Vigo County, Indiana - Chapter 18: Geological Description of Vigo County - Vigo, 1908

Haute Strikes Oil

Vigo county ( says Dr. J. T. Scovell in the report of the state geologist for 1896) is a portion of a double slope. Its rocky strata inclines westward toward the Mississippi and southward toward the Ohio, the westward being- the more rapid. The south branch of Honey creek excepted there are no streams of an}' size that flow nortji. The greater portion of the county's surface slopes toward the Wabash, though parts of Riley and Pierson townships are in the valley of Eel river. On the divide between these two river basins are the highest points of land in the county. In Pierson township, on section 18, is a point that is 670 feet above sea level, and on section 20 is another of 660 feet elevation. The mass of land that divides the river valleys is quite well defined, being a rocky mass with just a thin veneering of boulder clay and soil. This divide existed, is the opinion of Dr. Scovell, in preglacial times.

The most marked feature of the county is the river valley. From five to six miles wide, and extending the whole length of the county. This valley is an old channel that has been partly filled with sand and gravel. The rock bed lying beneath this alluvial deposit is from 120 to 150 feet below the general level of Terre Haute, as well borings testify. Thus, Terre Haute rests on soil accumulated by the action of the river in past ages. The high land just east of the river in the north part of the county was part of an island in the ancient river. The channel east of the island is now occupied by Raccodn creek in Parke county. The sudden widening of the valley just south of the county line may be explained bv the existence of this eastern channel. In Prairie Creek

The river and its flood plain occupies the western one-third of the valley. At Durkee's Ferry the river washes the western bank, and its flood waters touch the west bluffs at various places. The flood plain is from fourteen to eighteen feet above low water in the river and between the flood plain and the bluffs are fragments of a low terrace, which is sometimes of gravel and sometimes of rock.

The eastern two-thirds of the river valley is occupied bv a massive gravel terrace, which has a somewhat irregular surface. Through Otter Creek township it is much higher along the river, and thence slopes gently eastward. In Harrison township it is not more than fifty feet above low water, and while there are low ridges and shallow valleys trending toward the south, there is no slope toward the east. Through Honey Creek and Prairieton townships the terrace gradually diminishes in elevation until it finally fades into the flood plain of Prairie Creek township.

( )tter creek drains a large and interesting area of country. The two main branches unite near the western boundary of Nevins township. The valleys of these streams are from one-eighth to one-fourth of a mile wide. The stream is usually nearer the southern bluff, which is generally more abrupt and more frequently rocky. The branches of these streams are not large, nor numerous, but the land along them is badly broken up, and nearly one-half of Nevins township too much broken for firstclass farm land.

Lost creek is a small stream that drains the central portion of Lost Creek township, flowing through Harrison township into the river. The valley of Lost creek seems to be of recent origin.

Honey creek flows southwesterly through the southeastern sections of Lost Creek township, through the northwestern portion of Riley township, westward through Honey Creek township, and through Prairieton into the river, having a much longer course in the county than any other creek. Its south branch drains the north side of the highest elevation in the county.

Prairie creek rises by three branches in the north half of Linton township, and passing through Prairie Creek township, enters the river in Sullivan county.

Vigo was once or twice covered with glacial ice. During the centuries preceding the ice invasion, rain, heat and cold, vegetation, animal life, the chemical action of air and water had softened and broken up great quantities of surface rocks into materials, from which soils, clays, sands, gravel and boulders were formed. As the ice advanced it gathered up these materials, broke up the more prominent rocky masses, ground down the hills, smoothed out the valleys, and eroded the general surface more or less deeply. The ice destroyed or drove out all forms of animal life and deluged the adjacent regions with ' summer floods. Finally the ice began a slow retreat, accompanied by halts and re-advances. As the ice melted, the load of rocky fragments, which it had brought from the Laurentian highlands, with additions gathered on the way, was left as a thick mantle of tile or boulder clay spread out over all the region occupied by the ice. This material filled up the old drainage channels, so that the surface was a plain of gently undulating surface.

