The first
white men to trample on the land now called Sugar Creek were
the people of the Louis and Clark expedition to the West
Coast via the Missouri River on June 23 to June 25 in 1804.
In 1834 the
Mormons, facing persecution, fled Independence and camped along the
bluffs just west of the present day VFW before they could escape across
the river.
In 1849 an
ox-drawn railroad was built between Wayne City, a riverboat
landing about a mile down river from the creek, to the
Independence Square, financed by some Independence
entrepreneurs led by William Gilpen. The enterprise
was the first commercial railroad west of the
Mississippi. Starting in Wayne City the tracks ran
west to the creek in between the bluffs. It then
turned south along the creek (now Sterling) for a short
distance to Elizabeth street. Turning east from there it
wound its way up Forest to Sugar Creek Boulevard, and where
24 Highway and Crysler intersect is the only remaining
physical reminder of the old railroad. Behind the
business building now at 2421 24 Highway is an earthen railroad
tressel. From there it snaked its way to where the
Independence Post Office is today, but where then was a turn-around
and stable. The oxen were loaded on board so that the
train could coast back down hill to the river. When a sandbar and a plague in 1855 killed the project, freight and
passengers moved a few miles up river to a town originally
called Possum Trot (now Kansas City). The
Civil War
Order #11 screwed things up, Major Gilpin was one of many to
be run out, and later became Governor of Colorado.
A county map
drawn in 1877 showed the owners of Sugar Creek to be James
Mallinson, 80 acres, J. D. Cusenbary, 160 acres, J.
Kronehart, 80, William Chrisman, 90, I. W. Duncan,
220. J. Foster owned 59 acres and had a house exactly
where someday there would be an oil refinery.
In early 1889
oil was discovered in southeastern Kansas and Northeastern
Oklahoma, in 1896 Standard built refinery in Neodasha,
Kansas. Meanwhile electricity was replacing
nasty-smelling, black smoking, dangerous kerosene. In
1885 there were 250,000 light bulbs in use by Americans; by
1902, 18,000,000. Soon only the country folk would be
burning kerosene. Something had to be done.
The oil fields
back East were playing out. South of Paola, Kansas,
Oklahoma, and Texas were like a mini Saudi Arabia. The
oil was coming out of the ground faster than the Neodasha
refinery could refine. In 1896 production was 500
barrels a day. By 1903 production had risen to 2,500
barrels a day while the oil being brought out of the ground
was as much as 13,000 barrels a day. Pits were being
dug in roads and ponds were made out of oil.
Standard was
in the thick of it. Two miles north of Neodasha, Mr. Rockefeller, Inc., bought 320 acres and spent 1.5 million
on a tank farm with 40 tanks holding from 37,500 to 60,000
barrels. He soon had $3 million worth of oil stored by
Spring, 1904. To bring the oil to the farm, pipe was
laid by 400 skilled and semi-skilled laborers.
Standard would lay pipe to any rig producing 50 barrels a
day or more. That cost another million. When, in 1900,
Prairie Oil and Gas Co. was incorporated, it was the point
of the spear for Standard. If you bought stock in
Prairie you were okay but there were some stocks that were
worthless, like the Gold Standard Oil Company of Arizona.
But there were
some people who made money. George Banks, a farmer
living near Independence, Kansas, was making $100 a day from
just three wells.
At that time,
America was an exporting country and 80% of the oil and gas
was used East of the Mississippi river. On January 24,
1904, it was announced by Standard that a pipeline was going
to be built from the Kansas Oil Fields to the refinery at
Whiting, Indiana. The 700 mile 6-inch pipe would cost
$4 million and take 2,000 men 7 months to complete. As usual, for
Standard, it was a lot.
In February of
1904 a stranger to Kansas City called Mr. Allen came to the
Sugar Creek valley and within 2 weeks bought 70 acres at $200
per, he said, for a dairy farm. Mr. William
Mallinson sold 30 acres, George Collins 20, and Hugh McElroy
20, all of the land east of the public highway which
is now Sterling Avenue, but for years would be called
Fairmount Avenue.
