28 University Geological Survey of Kansas. 
city of Paola with lights and heat from those early days up to: 
the present time. 
The story of piping gas into Paola is so well told in a letter 
received from Judge B. F. Simpson, quoted, as he says, from 
Mr. H. M. McLachlin, that it is here included: 
“In the year 1882, Jno. W. Werner, a hotel-keeper at Gal-. 
veston, Tex., and who had come there from Pennsylvania, 
where he had been engaged in the oil business, was approached 
by H. J. Foote, a patent-right traveler, who stated that we had 
just as good indications of oil in the Indian Territory and 
Kansas as in Pennsylvania. They came up to the former place 
and found good indications, but could not get any leases, as 
the government controlled the land. Resuming their journey, 
they came to Paola, where there was an oil spring about eight 
miles east. This has been known to the Indians and settlers 
for years and had a local reputation as a ‘cure-all’ liniment. 
They examined the ground and it looked good, so they formed 
a company consisting of J. J. Werner, E. L. Mitchell, H. J. 
Foote, Chas. Kitchen, Jas. Briggs, A. Buck, E. M. Wickersham 
and H. M. McLachlin. Mr. Werner went east and purchased. 
machinery, and, returning, commenced drilling on the Westfall 
farm in the vicinity of the oil spring. At a depth of about 300 
feet, they struck a strong flow of gas, stopped the drill, and 
moved some distance, began drilling again, and had the same: 
results—got no oil; then turning their attention to gas, they 
moved the machinery to Paola and drilled a well about 800 
feet at the mill. Found two good coal deposits, but no gas. 
Then they moved the machinery east on Wea creek, and got 
some good wells, but were troubled so with water in them that. 
they were finally abandoned. In 1884 a franchise for natural 
gas was procured from the city and the gas piped in. H. M.. 
McLachlin sold out and B. Miller was elected in his stead, and 
it was under his management that the gas was brought in. 
Later on H. M. McLachlin purchased stock and was elected 
president and continued in that capacity until 1886, when the. 
original stockholders sold out to the Kansas Oil and Mining 
Company. They tried for oil in the western gas-field and ob- 
tained it in good quantities, pumped quite a quantity, and 
erected a small refinery in the city and shipped a large lot of 
the oil out, but after spending $125,000 merged the company 
into the Franklin Fuel and Light Company, and abandoned the: 
oil work.” 
Wyandotte county likewise felt the effect of this stimulus. 
and yielded a small number of gas-wells that produced fairly 
well for a time. Some of them continued productive for fifteen 
or twenty years, but at the present, possibly for a lack of care,. 
water has drowned them, so that they have lost their value. 
