Mortgages Vanishing Before the Boom In the Allegany Oil Fields.
There were 56 wells completed in the Allegany oil field in October, with a total production of 300 barrels daily. There were 10 dry holes drilled.
Stimulated by a price that is the highest since November, 1893, lease owners are hurrying work on new wells with all possible haste.
Drillers earn from $4.50 to $5 a day, and last week a contractor was compelled to send to Pennsylvania for drillers to help him complete some
contracts. Teams are paid from $4 to $5 a day, and most of them work seven days in the week.
November opened with an advance of three cents a barrel, and producers are looking for $1.75 oil by Christmas. The production is less than the
consumption , and unless a big new field is brought in within a year, oil will be worth $2 a barrel. The best well completed in the Allegany field in October was drilled by Riley Allen, in the
town of Wirt, on developed territory. it is good for 20 barrels a day.
On the last day of October there were 43 wells drilling and 32 rigs under way in the Allegany field. The boom is paying off the mortgages from many oil
leases and making way for thousands of dollars' worth of improvements on the leases. Hundreds of old wells are being cleaned out and shot with nitro-glycerin, greatly increasing the
production. The oil property in the Allegany field represents an investment of $3 million, and would readily bring that price on the open market.