On Tuesday,
March 1, the headline on the front page of the Kansas City
Journal announced the Birth of Sugar Creek. It read:
"SITE
CHOSEN"
It wasn't
announced to be a site for an oil refinery, but for a
railroad repair shop. Since this area stayed above
water in last year's flood, it was the perfect place for
something. By April the ground was being cleared and people
began asking questions, like one asked of Mr. J. D.
Cusenbary,
longtime resident, whose land Fairmount Park was built on...
What's going on? by a reporter from the Journal.
"My home is in the vicinity of the land which Mr. Allen
recently purchased, ostensibly for dairy purposes, and I am
in touch with affairs in my neighborhood. While I do
not know for certain that the Missouri Pacific is the real
purchaser behind Mr. Allen yet I have reason to believe that
such is the case." But he went on to say that for
the last several days people from the railroad, along with
several strangers, had been walking among the hills and
paying detailed attention to the landscape.
In '03 the
Missouri Pacific Railroad bought 40 acres from Judge Edward
Gates of Independence. It was flat and didn't
flood. Word soon got around to what was really going
on.
Meanwhile,
back in oil country, the good people of Kansas were getting
teed off. The price of oil Standard was paying
recently dropped 20 cents a barrel to $1.19. Producers
complained that they were paying for the new refinery.
On top of that, the $1 per foot first rumored for
right-of-way turned out to be 20 cents per rod (16 1/2
feet). The whole price Standard paid for pipeline
right of way was only $11,000. But the farmers were
hired to build the pipeline. They worked in three
ways, first came digging a 1 foot to 5 foot deep trench,
depending on the terrain. Second came the crew laying
the 210 miles of 8 inch pipe, last were the people to cover
the thing and stomp it down.
Soon Standard
put a tap on the amount of oil that they would buy,
from 1000 per district per day to 600.
Last but not
least, was to eliminate any competition. In 1902 an
oil man with 27 years in the field back East named C. D.
Webster, came to Humbolt, Kansas and opened an independent
oil refinery to compete with the Standard Oil refinery in
Nevada. For a while things went fine, many stores in
Humbolt and the surrounding towns bought his product at 20
cents a gallon. In May of 1904 well dressed
representatives of The Octopus, i.e. goons, came to the area
with a proposition the store owners couldn't refuse.
Buy from Standard or they will open a store in every town
and sell it for 5 cents a gallon. Soon Mr. Webster's
independent oil refinery was the pumping station for oil
heading for Sugar Creek.
It didn't take
long for the local investors to see opportunity. Filed
on March 22, the Sugar Creek Townsite Company Inc.
What they did was pool their money, $10 thousand, borrowed
$20 thousand, and purchased all of the land around the
proposed venture.
Ten men bought
shares at $50, 200 shares were issued. T. T.
Critttenden, Jr. of Kansas City, led the way with a purchase
of 70 shares, while E. F. McElroy, a local, kicked in
$500 for 10.
Article IV of
the incorporation documents stated that the corporation go
on for 50 years, which didn't happen. The town outgrew
their land.
From the
Jackson Examiner, April 8, 1904 page 3:
A New
Town Already Started at the Oil Refinery Site now a
Railroad stop.
A new town
is springing at the mouth of Sugar Creek where the workmen
are laying the foundations for the big Standard Oil
refinery. Electric roads and county roads are headed
for this point and there will be a population of several
thousand here within a short time. The Kansas City
Times of Thursday says, "The Santa Fe railroad has a
depot at Sugar Creek, the site of the refinery to be
erected by the Standard Oil Company. It is only an
old freight car but the officials say that it fulfills its
purpose more adequately than the Union passenger depot
used by the railroads in Kansas City. A sign 'Sugar
Creek' adorns the box car and trains stop there
regularly. The station will appear on the next issue
of the Santa Fe time cards."
"The
Santa Fe has nearly completed the 4,000 foot switch it is
building at the refinery site. Considerable material has
been unloaded at the site and two warehouses have been
built and are now loaded with the material which
will be used in the construction of the refinery.
