PLEASE BE SURE TO HIDE THE CACHE WELL - ESPECIALLY DURING
HUNTING SEASON.
The "Hunt For The Wolfe" will take you to what's left of an old
Wolfe drilling rig from the early 1900's. As you'll find out, it's
in pretty rough shape, having been abandoned on its last job many
years ago, working over an old oil well that was drilled into the
1st Venango Sand. Initial cache content includes souvenirs and
memorabilia from the Drake Well Museum.
More information on the Wolfe Rig, with pictures, is available
on this site:
http://www.petroleumhistory.org/OilHistory/pages/Portable/wolfe.html
Wolfe Rig
Research by David Weber, Pleasantville, Pennsylvania, provided
some of the following information on the popular Wolfe rig. An
article on the subject was published by the American Association of
Petroleum Geologists in a 1989 guidebook (Pees, ed.)
Linden W. Wolfe, an oil producer in the Oil City area, put
together his ideas on a light weight, portable cable tool drilling
machine in the opening years of the 20th century. Of course there
were a number of makes of portable rigs already on the scene, but
Wolfe was rightly positioned in the middle of oil country and was
able to quickly cater to local demand. L.W. Wolfe manufactured his
Venango Portable Drilling Machines in Sugarcreek Borough, Venango
County, Pennsylvania (near Oil City). The drillers simply called
them Wolfe rigs. Hundreds were sold and many were used in the
Venango County area.
There were two kinds, the regular cable tool drilling machines
and the smaller spudder, the latter being used for workovers,
clean-outs or drilling the surface hole. The Wolfe rig had a wooden
walking beam and a folding wooden ladder-type mast. They were
pulled to the well location by tractors or horses. It was said that
a Wolfe rig could be set up on a well site in one day. The operator
could use steam, gas or gasoline engines to work the rig. A leather
belt connected the skid-mounted engine to the drilling machine.
There were two sizes of Wolfe drilling machines. Type A would
spool 1200 feet of manila rope. Type B, the largest, could spool
2000 feet of rope. The use of wire cable instead of manila rope
would allow extra depth capacity for both types of rigs.
These rigs were sales-pitched with the usual kind of slogans:
"The most practical machine for all drilling purposes and
cleaning-out purposes." "It will do the work as the work ought to
be done."
The development of portable steel spudding and drilling machines
such as the Bucyrus-Erie truck rig, eventually made portable wooden
walking beam drilling rigs obsolete. L.W. Wolfe continued to build
his portable rigs until the great depression of the 1930's. Wolfe
rigs can still be found deserted in the early oil belt. Oilmen have
told the author fascinating tales of their younger days working on
the Wolfe rigs. Those big wooden wheels still make a memorable
impression even though the abandoned rigs are slowly sinking and
rotting away.