Up came bubbling crude

It was on a brisk day in September 1901 that the ground began to rumble and shake beneath the derrick in Jules Clement’s rice field on the Mamou Prairie in Evangeline Parish. The rumble turned into a roar when oil began to spray from the ground, covering the derrick, the drillers, and everything around them.
Jules had worried about that. He was afraid an oil well might gush all over the place and mess up his rice crop.
It did just that, but Jules did OK from that well, and so did a lot of other people. This gusher was the beginning of the state’s most important industry,
The story began just after oil was discovered at the Spindletop field near Beaumont, and folks in Louisiana began to speculate whether there might be some here. Jules noticed strange bubbles rising from one of his flooded fields. He thought it was natural gas, but wasn’t sure until he stuck on an old stovepipe on top of the bubbles, lit a match and threw it into the pipe. It wasn’t the safest thing to do, but when the bubbles flared up, he knew he was on to something.
Word of his discovery spread to nearby Jennings, and piqued the interest of S. A. Spencer, who, with several other businessmen, formed S.A. Spencer & Company, and quietly began leasing land near Jules’s bubbling water—eventually acquiring rights to some 2,000 acres.
They contacted Scott Heywood, one of the drillers who had made good at Spindletop, and asked him to come take a look. He also set the bubbles on fire, and was convinced that it was petroleum gas.
At the end of April 1901, Heywood, Spencer, and his colleagues, organized the Jennings Oil Company. Heywood agreed to drill two wells, each at least 1,000 feet deep, for half of any profits. Scott shared his interest with his brothers, Dewey, Alba and O.W., who had worked with him at Spindletop.
Drilling began on the Jennings Oil Company-Clement No. 1 on June 15. The derrick was 64 feet high and the drill pipe was just ordinary water line pipe.
They completed the first oil well attempted in Louisiana, but it had big problems after a first gush. It kept clogging up with sand and finally had to be abandoned.
Heywood and his crewed started on a new hole. This time, he got to 1,000 feet, as required by his contract, but found no oil. Some of the backers, including his brothers, wanted to move the derrick and start another well. But Scott wanted to just keep drilling on the hole they were working on.
The Jennings Oil Company was reorganized into the Jennings-Heywood Oil Syndicate and the stock was equally divided between the Heywood brothers and the five Jennings businessmen. Under this new contract, Scott was to drill to 1,500 feet and decide at that point whether to keep drilling.
Things still didn’t pan out. When they got to 1,500 feet, not only was there no sign of oil, they were also running short of drill pipe.
His brothers wanted to call it a day, but Heywood shipped in more pipe, continued to drill, and at 1,700 feet began to see signs of oil. He ordered more pipe, and on September 21, his optimism paid off with a gusher spewing a solid four-inch stream of oil more than 100 feet high.
The well flowed sand and oil for seven hours and covered Jule’s rice field with a lake of oil that ruined acres of rice; then it gave one big belch of oil and sand and, like the well before, sanded itself in. But now Scott and his backers knew for sure there was oil beneath the Mamou Prairie. Dozens of oil derricks soon dotted the landscape and a thriving town, Evangeline, grew up on the spot.
Production continued at the field more than a century after that first well was drilled. In 1920, the production from this field alone accounted for 67 percent of the total oil and gas production for the entire state of Louisiana. Between 1901 and 2001 it produced 120 million barrels of oil and 45 billion cubic feet of gas.
And, even though it is not the major producer that it once was, oil is still being pumped from Jules Clement’s old rice field and thousands of acres around it.
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, Cajuns and Other Characters, is now available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.