Active work has begun and within six weeks 400 men will be
at work putting up permanent building."
In reality,
there were many more than that.
By June 1, 600
to 700 men were employed and working ten hour days, six days
a week. First were hundreds of common laborers, paid
17 1/2 cents per hour, led by W. A. Eaton, at 37 cents per
hour, T. J. Griffith, and W. E. (Whitey) Moore, earning 27
1/2 cents per. There were 36 carpenters, 40 cents, and
19 carpenter helpers, 17 1/2 cents, four water boys,
fourteen people in the office, and two messenger boys, all
17 1/2 cents. Ten watchmen worked around the
clock, seven days a week, some working over 100 hours a week
at 25 cents per hour. The boiler shop had 235
employees, paying from 40 cents to employee # 1169, Charles
Mallinson, who was paid 14 1/4 cents an hour for seven hours
on June 30, earning 83 cents before quitting. Some didn't last
that long, it was very hot, dirty work. The masons,
all 29 of them, were the best paid, earning 62 1/2 cents an
hour, for an eight hour day. Helpers got 21 7/8
cents. The two men in the blacksmith shop and three
men in the machine shop earned from 35 to 20 cents.
The pipe shop had 180 earning 30 cents to 17 1/2, bringing
the amount of money being dumped into the local economy at
around $30,000 a month. Cold beer was 5 cents, and
there were no taxes.
On June 23,
Michael and Sophia Onka, Mike being a former soldier in the
Austro-Hungarian army, bought two lots for $300 at 6%
interest on Evans Street, which was named after J. E. Evans,
the boss of bosses at the refinery. They opened a
grocery store and boarding house, accompanying up to 90 men,
and many watering holes and bordellos, along with barber shops
and cafes, soon lined the dirt street. There would be
no murders or cops. On July 6, a quote in the Journal
spoke of possible doom for the new boom town.
"Independence is casting its eyes towards the Sugar
Creek refinery. The refinery town cannot incorporate
because no town can incorporate within two miles of
another." The reason, taxes.
August began
the selling of stocks to the public from a number of oil
related corporations. Kansas Petroleum Company on
August 2, ran a full page ad in the Journal with a photo of
"THE GREAT STANDARD OIL REFINERY NOW UNDER CONSTRUCTION
AT SUGAR CREEK." Stocks were offered at 5 cents
per share. On August 28, another ad promised that this
was the last chance to buy at 5 cents because on the first
of September the stocks would be sold at 10 cents per
share. It was never heard from again.
On September
26, the pipeline from Humbolt to Sugar Creek was finished,
and on October 24 at 5:00 in the morning, the building of
the refinery was complete, with the first product being
kerosene.
Many of the
men who worked on the refinery were from the Whiting,
Indiana refinery, like Whitey Moore, who stayed here and
raised a family that turned out to be good plumbers and pool
players. On January 5th, under the headline,
"HELP SUGAR CREEK" since the $4 million refinery
was growing even more money was to be put into
expansion. Already $1 million more had been
spent. Sugar Creek, then being called "The Oil
City". Train service known as the Sugar Creek and
Maywood Railway Company's tracks were lined with tank cars
being filled for the trip back east, the tracks creating a
lake in Fairmount named after a man named Crisp.
190,000 barrel
storage tanks were built. Six million gallons of water
was being used in October. By January, 1905, water
usage was up to 12 million gallons, by summer 20 million was
projected. Already the plant boasted a gas plant, fire
department, and water works. Electricity would come
later.
Rumor had it that the
refinery in Whiting was to be shut down as would rumors a
few years later about Sugar Creek. But it would
survive for 75 years. Meanwhile, the once-tranquil
valley, quietly eroding over the eons, grew expeditiously
into one hell of a great place to grow up, producing a bunch
of heroes. Best of all, Fairmount Park is going to
reopen, and be open for 30 more years. The best was
yet to come
Copyright © 2006 John M.Olinskey
