News-Press from Fort Myers, Florida • Page 5

FORT MYERS (Fla.) NEWS-PRESS. Sunday, Aug. 2S, 1949 World's First Oil VJell Is Revived By Salting With Crude for Ceremony 14 lis Irt Homes Collapse In Palm Beach Titusville, Aug. 27 JP) Has All Your ties as an illuminating material were suspected by capitalists was Drake hired by a New York and New Haven, group to drill Central Florida Citrus Belt Hit Stunning Blow Loss Estimated at 20 Million Boxes In Record Disaster Western civilization faces its greatest challenge from "godless. (Continued from Pace One) cynical, grasping materialistic ocean between the Joseph Widener estate and the Lake Worth Casino.

for oil. Marxist communism, Navy Sec CrUAAl CMDDMCC retary Francis P. Matthews de Adopting the technique of salt A nearly completed cabana and clared today at the oil industry's well drillers, Drake used handmade tools and invented the method of 90th birthday celebration. pool at the Palm Beach Biltmore Hotel collapsed. Giant slabs of con Matthews told a shntsleeved casing a well hole that is in use crete were hurled onto the imma crowd gathered around the world's first oil well that: culate lawns at crazy angles.

today. Other practices he developed also remain standard drilling procedure. Some 5,000 people who had taken "The outcome of the new con flict of ideologies depends upon Drake's discovery brought a refuge in 48 Red Cross refugee centers returned to their homes. The Red Cross said as far as is us. We can favorably resolve ev if en that issue if we so desire and are ready to pay the price for so known there are no homeless cases here.

rush to western Pennsylvania that exceeded the California gold rush of 1849. Millions were made in oil and scores of sleeping farm villages awoke to a boomtown ex precious a victory." "We must neither hesitate nor Huge Flane Wreckage At the West Palm Beach air falter in our search for peace," he ports tied to concrete aprons were swept away. Some of them apparently rose on the 150-mile gusts fcr a little gliding without a crew oi engine. The howling wind tore so furiously at the hangar that it twisted steel posts. When they wouldn't break it pulled them out with a big alab of concrete foundation, too.

The posts fell to one side like a folded newspaper. In Lake Worth, a double window in a third-floor apartment bedroom smashed and 'the bed was sucked out the window by the vicious wind. It landed a block away. Doors and sheets of metal and wood sailed through the air. Boxcar Blown Away At Delray Beach, a solid steel boxcar, loaded with lumber, was blown off the tracks and the freight station shed collapsed.

Three of the four radio stations in Palm Beach County had their towers blown down by fierce gusts and went off the air. They were WEAT, WIRK and WNAO. A lourth station, WMFG, operated throughout the storm. One house in Lake Worth had its entire back wall shorn by the hurricane, exposing the kitchen. A 52-foot cruiser broke lose from its moorings in Lake Worth at West Palm Beach and pounded into several pieces against a concrete sea wall.

Sofas, chairs and other furniture were washed about 200 feet inland by high waves. Another larger cabin cruiser grounded in shallow water on Lake Worth. port 16 big transport planes and istence. The man who started it all drill added, "no matter how long the 24 private aircraft were wrecked. road or roueh the way.

We have A metal and concrete hangar was ed another well but did not become a big producer and never learned through the operations of the Truman doctrine, the Marshall destroyed. It fell into a twisted, 40-foot junk heap, adorned by wreck made important money. He left nln and the Atlantic" pact that we ed planes. Titusville for New York in 1863, lost his health and died as a pen can hold off aggression if we de C-46 transport planes, weighing sioner of the state of Pennsylvania. Folks in Titusville still like to tell how Drake gained his title as about 17,000 pounds each, were ripped from their moorings and tossed over, the field and out of it.

One landed a quarter of a mile colonel. When he was hired by monstrate firmness of purpose and adequate military strength to back up our foreign policy." "Black Gold" Again A crowd of some 3,000 townsmen in this western Pennsylvania oil center, oilmen from all parts of the country, and state officials saw the original well start pumping the Seneca Oil Co. to drill the first away. BIS REASONABLY PRICED Zipper Ring Boolts 2, 3 and 6-ring Notebooks All sizes and types Notebook Paper "Eye Ease" and White Subject Indexes Parker, Sheaffer, Carter, Waterman, Sanford Inks Dictionaries Construction Paper Drawing Paper Poster Board Tempera Paint Finger Paint Textile Paint Crayolas Chalk Blackboards Fountain Pens, Ball Point Pens and Pencils -all kinds well, the promoters of the scheme Damage to buildings and planes at the field was estimated at more addressed his mail to "Colonel E. L.

