Petrolite Explosion, June 18, 1990

It was the beginning of another work week as I got around that Monday afternoon to go to work on the evening shift at Petrolite. June 18, 1990 was a warm and humid day. I can remember this day cause of the events that would soon develop over the next 5 hours. Upon arriving at the gate to clock in, some of the usual guys working the evening shift  that got there early would sit around and talk before going off to their departments. I sat down with one of the guys from the EP Plant, Rusty McLaughlin. Today was not a usual day at the EP Plant according to Rusty. The EP Plant would be making one of the new products that they had recently developed. Everyone referred to it as alcohol wax. It wasn't an ordinary synthetic wax as all the other waxes were and it was made in a different way. A way that Rusty and all the other guys that worked at the EP Plant didn't think was safe. Rusty was always nervous about the process of making alcohol wax as he pointed out to me many times.  After about five minutes of talking, it was time to clock in and go to work. As we were all leaving out the door, I overhead someone say, "Don't blow anything up tonight". Of course, this was all just joking around. Little did we realize that within hours that small verbal quote would  come back with a vengeance.

Petrolite's EP Plant.

The packaging department was working a two man crew that evening. Darrell Infield and myself were finishing up a run of 185 Amber at the Prill Tower that evening. We would later clean the tower to begin a run of C-4040. It was around 6:00 pm that my brother James "Wimp" Patrick was called out  to go to the EP Plant to check on an oxygen leak that was reported on the second deck reactor room of the EP Plant. At the time he showed up at the EP office, he was asked to wait till the batch of alcohol wax was emptied from one of the reactors. With a little time on his hands, he dropped by the Prill Tower to talk with me a bit before going over to the gate to grab a candy bar from the vending machine before returning to the EP Plant. I began to start my run of C-4040 and was in the process of going to the shakerboard room on the second level  of the tower. I had stopped for a moment to look east over the tanks where I would see my brothers truck still at the gate. He was most likely talking with Lloyd Swift since he was the evening supervisor. I had made it three steps into the shakerboard room when I heard a small and then a large explosion which shook the building like an earthquake. At first I thought it was a fork lift that had run into one of the support beams on the tower but that didn't make sense since all the main beam supports were in places a fork lift couldn't reach. I continued into the room to check on the progress of the start up. It must have been about 20 seconds later Darrell had ran up the two flights of stairs to the shakerboard room. As he opened the door he yelled at me from the doorway, "Jerry, the EP Plant just blew up"! I ran to the door to look back to the southeast to see what was happening. When I got to the doorway, the plant emergency whistle was beginning to blow. I was looking at a billowing cloud of black smoke and small bits of debris still floating around as it fell to the ground.

As we hurried down the stairs, I quickly began a shut down process by cutting off the product feed to the prill heads. Making my way to the loading dock I met up with Darrell, he had grabbed a mobile radio from the break room trying to hear any information coming out of the EP Plant. He was looking southeast towards the EP Plant trying to catch a sign of any movement. As the black smoke would clear momentarily we could see the extent of the damage. Small fires were all over the second floor of the reactor room. The north wall, northwest wall and the roof in that section of the building had been blown away. We had no idea of where they were in the process of the run so we didn't know if anyone was up stairs when the explosion occurred.Moments later a voice came across the radio calling for an ambulance and a man was down at the EP Plant. Emergency vehicles from the plant began making there way to the EP Plant. Water monitors were soon spraying water over the building. Darrell and myself were taking count of everyone that might have been there at the time of the explosion. David Moles, Ron Patrick, Rusty McLaughlin and Jim Lewis  all came to mind. We concluded it must be one of the four that had been injured. With further thought we deduced it was either Ron or Rusty since they would be the ones in the area at the time. It was later we found out that Rusty was on the second level when the explosion occurred.