The floods from the retreating ice soon began to form draining channels, sometimes reopening old channels, sometimes forming new ones. While the new drainage channels were being opened the surface 'of the boulder clay weathered into soil, and became covered with vegetation. The remains of this vegetation, partially decayed, mingled with the clay, forming a black soil. This old soil occurs in the eastern and southern parts of the county under several feet of material deposited at a later period.

Above this old soil there is a deposit of "loess" - a fine-grained, yellowish silt or loam, consisting principally of quartz grains, and derived, apparently, from the drift, either by wind or water action. Over this loess there is, in southern Indiana, a continuous layer of pale silt called "white clay," which is the surface soil over much of the uplands of Vigo county.

Later, a second ice sheet overspread the country, reaching as far south as the northwestern part of our county, including Sandford. When the ice sheet halts for some time accumulations of gravels, sands and clays are formed by the materials dropped by the melting ice. Such accumulations are called moraines - sometimes ridges, but more generally low, rounded hills. The hills east and northeast of Sandford are parts of the Shelbyville or Wisconsin moraine that marks the southern limit of a second ice sheet.

The glacier accounts, in a general way, for the soils and drift materials of the uplands, but the soils and other materials in the valleys need explanation. The old channel of the river was swept of boulder clay, probably by water from outside its ordinary water shed. Then, the Wabash, diminishing in power, began silting up its bed with sand and gravel. This process continued until in Vigo county there was deposited a bed of gravel twenty miles long and four to five miles wide and over one hundred feet thick. From a study of a gravel pit it ap- pears that the sands, gravels and boulders were arranged by water, and possibly the whole mass was a delta formation, whose upper portions were rearranged by stream action. The surface features at least seem the work of a strong" stream. The ridge just west of Seventeenth street, which extends southward east of the old canal, seems, in Dr. Scovell's opinion, to be an old sandbar. The ridge along Fifth street, which terminates in Strawberry Hill, is apparently another sandbar.

Later, the river seems to have become narrower and more rapid, possibly on account of elevation of the northern portions of the continent, so that the western one-third of the valley was cut down some twenty feet or more, leaving the eastern two-thirds as a gravel terrace. Some time after this the energy of the river seems to have been concentrated upon narrower limits and a channel was cut deeper into the gravel, leaving a narrow fringe of second terrace or second bottom along the western bluff. Then the river ceased to erode the gravel and even when in flood it can only work over the materials of its own flood plain. As one watches the river when in flood, with its deep, strong current, and finds it unable to erode the gravel, he wonders what manner of stream it was that cut out that great mass of gravel and carried it to unknown distances below.

The main terrace descends gradually toward the south from the north part of Honey Creek township to the northern part of Prairie Creek township, where it becomes the flood plain. Many streams flowing into the main valley are lost in the sands and gravels. In time some of them brought down clay enough from the hills to puddle large areas of sand, making it impervious to water, and marshes, swamps and wet prairies were formed. Fort Harrison prairie was largely wet prairie that had its origin in obstructed drainage.

Soils result, for the most part, from the decomposition of rocks. Water, frost, heat and wind are the principal natural agents that hasten the decay of rocks and break them into fragments. As these fragments were carried along by the glacial torrents they were gradually worn down till they became rounded boulders, gravel stones, sand grains and clay. Portions of these sands and clays, during some of their resting stages, form the soils that cover the rocks and support the varied forms of vegetation.

(.)ur soils are mainly of glacial origin. Native rocks contribute considerable material to the soils of Vigo county, but the per cent, is very small when compared with that furnished by the products of glacial action.

During the later erosion of the valleys the boulder clay of the uplands became weathered or oxidized into yellow clay, which for the most part is the subsoil of the uplands. Upon this early soil there seems to have been a vigorous growth of vegetation, the remains of which mingled with the clay to form a rich, dark soil. After this layer of soil had been made the whole area seems to have been covered by the deposit of a fine, white clay, which is close and compact, but not sticky like the yellow clay. This difference between the two clays is very manifest in the roads that have not been graveled. On the level areas, where the white clay has not 'been cut away, the road may be firm and solid, but as it descends a little slope and comes into the yellow clay it may become almost impassable. The white clay is the surface soil over most of the n]ilands of Vigo county. The thickness of these clays is four or five feet along the border of the moraines, gradually thinning out toward the south. The thickness in Vigo county is from eight to twenty-four inches. The largest continuous area of this white clay occurs in Lost Creek township.

