EUREKA OIL: “After you work in the Pennsylvania oilfields for a
specified time, they completely drain your blood and give you a
transfusion with freshly pumped crude oil. Then when you leave
Bradford, that old aroma will keep you from getting homesick and
ex-Bradfordians will know where you’re from.”
So says Roscoe Brown of Bradford, who did a long stint himself
in the Pennsylvania oilfields. He also wrote this great poem:
“I’d like to tell a story
If you folks would be so kind
of the oil fields of Bradford
near the New York-Pennsy line.
A fellow named Job Moses
thought he’d drill a wildcat well
He gathered up a string of tools
I’ve heard the old folks tell
A flimsy makeshift standard rig
was used to drill the hole
They fired up the boiler
and the wheels began to roll.
He drilled into the Bradford sand
The oil started flowing
And from that very moment, folks,
Bradford started growing.
People came from far and wide
to reap the golden crop
The oil poured like magic
They thought t’would never stop.
There came drillers and tool dressers
And some painted ladies, too,
Also roustabouts and teamsters
They were a motley crew.
There were men to build the derricks
And men to build the tanks
They were all hard-working people
And didn’t get much thanks.
There were lots of ways to gamble
Everybody had a chance
Yesterday you were a millionaire
Today you lost your pants.
East Bradford, known as Tarport,
was an evil, wicked place
Had the devil come to visit
He’d have covered up his face.
The hillside rang with music
of drill bits being dressed
One-lung engines banging loudly
from the East and from the West.
Hark! hear that lonesome whistle
of the old BB&K.
As it rolls down Hawkens Hollow
at the closing of the day.
Generations made a living
On that treasure from below
It came to be a way of life
It’s really all we know.
There’ve been many times in history
When the future looked quite grim
But we always struggled back again
with vigor and with vim.
Today, though, things are different,
And I feel we’re near the end
The cards are stacked against us
and we haven’t got a friend.
Our government’s relentless
They’ve tied us with red tape
So is there any wonder
That we’ve gotten in such shape.”