Rusty McLaughlin
1976 Senior Photo

By Wednesday an investigation was underway by the St. Louis  office. They wanted to question everyone at the plant that was there during the explosion. My turn took maybe 15 minutes to answer all the questions but they were stuck on one question. How many explosions did you hear initially, one or two? I heard two explosions, a small one and then a larger one immediately after the first.
As hard as they tried to tell me there was only one explosion, I kept replying there were two. It was as if they wanted me to agree with them about the one explosion. I found out later I wasn't the only one interviewed that got that question and all of us agreed on the same thing...there were two explosions.They were also interested in the safety aspect of the product production. One of their questions centered around how safe did I think the process was. My reply was that the department manager wanted quantity over quality and safety and he pushed the issue with all shifts to produce a higher quantity of product. It was my opinion that the whole process was unsafe because of the push to attain a higher yield of product over any maintenance or safety issues.

By the end of the week, Bill Nasser CEO of the Petrolite Corporation was at the Barnsdall facility to have a meeting with all the employees about the explosion. It was at this meeting that most of the hourly employees lost respect for the CEO of the company. It was during this meeting he pulls out a bag and begins eating a sandwich and sipping on a drink. I, like many others thought it was an inappropriate gesture on his part to eat in a meeting that was very serious to us. It gave us an impression he was not sincere with all he was telling us.

The official cause of the explosion given to us was that the explosion occurred when rust particles entered into a closed line going to the reactor and when the line was opened into the reactor the rust activated an explosion inside the reactor causing it to explode. Like most of us that were there that evening, their findings didn't coincide with the information we gave them at the inquiry. There was no mention of the first small explosion that took place or the push to override any safety concerns on the production. In my mind they overlooked all the information they were given and gave us their interpretation of events.

Do I think there was a cover up of events that led to the explosion? Yes I do, just like everyone else that was there that evening. First of all, there was an oxygen leak located 10 feet from the reactor. An instrument man was called out to repair the leak which had been leaking for hours. They placed production over safety when they decided to run the batch through to the end of the run.

I believe the second level of the EP plant was saturated with pure oxygen from the leak. I feel the explosion began as one of the automatic valves opened, creating a spark which ignited the oxygen in the building causing the first small explosion. As this explosion took place it may have ruptured one of the lines leading into the reactor which when exposed to the open elements reacted with a second explosion that was more powerful than the first. This is what I think really happened.

Rusty McLaughlin was sitting in a chair on the second level when the explosion took place. He was situated around 50 feet from the reactor that exploded and only a couple feet from the main stairway that led into the reactor room. After the explosion, Rusty was able to descend the stairway to an exit that led him out to the east side of the building. He was found by his fellow employees at the EP Plant. All of his clothes had been burned off. The only clothing he had on was a part of his shirt, his leather belt with some bits of clothing attached to it and his leather boots. Most of his hair had been burned off from the flash fire that took place. Later, skin was found on the stairway hand rails that led to the reactor room. Rusty had been grabbing the rail on his way out of the building. When the ambulance arrived, Rusty was conscious and speaking. The remainder of his clothes were cut away and he was transported to the Tulsa burn center at Hillcrest hospital. Rusty died from the burns he received in the explosion.

When I left the plant in 2009, the clothes Rusty had been wearing that evening when he was caught in the explosion are still on site. They were placed in a plastic bag and stored in a cabinet and kept as a reminder of how a day at work can turn tragic in an instant. I don't know if the clothing is still on site but all of us that knew Rusty had a high regard for him. He was always one to help you in any situation and always had something good to say in any situation. He was, and is still missed, by those that knew him. An upright guy just trying to support his family. Too bad his life was cut short  from an incident that might have been avoided.

The Land Tells A Story

When it comes to local history of the early years of Bigheart, OK. I'm one to jump on it and see what surfaces. Anyone that owns property in Barnsdall in the present has a historical record of the land they own. better known as an "Abstract of Tile", it tells the story of your property from the beginning when it belonged to the United States government as a recorded entity.

The story of one of my properties is as such. Owned by the United States government, it named the Cherokee Nation as Grantee of the land which now includes Osage County in Oklahoma. President Martin VanBuren, Grantor of the land conveyed over 14 million acres of land to the Cherokee Nation on December 31st, 1838.