On the slopes in many cases the white clay has been washed away, exposing the yellow subsoil, so that a field looks spotted. Rut in such fields it is difficult to detect any difference in the appearance of yield of the crop growing on the two soils. In the northwestern part of the ccnmtv, which is supposed to have been covered by ice a second time, the white clav is covered up or mingled with other material, so that quite a different soil is the result. In the southeastern portion of the county, the Splunge Creek valley has a good soil, which is neither a white nor yellow clav, but seems to be a clayey mass like the sediment at the bottom of a pond or lake. There are perhaps twelve or fifteen square miles of this soil, most of which in the early times was covered with a rich mantle of prairie grasses. Sections ^^ and 34, Prairie Creek township, include some "quicksand land." The soil is a whitish clay for perhaps eight to fifteen inches, which is close and compact. Underneath this is the fine clay and sand which form the quicksand. The upper soil will generally bear a team with an ordinary load when in motion, but if allowed to stop the load is liable to break through into the quicksand.

Between Otter creek and the valley of Raccoon creek there are large numbers of sand dune hills, and several sections of land have a light, sandy soil, which seems to have been blown from an ancient beach by the prevailing westerly winds. In some cases the sand lies on bed rock, but generally it overlies boulder clay. Similar areas, but of less extent, occur north of Honey creek, and also along Prairie creek. In the northwestern portion of Fayette township there are many areas of black lands that are much like the prairie hinds of IlHnois. The morainic hills, east and north of Sandford. are sometimes sandy and sometimes wash easily, so that they can not be profitably cultivated. Along the bluffs of the river and its principal tributaries there are many steep slopes, over which the drainage is so rapid that the soluble portions of the soil are washed away, leaving an impoverished residue that produces but a scanty vegetation. Such areas are numerous in Nevins township along Otter creek, and they occur along Coal creek and Sugar creek.

The main valley of the Wabash is divided into flood plains and terraces. The flood plain has a deep soil of alluvial sands and clays, varying widely in character from pure sand to rich clay. These soils are generally rich and easily tilled. On the bottoms are many shallow ponds or sloughs, over whose beds oftentimes a rich black soil accumulates. The terraces usually have a sandy soil. But large areas, being nearly level, become covered with silt, so as to be nearly impervious to water, forming marshes or wet prairies with deep rich soils. The tributary vallevs have a rich alluvial soil, but it is largely of local origin, and is not so fine, nor as open in texture, as the soils of the main valley. ( )f the soils mentioned, the alluvial clays' of the flood plains, the sands of the terraces and the clavs of tine ujilands constitute the great bulk of the soils of \ igo county.

The dense forests of valuable timber, proclaiming the richness of the soil, the river prairies with their rank growth of forage grasses, and the rich, easily cultivated soils, were the chief attractions to the early settlers of this region.

The first export from A'igo county was perhaps a cargo of furs, but the first and most important one to the early settler was a cargo of corn. The flatboats that conveved the corn to market were made, for the most part, of vellow poplar, sometimes called whitewood or tulip tree. This timber grew abundantly in the north part of the county on both sides of the river. The building of flatboats for the corn and pork trade made great inroads upon the stock of yellow poplar. The black walnut was probablv the most valuable tree of the county. It grew abundantly on the bottom lands as well as on the uplands. The supply is mostly gone, but in its dav it was one of the important sources of revenue in the county. There are several kinds of oak in the forests of the county, but perhaps the most valuable is the white oak. It grows on the uplands and often in the creek bottoms, and is more abundant in the northern portions of the countv. Fa\'ette township being conspicuous for the size and quality of its white oaks. White ash. hickory, beech, maple, Cottonwood, elm and sycamore all grow well in Vigo county, and are marketable trees. There are many acres of land in \'igo, concludes Dr. Scovell, that, on account 15' of their broken and rugged character, could hardly be made good plow land, yet are well adapted to the growth of these valuable native trees. A growing crop of valuable timber trees is better than waste lands.

