About this Item
One broadsheet and two four page leaflets, mostly text with some photos. All items approximately 41 x 54 cm. Several later folds on all three pieces, presumably to enable them to be inserted in business-sized envelopes. The gist of the promotion was that Westbrook was in the process of drilling a well. A 3000 acre plot surrounding the well was set aside to be sold if the well became a producer. Westbrook was trying to sell oil leases on land "nearby" the 3000 acre plot. One of the four-page items speaks of leases at $10 per acre. The other two promote purchase of oil leases at prices ranging from $3 to $25 per acre, apparently depending on how "nearby" the leased land was to Westbrook's well-in-progress and the surrounding reserved 3000 acre block. Regardless of where the leased land was located and the per acre price of the leases, purchasers were also promised that for each acre leased they would receive 10 free bonus interests (whatever that vague term meant) in the 3000 acre plot and the well-in-progress. A lot of blue sky in the promises. A Westbrook Estate Historical Marker in Fort Worth identifies Roy A. Westbrook as having made his fortune in the Hendrick Oilfield in central Winkler County. The Texas State Historical Association (THSA) entry on the Hendrick Oilfield credits the initial discovery of that oilfield in central Winkler County to the random well drilled for Westbrook & Company which on July 16, 1926, when having reached a depth of 3,006 feet, found oil which began flowing at around 120 barrels a day. The TSHA entry goes on to say that; "The discovery well was the result of an oil-lease promotion by Roy Westbrook, a printer from Fort Worth, who had contracted with J. W. Grant, a Pennsylvania lease broker, in March 1925 to obtain leases in Winkler County. The THSA entry reports: This lot also includes two assignments of oil, gas, potash and mineral leases on a total of 20 acres of Winkler County land from R. A. Westbrook, trustee for Westbrook & Company, to the Connecticut individual who once owned these promotional pieces. The assignments are dated July 25, 1925 and May 25, 1926, both dates before that first well began producing oil in July, 1926. Leasehold purchasers were obligated to pay 50 cents per acre annual rental to R. A. Westbrook, Trustee. Failure to pay the annual rental by the due date invalidated the lease and all rights under the defaulted oil lease would automatically revert to R. A. Westbrook, Trustee, for Westbrook & Company. The lot also includes a worn carbon copy of a letter to Westbrook from the same individual buying some "additional" Westbrook and Company stock." Controlling interest in the discovery well and a total of 1,440 acres of checkerboard leases were sold after the well began producing oil to Southern Crude Oil Purchasing Company, a subsidiary of Standard Oil Company of Indiana, by Westbrook for $510,000 on November 22, 1926. " The checkerboard of leases sounds like something designed to ensure control of much of the field by the Standard Oil Subsidiary. It seems clear that Westbrook became wealthy out of his wildcatting success and, perhaps even more from his sale of oil lease. It remains unclear to us whether our investor, or any of the other small investors in such ventures, made much of anything out of such oil leases and the vaguely defined, but probably quite modest when actually spelled out, beneficial interests in a well and a surrounding plot even when the well strikes oil, as here. Seller Inventory # 93438
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