Mary Sudik

In Oklahoma City last week, housewives took clothes in from lines, shut their windows. Industrial plants warned their firemen to be ready to bank furnaces on a moment's notice. In outlying towns men looked into the sky and cursed when a change of wind suddenly brought a downpour of fine-blown oil.

Causing all this trouble was one of the biggest gushers ever blown in, No. 1 Mary Sudik, located in the Oklahoma City field. Last fortnight it started as a mammoth gasser flowing at the rate of 200,000,000 cubic feet a day. Slowly the gas turned to oil which shot skyward completely out of control, running at the rate of more than 2,000 barrels an hour. After long labor engineers succeeded in clamping a master gate valve on the well, only to see the connections ripped apart, tossed into the air. A second attempt, however, was successful. Mary Sudik was declared conquered.

Although Indian Territory Illuminating Co., Cities Service subsidiary, will benefit from the gusher, co-benefactors will be Vince Sudik and his wife, Mary. In 1903 the Sudiks came from Nebraska, claimed and farmed the now-famed plot of land, will collect about one-eighth of the oil profits. Last week Mrs. Sudik was not on hand to see the gusher. She was visiting a hospital where her first grandchild had just been born. Said she: "My good fortune is having such a lovely granddaughter." Vince Sudik, however, announced his early retirement from active agriculture.

Especially satisfying was No. 1 Mary Sudik's performance to oilman Henry Latham Doherty, Master of Cities Service. For many years it has been the Doherty policy to back the opinion of geologists to the limit, especially when they suggest purchasing land that has been previously tried and given up. In this fashion Doherty interests developed into rich fields the Little River, Bowlegs, Seminole and Oklahoma City pools. Last week, while No. 1 Mary Sudik was still spouting, Manhattan newspapers revealed that Cities Service has again followed this method by acquiring a 51% option on North European Oil Corp. Although there was no new item to justify printing the report last week, accounts told what had been in the April issue of Fortune three weeks ago: Germany has produced some oil, mostly from surface drilling; North European Oil has been formed by Manhattan capitalists to acquire leases on some 2,000,000 acres of this land where modern deep-drilling methods can be applied. Active on the New York Produce Exchange, North European Oil last week rose from $3.95 to $5.75.

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