. Next to the prodircts of the soil, coal is the most important natural product in Vigo county. Coal is taken from many parts of the county and coal mining is an industry vi-hich impressed a different character on the county from that of the purely agricultural region. So important is this aspect of the county's history that it may fairly be said that "coal is king" in Vigo county.

Dr. Scovell in his geological history of the county (in 1896) classified the principal sources of coal in the county. Of the several veins on the west side of the river, what is known as coal "O" outcrops along Coal creek and at other places in Fayette township. It is from three to five feet in thickness, and is good coal.

Coal "N" outcrops along Sugar creek and at points along the bluiTs, west and northwest of Macksville. It is known as Sugar creek coal, and is a good, strong vein from four to six feet thick.

Coal "M" does not outcrop west of the river, but at places is found to be a five-foot vein, from sixty-five to one hundred feet below Coal "N." Coal "L" lies below coal "M," and is a thicker vein. At St. Mary's, as shown in a well bore, coal "N" was 125 feet below the surface, "M" 190 feet, and "L" 280 feet. The three veins aggregated twenty-one feet in thickness, so that the quantity of coal in these three veins underlying Vigo county is enormous.

On the east side of the river the upper vein "N" is not generally a strong vein. The middle vein "M" varies widely, from six feet near Lockport to two inches near Seelyville. The big vein east of the river is "L." North of the old National road it lies near the surface, so that one-half its area has been eroded. It varies from si.x to ten feet in thickness.

In the quotation of the observations of David Thomas while traveling through this region in 1816 was included his mention of a coal outcrop along the Wabash and his prophecy that the coal industry would some day be one of the great resources of the country. Also the leasing of coal deposits on school lands by the early commissioners has been referred to. The Indiana Gazetteer for 1833 says that "inexhaustible beds of stone coal of an e.xcellent quality is also found in this county, some of which has been shipped to New Orleans, where it commands as high a price as the Pittsburg coal."

About 1833, states S. H. Potter in the Terra Haute directory for .1872, a few wagons of inferior surface coal was brought to town from Honey creek and sold to blacksmiths. Wood could then be bought at $1.25 a cord. One of the first' attempts to make the mining of coal a practical business was undertaken by Jacob Thompson, who came from New York about 1838 and with a partner began mining coal for shipment to N'ew Orleans. For his operations he selected a place on the high bluffs six or eight miles up the river, and loaded his coal on barges. Low water prevented their passing down the river, and they sank along the shore, setting the mark of financial failure on this early enterprise.

These early references show that coal has been one of the valued natural products of Mgo county from the beginning. However, for many years, with the exception of the inconsiderable quantity carried down the river to New Orleans and intermediate points, coal was mined only for local domestic consumption. It is not known to what extent coal was a part of the shipments on the old canal. The report of Chatmcey Rose on the Terre Haute & Indianapolis Railroad in 1852 calls attention to the need of coal cars, since the coal traffic, in his judgment, was certain to be a large part of the railroad's business.

In 1887 Vigo county mined 222.320 tons of coal, being surpassed in this respect only by Parke county, and Clay county standing third. From these figrires a comparison of the last obtainable statistics shows a wonderful development in the industry. In 1905, 1,868,465 tons of coal were mined in Yigo county, more than eight times the quantity of 1887. In fact, the increase in tons for 1905 over 1904 nearly equaled the entire output of 1887. Adjacent counties showed even greater increase. In 1905 Greene county, which had hardly begun the development of its coal deposits in 1887, had become the largest coal-producing county of the state, with Sullivan next and Vigo third. The number of miners engaged in this industry in 1905 was 3,222, forming a considerable per cent, of the total population, apd giving Vigo much of the character of a coal center. In 1905 Vigo county stood third among the fourteen counties of the state producing coal, in number of tons mined, in number of miners (3,222) and tied with Greene county for third place in number of mines (twenty-eight). Vigo county in that year produced nearly onefifth of the coal mined in Indiana.

