Salt Creek - A Wyoming Giant and a Cast of Characters

Abstract

The history of Salt Creek Field in central Wyoming covers more than 160 years. In 1851 Cyrus Iba, on his way to the California gold fields, visited Jackass Springs, an oil seep which emigrants to Oregon and California used for axle grease. Cy Iba returned to Jackass Springs in 1883 and began staking claims under the Placer Mining Act of 1872. In 1886 Samuel Augey, the Wyoming Territory geologist, mapped the Salt Creek surface anticline. Based on the Augey report, the Schoonmaker group from New York staked claims, dug shafts, and was awarded a patent covering 320 acres near the apex of the anticline, including Jackass Springs. The discovery well for Shannon Field on the far northern flank of the Salt Creek anticline was drilled in 1889-90 by Phillip M. Shannon. In 1896 Wilbur C. Knight in Bulletin Number One Petroleum Series for the University of Wyoming mapped the anticline and reported on the Shannon production and refinery in Casper. The discovery well for Salt Creek Field, the Dutch No. 1, was drilled in December 1908. For the next decade promoters, scoundrels, schemers, dreamers, and oilmen staked claims, jumped others’ claims, and drilled wells on the anticline. In 1910 a group of businessmen from Colorado Springs CO and Paris, France formed Midwest Oil Company, which ultimately developed and operated the field. It had already produced more than 700 million barrels of oil when Anadarko bought Salt Creek in 2004 and initiated one of the world’s largest CO2 recovery projects. Today FDL LLC operates the field and anticipates it will produce for another forty years.

AAPG Datapages/Search and Discovery Article #90357 ©2019 AAPG Rocky Mountain Section Meeting, Cheyenne, Wyoming, September 15-18, 2019