July 19th, 1866, Article 16 of a Treaty between the United States and the Cherokee Nation permitted the United States to settle friendly Indians on any part of the Cherokee country west of 96 degrees. With this article , the Great and Little tribes of the Osage Indians  were settled on the Osage Indian Reservation which is now Osage County. Under Statute,  on March 25th, 1873, the Secretary of the Treasury transferred the proceeds of sale from the Osage lands in Kansas, the sum of $1,650,600 or as what be necessary to pay for the lands purchased from the Cherokees by the Osages at .70 cents an acre.

June 14th, 1883,Principle Chief of the Cherokee nation, Dennis W. Bushyhead, Grantor to the United States in trust for the Osage Indians, Grantee; under the consideration of $1,099,137.41, conveyed all land purchased from the Cherokee Nation to the Osage Nation.


July 30th, 1879, the Supreme Court ordered the Osage and Kansas Indian reservations hereby be attached to Pawnee County, Oklahoma Territory, for judicial purposes. Act of Congress May 2, 1890 provides for the organization of the Territory of Oklahoma.

(NOTE) January 1905, H.H. Brenner, a banker , real estate owner and a partaker in the oil and gas business from Pawhuska, Oklahoma  Territory, travels to Washington D.C. and negotiates for two months with Congress for the setting aside of town sites in the Osage reservation. As a result of his efforts, in March 1905, 640 acres were set aside for the town site of Pawhuska, 160 acres for Bigheart, and similar amounts set aside for Hominy, Fairfax and Foraker.

H. H. Brenner

March 3, 1905. The Osage Town Site Bill was passed.  it provided for the creation of an Osage Town Site Commission to oversee the creation and of surveying the town sites into lots, blocks, streets and alleys. The lots would then be sold to the highest bidder at public auction. January 1906, the surveying for the town site of Bigheart was finished and in May 1906 lots were being sold at public auction.

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• May 1906, Frank Yingling Jr.was the highest bidder at the public auction for lots 5 and 6 in block 54 at Bigheart. (NOTE: Frank Yingling Jr. resided in Pawnee Oklahoma Territory, where he owned many properties. He amassed much of it through public auctions such as the one in Bigheart in 1906). 
• September 1911, Frank Yingling Jr. grants a lease for oil production to the Red Eagle Oil & Gas Co. of Bigheart, OK. to last 3 years or as long as oil or gas is produced on the site, for the royalty of one eighth part of all oil produced on site and receive $100 per year for the gas produced from each well on lots 5 and 6 of block 54. One rig is erected and a well is drilled to a depth of 1747 ft. Well does not produce enough oil to pay for the operations.   

  

  
  

• May 1912. Red Eagle Oil & Gas Company contract R.L. Looker to deepen well on block 54 within 60 days. If oil is produced within this time the Red Eagle Oil & Gas Company will compensate R.L. Looker with one half of all oil or gas production in addition to paying $20.00 a day for each day of drilling.
• January 1913. R.L. Looker files a release of contract with the Red Eagle Oil & Gas Company.
• July 1913. Red Eagle Oil & Gas Company transfers all undivided one half interest of lease on block 54 to Sue Mellott, Dr. Benjamin Skinner, R.W. Burr, J.R. Pearson, A.W. Hurley, Louisa F. Gibson, D.J. Dunham, William Clem, Sallie Hooper, A.L. Sugg, H.H. Brenner and C.F. Lake.
• February 1914. Sue Mellott, Dr. Benjamin Skinner, R.W. Burr, J.R. Pearson, A.W. Hurley, Louisa F. Gibson, D.J. Dunham, William Clem, Sallie Hooper, A.L. Sugg, H.H. Brenner and C.F. Lake obtain George B. Mellott as Trustee for block 54 and all property on site.
• April 1914. The Red Eagle Oil & Gas Company pays out $5850  worth of capital stock to Trustee George B. Mellott, for the undivided one half interest in the lease on block 54 owned by Sue Mellott, Dr. Benjamin Skinner, R.W. Burr, J.R. Pearson, A.W. Hurley, Louisa F. Gibson, D.J. Dunham, William Clem, Sallie Hooper, A.L. Sugg, H.H. Brenner and C.F. Lake.
• July 1914. Jarecki Manufacturing Company sues Red Eagle Oil & Gas Company for non payment of material in the amount of $2628.78 in a contact made between the two companies in February 1914. Allegations also prove the Red Eagle Oil & Gas Company is indebted to others for $8000.

