Drilling a Well

[Wayne]

Up in Burkburnett Tx there is an oil Co. with a small yard with old equipment. They have two old drilling rigs and they both had up right steam engines on them. For some reason they didn't end up in my camera that day. What your saying is true like the picture from the ranch I posted. Pulled into place by the Steam Engine then powered by it. The yard with the relics had two old boilers for making steam for the engines.

[JLM]

Their is a well in south Tx that was originally drilled as a wildcat oil well in the early 1900's.The oil well did not pan out. So they ended up making it into a water well that well was nearly 2000' deep. From what I heard the cable tool rig that drilled the well was steam powered and that by the time they finished they had cut down many acres of mesquites to fire the steam engine.

[Wayne]

Wow! A 2000 ft water well that might be a record. I could imagine cutting several acres of mesquites since it doesn't grow very big. One thing about the mesquite they didn't have to split it to fit in boiler. Some poor old soul worked pretty hard to cut that much mesquite with hand saws.

[JLM]

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[JLM]

Finally got those pictures scanned and downloaded. To my knowledge these photos came out of the Krueger family estate. Their Family owned SAMSCO san antonio machine and supply.The horse power could be used to power a drilling rig or pump water with as shown.

[Wayne]

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Some fun shots from the State Library of Western Australia. First time I've ever seen camels as being used as draft animals.

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[hedgerow]

Wayne
Thanks for posting. I to have never seen camels being used for draft animals. It's like a lot of things you use what you have.

[Wayne]

There are other pictures of them pulling water wagons Ten or twelve hooked up. There are more hooked to the boring machine out of the picture as you can see the chain going off to the left.

[Wayne]

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These are some pictures of them digging water reservoirs using horses and Fresno's. They dug huge reservoirs and even put roofs on them. Water for a Steam Engine needs to be clean and pure if you can get it.

[spring hill bill]

Neat pictures. Apparently eight camels is about one or two horsepower.