As an undergraduate at the University of Southern California, young Jack Crawford got some advice from his oilman father. “Son,” said he, “don’t go to work for anyone else if you can help it. Either go broke or make a fortune, but don’t take a job.” Jack Crawford took the advice. He ran a college dance band, saved up $8,000 from its bookings and, after some postgraduate work in geology at Texas A. & M., started buying oil leases in Huntington Beach, Calif, (pop. 6,000). On the west side of town and around it lies one of the state’s biggest oilfields, but no one has found oil east of Main Street. From geological and electronic surveys, Jack Crawford decided that another big pool lay right under the shantytown section of eastern Huntington Beach.
With $90,000 from his father and another oilman, Crawford sank his first shantytown well. It was a modest producer. He sank two more, found more oil, and started his fourth well. At dawn on New Year’s Day, after playing trumpet with Horace Heidt’s band in Los Angeles, Crawford hustled to the drilling site. He arrived in time to see his drillers bring in a gusher from a new formation—and start a rush of oilmen to Huntington Beach.
As oilmen bought up leases, Huntington Beach turned into a boom town. New restaurants opened up, boarding houses and nearby motels were jammed. New wells came in and spattered the houses with oil. What was once shantytown became known as Cadillac Lane, as householders collected fat royalties from their property and lease bonuses ranging as high as $30,000.
By last week more than 70 wells were already in operation or being drilled in Crawford’s new field. Crawford himself, though he had ten producing wells and was drilling four more, had more important things to do than stay around Huntington Beach. On his 24th birthday, a month ago, he brought in a gusher seven miles to the north, is now developing what he thinks is an even bigger field.
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