  

  Original city plat from 1906. All marked properties owned by Red Eagle Oil and Gas Company  in 1914 are marked.

• August 1914.  Rufus W. Burr is appointed receiver by the court to take charge of all Red Eagle Oil & Gas Company property and to sell all property to pay off all debt by the company.
• September 1914 to July 1915. All property owned by the Red Eagle Oil & Gas Company was sold  by the receiver, Rufus W. Burr. All lease grants  for lot 5 block 54 are canceled and real property reverts back to land owner Frank Yingling Jr.
• November 1918. Frank Yingling Jr sells lot 5 block 54 property to G.S. & E.E. Waltman for the sum of $135.
• November 1918. G.S. Waltman sells property to Thomas R. & Maggie Smith for the sum of $90.
• January 1919. Thomas R. Smith sells property to Ida Bennett for $90.
• November 1920. Ida Bennett sells property to W.C. & Dellar Smith for $150.
• August 1921. W.C. Smith sells property to Charles & Mayme Smith for $500.
• March 1923. Charles Smith sells property to Ida Bennett for $400.
• April 1939. A Resale Deed is issued by Livingstone Hall, County Treasurer for Osage County. It is accepted by Mart T. Bowhan, Chairman of the Board of County Commissioners in Osage County for the non payment of taxes on property.
• January 1940. Notice of sale of county held property was printed in the Barnsdall Times newspaper. J. M. Baxter and K.Y. Cole placed bids on lot 5 block 54 property. K.Y. Cole was the highest bidder at $55.
• February 1940. The Board of County Commissioners in Osage County grant deed to property to K.Y. & Evelyn Cole for $55.
• May 1945. K.Y. Cole mortgages property for $518.04 on a promissory note to Leo C. Diehl.
• September 1945. Leo C. Diehl releases mortgage on lot 5 block 54 property to K.Y. Cole.
• April 1946. K.Y. Cole files Quit Claim Deed to Alonzo Cole.
• August 1953. Alonzo Cole files Quit Claim Deed to K.Y Cole.
• July 1956. K.Y. Cole files Quit Claim Deed to Jona Cole.
• October 1959. Jona Cole files Quit Claim Deed to Dollie Lucille Osterloh.
• August 1963. Dollie Lucille Osterloh files Quit Claim Deed to Garland D. & Opal Rhodes.
• December 1979. Garland C. Rhodes sells property to Birch lake Jiffy Mart, Inc. (NOTE): A car wash is built on the east end of  lot 5 while a home is situated on the west end of  lot 5 spitting lot 5 block 54 in half).
• April 1982. Birch lake Jiffy Mart, Inc. sells both sections of lot 5 block 54 to Dennis & Sharon Stephens for $10,800.
• February 1986. Dennis Stephens sells the east section of lot 5 block 54 to Steve Berg for $70,000. Dennis Stephens retains the west section of lot 5 block 54.
• March 1989. Dennis Stephens sells west section of lot 5 block 54 to Jerry & Linda Patrick for $8,800.

In Memory of A School

In the past two years I've been the administrator for the Barnsdall History page on Facebook I've found that Barnsdall has had little change but in the same light more than a person might realize. Looking over photos from the past, of people and places that are gone, the images and memories are still there. The image of the old three story stone school house at the end of Main and Fourth St. comes to mind. This was an image that came to me one day as I walked out of the bank, located just northwest of where the stone school was. As I was about to get in my vehicle, I took a look over at the empty lot which at one time had two different school buildings on it. It was only a split second but the image seem to last longer. In that quick gaze I could see the children running and playing in front of the school, trees slowly moving as the breeze would gently move the branches, and the glow of the stones of the school as the sun would shine brightly on it's outer walls. What a place to behold. Only through photos and memories from those that attended the school can we even get a glimpse of what the place was like. I can imagine the wood floors creaking as the students would walk to class, the heavy doors that would close with a loud thud or the faint breeze that would flow through the windows on a warm day. There are many stories the building could talk about in it's short 39 year history such as when it was being built during the later part of 1910 into the spring of 1911 and just days after it was inspected by county officials, the third floor was destroyed by a tornado. It was also during this time that around 100 people took shelter in the school as the storm passed. Even though the small school had no high school accreditation from the state, it still managed to teach those that came through the doors.