The Coal Bluff Mining Company is one of the largest independent companies in the state, employing about 1,600 men and producing annually over a million tons of coal. Nine mines are operated by the company, located in Vigo, Clay and Greene counties, along the lines of the Big Four, the C. & E. I. and the Southern Indiana Railroads. When the company was incorporated in 1875 'ts capital was $7,500. The capi- talization has never been increased, and the amount is an historical reminder of the small beginnings of an enterprise when the men behind it put in all the money they could command and opened one mine. The secretary of the company at that time, J. Smith Talley (see sketch), has given his energies to the development of the business for the past thirtv vears. and as president of the company is one of the best-known coal operators of the middle west.

Crude oil, says State Geologist Blatchley (Report, 1906). was first discovered in the city of Terre Haute in 1865. Chauncey Rose started a bore near the Terre Haute House in search of water, and at a depth of 1,629 feet oil was struck in the corniferous limestone, the yield being almost two barrels per day. The value of the oil was not appreciated, and the bore was continued until a vein of sulphur water was encountered. It is of interest to note that interest in oil production became active as early as 1869. Probably stimulated by the Pennsylvania development, and with knowledge of Rose"s previous discovery a second bore was sunk in that vear on the river bank between Walnut and Poplar streets. Oil was found at a depth between 1,642 and 1,667 ^^^^^ but not in sufficient quantity to justify pumping.

A quarter of a mile northeast of the Rose well a third well was sunk in 1869. Owing to the fact that these were not flowing wells, and the cost of pumping making the production unprofitable at the time, no important progress was made during these early years.

Twentv vears later the center of the oil industry had advanced much further west, and the discovery of a new oil field was the signal for an inrush of operators, and a sudden increase of industrial and business activitv along all lines. In 1889 a drill was started in an alley between Ninth and Tenth and Chestnut streets. The night of INIay 6th the drill struck the oil-bearing stratum, a rush of oil followed, and as the drill was pulled from the casing a solid stream of oil four and one-half inches in diameter shot into the air a distance of forty to fifty feet, .\ lake of oil quickly accumulated around the derrick, and there was some alarm lest a destructive fire should result. The first spurt lasted only fifteen minutes, during which time a flow of a barrel a minute resulted, and then the flow steadied down to a stream rising about three feet above the mouth of the well.

"The result of this strike,'" declares Mr. Blatchley (who, it will be remembered, was once a resident of this city), "was like that of every other similar one in the history of the petroleum industry. Hundreds of oil operators from far and near flocked to Terra Haute. Real estate almost doubled in price. Twenty-four new companies were formed, eighteen of which made locations. Twenty or more bores were put down in 1889 and 1890 to the required depth within three miles' radius of the first gusher, struck the proper stratum and for the most found - nothing. Two. within a short distance of the original well, yielded oil in quantity. The yield of one was soon overcome by salt water, as was also that of the original well. The other, the Phoenix well, has continued to yield to the present day, and has proved the most productive oil well ever sunk in the state. * * * For twelve or more years the Phcenix yielded an average of 1,000 barrels per month. In the last few years this has gradually lessened, and in 1906 the average was 450 barrels per month. The combined output of it and the MeWhinney well (forty rods northeast of the Phceni.x) for 1906 was 7,269 barrels, as against 7,044 in 1905. This was sold to local consumers at an average price of $1.15 a barrel, the whole amount received being $8,456."

In Riley township, two miles southeast of Riley village, in the fall of 1906, the A'i-Clay Oil Company, composed of farmers and other citizens of the vicinity, put down a test bore on the Joslin tract of twenty acres in section 23. The depth of the well is 1,618 feet, and after being shot (in November) it yielded 132 barrels the first day.

The success of the \'i-Clay company precipitated the latest oil excitement in Vigo county. The \'i-Clay Company had abotit 4,000 acres under lease, and was offered $100,000 for its holdings, but refused. Oil men from everywhere flocked to the vicinity and leases were taken on hundreds of farms within a radius of twenty miles.

During the spring and summer of 1907 the hotels of Terre Haute were filled to their capacity by oil men, and almost daily the newspapers published leader articles on the oil field about Riley. Numerous bores were put down, with a fair percentage of paying results. More recently the spectacular features of the excitement have subsided.