Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [32]

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Chapter 32. Great Storm of 1900

The century started out great guns with the promise of much change and much wealth. That is, until the hurricane on September 8th.
    Claude was making money but he knew oil wells could and would go dry sooner or later. He ordered three more rigs and equipped them with the new drilling platform called the Corsicana Rig. It used high hydraulics and was faster and easier to operate. They weren’t cheap, but he could afford the investment. The companies that were still drilling were the ones that had made it through the snowstorm and weren’t working on a shoestring; they had big money behind them and were there for the long run. A wildcatter would pop up every now and again but nothing like before the snow.
    With that in mind, everybody was moving across the State of Texas looking for the next honey pot. Galveston was booming as a port town and vacation destination. It was one of the fastest-growing cities in Texas. Thousands of families came each summer to lie on its white beaches and fill its hotels, restaurants, and bars. At the urging of Jeff Wright, Claude had invested in a couple of hotels. It had been a big chunk of money but it was paying off. Claude had property spread out all over Texas now. If the oil dried up tomorrow he would still be a wealthy man.
    Just as Claude was giving up on the idea of ever getting his refinery built, a man from Pennsylvania came onto the scene. Joseph S. (Buckskin Joe) Cullinan had built a number of refineries for John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company back east. He left Standard and formed his own company and headed to Texas. He partnered with the investment group Claude had been trying for a year to get to build a refinery. Cullinan had a skill few others possessed; people just naturally trusted he could do what he said he would. It was a skill Claude wanted to keep close to. The refinery that resulted from Cullinan’s venture turned out to be a work of art, and oil from it was shipped overseas from the port of Galveston and sent by rail domestically. Cullinan had made his mark in Texas.
    Unknown to Claude, Ricardo had provided the bulk of the money that went into the building of Cullinan’s refinery, and his holding company back east held the controlling stock of the venture. It was also Ricardo who, through contacts he had in the east, had first suggested to Cullinan that he might find his fortune in Texas oil and opened him a line of credit. Ricardo was closing the net.

August was overly hot that year and September wasn’t starting out much better. The hotels on Galveston were packed. No rooms on Galveston Island remained available to rent, and Claude was looking at a very good return on his investment.
    On the morning of September 8th, a storm warning was issued advising people to move to higher ground to avoid possible flooding. On the beaches of Galveston, a storm was the least of their worries. The sun was bright and a cool breeze was blowing in from the east. To most of the vacationers, that week would be their last hoorah of summer and a little storm wasn’t going to keep them from their fun.
    By the time they realized this wasn’t an ordinary storm, it was too late. The beaches emptied as the guests ran for their hotels, which, under the storm surge, crumbled like paper mache. 3,600 buildings were destroyed, of which two were Claude’s investments. The dead were guessed to number from 6,000 to 8,000; no one knew for sure. The waves pushed the destroyed buildings into piles up two stories high. The rubble stopped the water’s onslaught and saved the port and the west side of the island.

    The Sisters of Charity ran an orphanage on the Island. They had gathered everybody in the girls’ dorm, from which they watched the water rise, fear gripping them as the lower floors of St. Mary’s Orphan Asylum began to flood. The nuns hurriedly rushed the children to the second floor, watching the water creep up the stairs behind them. In fear of losing a child to the rising water, they tied sets of about ten children together in a row with a clothesline and attached the end to a nun’s waist. The next day, their bodies were discovered still attached by clotheslines. The storm surge had been 15 feet high, and St. Mary’s Orphan Asylum had collapsed, killing all but three people.
    The call went out across Texas that Galveston Island needed help. The port was up and running, but the railroad bridge had been destroyed and there was no way to get the oil to the port, so Claude closed operations and sent his men to help.

    No one would forget the days they spent on the island. One man told Claude that there were so many dead, they had to be stacked like cordwood. The sun had come back out and the smell was sometimes overpowering. But it was the bodies of children that broke their hearts. There were so many of them, and entire families had died that day.

Claude and Jeff worked on how to cover his loss due to the storm. Instead of being a big payoff, his investment had turned out to be a huge loss. Now, with the rail bridge down, his oil shipment would be cut in half.
    Jeff and the office manager, along with the finance manager, were going over figures. Gerald Whitney spoke for the group: “ Mr. Jaudon, while things look bad, I believe it is a blessing. Not what happened on the island, but what happened to oil prices.”
    Claude never liked appearing to be the last person in the room to know something. He said, “It won’t matter what the price of oil is if we can’t ship it.”
    Gerald cleared his throat and spoke slowly, “The price of oil has been dropping for months because the wells are pumping day and night. The market has more oil than it needs. This storm is going to force everybody to cut back and that will raise the price at market. If my figures are correct, you will be making as much money as you were before the storm, even by shipping less oil.”

Ricardo in the meantime was having lunch with Joseph Cullinan the day after the Great Storm hit. They would be having a meeting that night with the investors Ricardo had put together, one of them being the Governor of Texas.
    Joe sipped his coffee and set the cup down. “The refinery will be producing at half capacity now that we can’t ship overseas. The investors aren’t going to be happy about that.”
    Ricardo smiled. He had ordered French wine, which he swirled in his glass. “We’re not dealing with milk or some other product that can turn bad. If the oil comes out of the ground today or a month from today, it will be the same oil. Their money is safe and if any of them want to quit, I’ll be happy to buy their stock.”
    Joe laughed. “It sounds like you’d like for some of them to jump ship. But you know that if there’s another oil strike we’ll need their money.”
    “If there’s another oil strike, investors will be lined up around the block. Besides, I doubt any one of our investors is stupid enough to jump ship. They’ve made too much money with us to run over this hiccup. Once the rail bridge is up, and the trains are running, we’ll be back on track, so to speak.”

    Joe removed a folder from his briefcase. “I met a man who needs some backing. He wants to drill in a place called Spindletop, down around Beaumont. I promised him I would speak to you.”
    Ricardo looked over the proposal. “Have you seen the place he wants to drill at?”
    “I have. It looks promising. But like everything else, until you drill you don’t know.”
    “What does your gut tell you?”
    Joe thought for a moment. He hated to be put on the spot like that. “I guess the best way to explain it is, if the money was mine, I would roll the dice on this one.”
    “That’s good enough for me. Tell him to come into the office and sign some papers and we’ll get him ready to start drilling.”
    “Thanks. I’ll send him a telegram tomorrow. Would you like me to line up more leases in that area, just in case it’s the next honey pot.”
    “I have a few leases there already. But it can’t hurt to have more. I’ll ask our investors tonight if any of them want to join us.”
    Ricardo finished his wine. “Have you ever heard of a place called Piedras Pintas?”
    “You know I’m not from Texas, so no, I have never heard of it.”
    “There’s no hurry, but if you get a chance, check it out. I received a letter from a man who claims there’s oil there.”

Copyright © 2020 by Ed Rogers