Bryan Burrough by The Big Rich: The Rise, Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes Read Free Book Online Page B

said, “When they start to lower Mr. Cullen into a grave, I’ll bet he’ll sit up and say, ‘Boys, dig her a couple of feet deeper.’ ” 4
    Among those who liked the sound of Cullen’s strategy was Jim West, the cantankerous lumberman who had invested with Cullen from the beginning. West dabbled in oil himself, but his wells had all come up dry. One Saturday in 1927 he called Cullen to his downtown office and made him an offer. As Cullen remembered the conversation twenty-five years later, West said: “I’ve got three million dollars lying around. And I’ve got the West Production Company, which don’t amount to much. I’ll put the three million in my oil company, and give you one-fourth interest—if you’ll go in with me. You’ll be president—and have complete charge of the company.” Cullen said he’d think it over.
    The following Tuesday, having heard nothing from Cullen, West telephoned him again. “I made a proposition to you last Saturday, and since then I haven’t heard a damn thing from you,” West said. “I offered to give you almost a million dollars, and you haven’t taken the trouble to reply. What’s your answer, Roy? ”
    “Not interested,” Cullen said.
    For a moment West was speechless. “Not interested!” he barked. “My God—what do you want!”
    “Tell you what I’ll do,” Cullen said. “I’ll go in the oil business with you—fifty-fifty. For every dollar you put in, I’ll put in a dollar. But only on condition that I have full charge—no interference.” West went quiet for a moment. “Roy,” he said after a moment, “I didn’t know you had that kind of money.”
    He didn’t. “I’ll put up five thousand dollars,” Cullen said, “and you put up five thousand. We’ll each have half-interest.”
    West didn’t understand. “I offered you three million dollars, Cullen—and you’d get a quarter of that (outright). You’ll turn that down and put up five thousand of your own money? ”
    “That’s right,” Cullen said. That way, he went on, “I won’t be working for you.”
    Later they flipped a coin to determine whose name went first. Cullen won; the new partnership was named Cullen & West. Cullen purchased two big Union Tool drilling rigs—the first he owned outright—and moved them to the east side of the old Blue Ridge Field in Fort Bend County, south of Houston. The Blue Ridge dome had produced some good wells beginning in 1913, but had since dwindled. West objected. “I’ve drilled wells on that side of Blue Ridge,” he said. “There ain’t any oil there. You’ll be throwing the money away.”
    Cullen looked balefully at his new partner. “I’m supposed to be in charge—isn’t that it, Jim? ” he said.
    “Sure you are,” West said. “But—”
    “Then that’s where we drill,” Cullen said.
    Drilling on a site known as the Bassett Blakely tract, Cullen again headed straight for the Frio—and brought in a good well, nearly sixty thousand barrels a day. In quick succession he brought in four more by the end of 1927, all solid producers. Increasingly confident he could find oil in untouched sands deep below the abandoned fields around Houston, Cullen then announced his intention to enter the derelict Humble Field. Sixteen miles northeast of downtown Houston, Humble was one of the state’s oldest oil fields, a salt dome discovered in 1903, two years after Spindletop. Its production, like that of many older fields, had dwindled. By the time Cullen began studying its geophysical data, Humble was an oil ghost town, littered with the skeletons of abandoned derricks and pockmarked with unused waste pits.
    Jim West thought Cullen had lost his mind. “They’ve drilled so many wells out there that there isn’t room to put down another hole,” he protested, “even if there was any oil left, and there ain’t.” Laying out a map, Cullen pointed to a spot he wanted to drill near the field’s southeast corner. West asked when he planned to