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Carter County - Design Your Own Oil Refinery

Background Info / Historical Story

“The county has excellent native grasses enabling stock to go directly to slaughter houses from the range. There are at present eight producing oil wells in the county. While a considerable amount of seismographing and leasing was done during the past fifty-five years it would seem quite likely that, with the present shortage of oil now produced in the United States, more prospecting and development may occur within the not too distant future.”- H.B. Albert, Shifting Scenes Volume 1

“The hard times during those depression years took a heavy toll on the new settlers. Many had to give up and sell their land and move to town or return to their former homes in Missouri. The Oxfords were lucky in that in 1919 the first oil well was drilled in the area. This was located on the Hunter ranch on Beaver Creek. Bert worked as a crewman on the rig and Art and Al furnished coal from a mine on Al’s place. Later, coal was also mined and hauled to Ekalaka and sold for fuel purposes. Also, the land was being leased for further oil exploration and many depended on this income to keep going. Throughout the years, until just the past couple of years, nearly all of those oil rights belonging to the Oxford family have been leased for future exploring.”- The Oxford Brothers, Shifting Scenes Volume 2

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