struck oil, the first major
oil boom in the Mid-Continent. It revolutionized the world in so many ways. It
puts geology on the map as a real and
practical science; it becomes the first
major boom in the Mid-Continent, and it
transforms El Dorado and Butler County.
In 1915, El Dorado had a population of
3,500 people; four years later, the population is 18,500."
Oil's Benefits
The El Dorado Field made many millionaires, and Martin related they began
putting their money to work. One, Jake
Moellendick, was interested in the new
airplane industry, and brought "Matty"
Laird, Walter Beech and Lloyd Stearman
to Wichita, Ks., to build a newly designed
aircraft known as the Swallow, he said.
"Beech and Stearman added Clyde
Cessna to the team, brought together by
El Dorado oil money, to form a company
called Travel Air, the first successful airplane manufacturing company in the
world. They develop this air company,
and they went on to form Beechcraft,
Cessna and Stearman Air. Wichita becomes the "Air Capital of the World"
because of oil producers."
Study any period of American history

Jim Cornish (left),
president of the Eastern Kansas Oil & Gas
Association, visits
with Warren Martin,
executive director of
the Kansas Oil Museum in El Dorado,
Ks., before Martin's
keynote presentation
at EKOGA's annual
convention, held
Sept. 13-15.

102 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

The Kansas Oil & Gas Resources Fund's
Board of Directors is reshaping the goals
of the Kansas Strong education and information program, using guidance
forged in an April planning meeting, reports Dwight Keen, co-chairman of the
Eastern Kansas Oil & Gas Association's
KOGRF Committee.

from the 1900s on, and oil producers are
at the lead, Martin said. On top of helping
win two world wars, oil helped fund the
U.S. air industry as well as space exploration.
"It was oil producers who increased
our mobility and ability to conquer this
wilderness that is called America. They
gave agriculture the ability to develop
better programs and fertilizers to grow
better crops that revitalized Third World
countries," Martin praised. "Yet today,
the industry shrugs under the environmental assaults. Environmentalists talk
about how bad you are, and far too
often the response is, 'We are not that
bad.' Not that bad? You are that great.
You are that great because it is this industry that has shaped our modern
world."
Alternative energy sources only survive
because of subsidies brought about by
the wealth created by the oil industry, he
posed. While environmental issues must
be addressed, Martin said the oil and
gas industry would meet those challenges.
"And yet, while this industry does
contribute emissions, as do livestock and
increasing population centers-and all human activity-it gives us the tools to ad-

American Oil and Gas Reporter - October 2016

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