BLACK GOLD ON THE WESTERN FRONTIER

The land Spanish explorers called "Colorado" was an untamed wilderness in the mid-nineteenth century. Yet following close on the heels of western trailblazers came pioneers of a different sort determined to tame the Wild West.

- RICHARD K. KOLB

They brought economic advancement to a region deemed worthless by their contemporaries, and no other sector of the frontier economy played a more pivotal role in this development than the mining industry.

Colorado, in fact, was born and built in a rush-a virtual mineral stampede. Gold and silver formed the foundation stones of statehood. But sandwiched between those stones was an equally valuable mineral-oil-which eventually eclipsed the others in economic importance. Oddly enough, the "Black Magic Rush" is one of the state's best kept historical secrets.

The Centennial State marked a milestone in 1987-the 125th anniversary of the Rocky Mountain West's petroleum industry. Discovery and development of the first oil field west of the Mississippi River occurred only three years after ‘’Colonel’’ Drake’s famous well launched the U.S. oil business back east in 1859.

While the country was embroiled in civil conflict, a resolute oil man heeded newspaper publisher Horace Greeley’s immortal advice, “Go West, young man.” Alexander Morrison Cassiday, one of Drake’s proteges, carried his newly acquired technical skills west to tap the region’s liquid treasure. His venture was all the more remarkable because of the circumstances under which it was undertaken.

Prospecting for and producing petroleum in the Rocky Mountain region the “Great American Desert”—was a risky business at that time. The foothills of the Eastern Slope and the adjacent high plains were inhospitable, and inhabited by warlike Indian tribes. In 1852 U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster asked, ‘What do we want of this worthless area, this region of savages and wild beasts, of shifting sands and whirlwinds of dust, of cactus and prairie dogs? To what use could we ever hope to put these great deserts and these endless mountain ranges?”