Salt Lake Tribune | 1901-03-10 | Page 21 | A Masterful Figure

A MASTERFUL FIGURE James M Guffey principal owner of the great Lucas oil well in Texas is the hero of an uncommon career which Is set forth In detail in the March number num-ber of the Worlds Work lie was a schoolboy Just out of his teens when he made his lirst venture at Plthole a city which once had n population of thirty thousand but whoso former site is now l ov pas tuie Tie lost the money he had taken with him lo Plthole nor did n larger measure of success attend his operations opera-tions during he I next few years hut after each falluie he took fresh courage cou-rage and for a decade or more roamed the his and valleys of western Pennsylvania Penn-sylvania pushing the drill in outof theway places with an energy that oeemed L great deal like lunacy to less I persistent men Guft s opportunity came with the discovery of tho Cherry Grove cltatrkt He was ono of the first in that Held and secured leases which yielded him u comfortable fortune lie now owns oil and gas ells in half a dozen Stat sand s-and for soveral years past has ben the largest Individual oil producer in i the world One day last summer there was n letter in his mal from a man In Texas In which the wrier staten that l J H1 fifteen thousand acres of hind in JcffoYauii county that State under oil leases He would like Guffey to Join him in drilling a test well Guffey wrote the Texan to gqt leases on thirty thousand acres when he would hop him rime bargain was made and its I llrst fruit was the Lucas well which has already produced oil worth 100000 I