Drakes Well Museum

http://www.drakewell.org/

The well on the site is a replica of Drake's first, but down the road a 
piece is a well that had some sort of major significance.  I remember 
something about it being pumped a little each eary just to maintain its 
status as the oldest operating well...or something like that.  The 
folks at Drake are real nice.  Say hello to Barbara and Larry for me if 
you contact them for info.

One fun incident I remember is failing some sort of EPA test because 
there was petrolium in our ground water.  Surprise!

-jc

On Thursday, February 20, 2003, at 12:28  PM, Ralph Walter wrote:

> In a message dated 2/20/2003 1:06:20 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
> [log in to unmask] writes:
>
> My understanding of the situation was that SH was pissed because the
> Kuwaitis were supposedly taking advantage of the new "horizontal 
> drilling
> technology" (which may be able to drill down and then turn horizontal 
> though
> I have a real hard time imagining the hardware that can do that), 
> using it
> to cross the Kuwait/Iraq border and take Iraqi oil.
>
>
> Bruce,
>
> I know there was some sort of horizontal drilling technology as far 
> back as the early 1960's, because my grandfather (and presumably all 
> his neighbors) got some sort of minuscule payments from some oil 
> company that was drilling under his house in LA from some distance 
> (maybe miles) away.
>
> I didn't get the impression that they were all sitting on a miles-wide 
> pool of oil that was being sucked up from one spot, but that in fact 
> the oil co had to chase the oil around with their little bit brace.  I 
> also remember many more oil wells visible around LA in the 50's when I 
> was a little kid than there were in the 60's and 70's, and have the 
> impression that the wells (which I think dated from the'20's) had been 
> pumped dry, and not that their removal was the result of environmental 
> concerns.
>
> The first environmental stuff I remember was worry about spills 
> resulting from drilling for oil in the ocean off LA; I don't remember 
> any about land-based drilling, although They did make some oil company 
> disguise a new oil well in the middle of LA to look like a tall, 
> narrow building.
>
> Where are the petrochemical engineers, or curators of oil well 
> museums, when you need them?
>
> Ralph