OLD HOME POEM: Before we leave Bradford’s celebration of the
discovery of oil, we have another piece of poetry written as part
of Old Home Week during August of 1909.
This poem was published in The Era on Aug. 2, 1909. It’s so
long, we have to run it over two days.
Today’s half:
“When seated on the hotel porch, the natives used to tell
How Kennedy, Walker and Solomon had struck a famous well.
The Croaker well, near Tarport, we were given to understand,
Would probably be a gusher when she got into the sand.
How well she gushed, it matters not, but this we all do
know.
She set the boys to thinking in the oil fields down below.
Now a rush was made to Bradford by the oil-producing band,
To get the gravity of the oil, likewise to test the sand.
Prolific was not the term they used when speaking other
production;
They booker for a little pool, quickly doomed to
destruction.
The village was not the city as we see it here today.
With streets all paved and buildings erected for to stay.
For Main Street was a puddle of mud with danger marks
galore.
To guide the traveler from the spots where you’d find him
nevermore.
The Bradford House, located where the waiting room now
stands,
Was crowded to its utmost with the oil-producing bands.
For this was then the only house to feed the coming throng;
But sad, alas, she met her fate and remained not very long.
Quintuple Hill was barren, not a well was thereupon.
To grace its lofty height and add lustre to the town;
But all at once the scene was changed, like mushrooms in a
night,
The hill was covered from end to end as derricks rose in
sight.
The Tuna was a horrid thing, when the town she would
disgrace,
When backing up, her waters from the Douglass mill dam race.
And covered all the streets so deep that boats could glide
about,
That water within the houses flowed that drove the inmates
out.
The Erie was the only road to bring you into town,
Her cars were not the slickest, nor her service just renown.
The depot was a stopping place, no truer words are said.
Than it was not good for man or beast, it simply was a
shed.”