Barnsdall Elementary, 1940's

Even as the school had three floors, only two of them were used. The third floor had been condemned after it was rebuilt from the tornado damage. But it never stopped the curious to creep up the steps and take a look at it as I've been told. In it's early days there was a basketball court set up on it's south lawn. A photo of it from 1914 shows the goals raised into the air and so far apart from one another. Most likely the first organized sport for the school.

The basketball court can be seen in the upper right of the photo.

It's hard to say how many students, teachers and parents walked through those double doors at the front of the school, the generations of families that seen one another grow up learning from those that would take on a small school agenda. As the school was raised in 1949, a new school was built on the same location. I attended that school in the late 60's and early 70's. On more than one occasion during basketball practices in the grade school gymnasium, I would go into the hall to get a drink of water and hear the faint sounds of children as if they were passing through the halls and interesting noises from classrooms. At the time, I didn't know that there was a school that sat on the property before the new school was built. But these days, looking back through time , I can understand the quiet voices and noises coming from the rooms. Maybe it was the innocence of being young and not having to worry about anything that had the school filled with the joy of being young and energetic.  I'm not saying the school built in 1949 was haunted, I'm just saying there was a ambiance of youth that permeated the building that I'm certain originated in the old stone school  which by some factor attributed to the aura of the building. The days of children in the halls and the voices of those filled with joy are gone from the site now. The school built in 1949, was condemned and razed in 2004. Do the voices of those that attended this school still be heard? I guess they could, but only in the memory of those that walked the halls and played on the playground for nearly 50 years.

Barnsdall Elementary built in 1949

How Many Fingers Do I Have Up?

What does it take to come up with a subject to write about? Inspiration can come from many things, even a walk down the cereal aisle at the grocery store. As I stood there in the multitude of bran, oat and puffed rice products, I had an epiphany.  Whats the deal with three fingers and a thumb? It may sound strange but what has three fingers and a thumb got to do with the cereal aisle? Before I jump off into the quagmire of sugary delight, I wanted to start my cereal venture in an earlier time, when cereal was known as a health food. If there were four kinds of cereal on the shelf, you covered the gambit of all sales and the cereal aisle was no more than a shelf or two for all the products.

Sullivan Market, Bigheart Oklahoma 1918

But in the last 100 years that cereal has been advertised there has been a drastic change. No more are the healthy benefits of a breakfast cereal advertised as something to help in all sorts of ailments.

                                      

 

Now the choices are an aisle of grains that can overwhelm the most seasoned shopper. Welcome to the fructose induced aisle of gain goodness. Where whatever the grain of choice is there is a cereal for your choosing.

The advertising has also changed over the years. In the late 1950's and early 60's breakfast cereal has taken on a cartoonish cover of feeding the masses of children on any given morning, Especially on Saturday mornings when cartoons and sugary cereal went hand in hand and the voices of children could be heard through the house asking mom to get some Frosted Flakes or Froot Loops on the next trip to the store. All this was just the beginning to what has become a lucrative business aimed at the youth of America. 

Now...back to the epiphany in the cereal aisle.

As I stood there looking over the multitude of choices, I had an interesting observation.  All of the cartoon characters that adorn the front of cereal boxes have one thing in common. They have three fingers and a thumb.  For example: 

Only a small fraction of the selection of four fingered characters that front the face of morning sweetness. It also had me thinking of a story I wrote years ago about these two guys.

       

  That's right. They too have only three fingers and a thumb. After some investigating about the missing digit of most all animated characters it was found that Walt Disney animators were behind the four digit hand. It's been noted that the animators could produce drawings faster and have the paint cels finished quicker if the subjects only had three fingers and a thumb. Thus reducing the time it took to produce a full length cartoon.  But all isn't bad if you only have three fingers and a thumb.

You could be like this guy. He only has a thumb and a little dough as a hand, no wonder everyone is poking him in the side. It's not because he's a soft lump of dough, it's because there poking fun at his lack of three fingers.