Drake," hoping the fictitious than $5,000,000. title would give their representa Only one steel post remained tive more standing among "black gold" again. upright at one hangar. Sheets of metal and twisted planes pyramided against the post. Near the top, one private plane lay spread- (Continard from Page One) boxes of citrus are on the ground, the paper said.

In Pinellas County, which specializes in grapefruit, A. J. Grant, veteran Dunedin grower, said "loss is very heavy." Pinellas growers and packers generally feared the loss top 10 per cent. This area was not in the direct path of the hurricane. Many citrus trees were uprooted.

The extent of the damage probably will not be known for days. Apparently the principal damage to the early orange crop will be in scar damage although trees here lost considerable fruit. Lakeland Hard Hit Storm damage in the Lakeland area was very high. All power except a downtown underground cable was off. Telephones were out throughout the city.

At least a dozen streets were blocked with fallen palms and giant oaks. Electric power poles and lines were down over the entire city. City officials estimated it will take days to restore electric current to homes and some business areas. Western Union was operating from the office of the Lakeland Ledger. The newspaper is served by the underground cable.

It was the city's only communication with the outside. Lakeland's'downtown Munn Park was a shambles. Debris was everywhere. Some six or more plate glass windows were smashed in downtown stores. Hundreds of trees were uprooted.

The winds ripped huge advertising signs from anchors. Hundreds of homes were unroofed or partially so. City Building Inspector Walter Ruby said tremendous damage was done to homes as water poured through. A gust hit one brick building housing a half dozen storerooms on East Main Street and virtually demolished it. No injuries have been reported.

eagled like a cross. Another plane wrapped itself around the top of the post like an apple sticking on a knife. The C-46's were being converted from army to civilian transports. One plane landed in a canal. Another was ripped down the back BOB SWETT PAINTING DECORATING Phone 1271J Royal Portable Typewriter 79.50 plus tax Easy Terms Arranged from the pilot's cabin to the ta.l as if with a can opener.

In all, 16 out of the 17 trans- Huge Packing Houses Wrecked in Glades (Continued from Pace One) ings not too far removed from the shanties of yesteryear. Somehow they got by with it. Only three were treated at hospitals. Some here believe that about 90 per cent of all wooden houses suffered some varying degree of damage. This may be an exaggeration but the loss will be stupendous.

Packing houses, with which the area abounds, will add further to the toll. Their wreckage varies from stripped roofs to tangled disintegration. The crop loss will be small, only because it was still too early to plant vast fields of vegetables. Sugar Cane Flattened Only the sugar cane stood high above the muck as a target for the roaring gales. That is beaten and flattened.

Sugar cane sometimes WHAT'S YOUR Heavy Weight of Responsibility? The well was drilled on Saturday, Aug. 27, 1859, by Col. Edwin L. Drake, a New England train conductor who turned oilman. The few barrels of petroleum produced that day founded an industry that has spread to 26 states.

More than 31,000,000,000 barrels of crude have been produced since Drake brought in his well. On the 90th anniversary of Drake's feat, his grand-daughter pressed a button from the speakers stand that started simulated reactivation of the original well. The 69 4 -foot-deep well has long since given up its store of petroleum but oil officials deposited several barrels of crude in the casing for today's reactiviation. While spectators'watched inside the tiny, unpainted, wooden enclosed engine house of the derrick, a slow flow of crude rose out of the well hole. A flight of 60 naval fighter planes from Akron, and the Truculent Turtle, famed navy distance flight airplane, tfwooped over the gathering in the Drake Memorial Park just outside Titusville.

At a luncheon session, Sen. Andrew F. Schoeppel (R-Kan) told guests "our standard of living and what we call 'our American way of life, is in a large degree built upon the availability of petroleum and its products." Drake's well did not provide the first crude petroleum. It had been found elsewhere in Pennsylvania and New York in springs, wells and on stream surfaces. Early settlers used it far medicine and liniment.

Not until petroleum's possibili- Get All Your School Supplies at Parker Book Store 2233 Hsndry St. Phone 193 LET FAMILY LOAN HELP YOU NOW! comes back from considerable of a whipping. Maybe it will do it Bogus Bill Discovered In Miami Police Till again this time but it looks bad. Much of the wreckage looks like what navy ships and planes did to Yes, in time of need a loan can he such a big help. At Family Loan we've made it as easy as possible for you to get a loan on furniture, auto or your signature.

Stop in soon! Family Loan Co. T. H. La Fountain, Mgr. 2130 Hendry Street Phone 601 otherwise pretty Pacific islands before the marines went ashore.

In the strip between Belle Glade to the south and on up the Okeechobee road to the place where the bridges washed away, most of the packing houses are wrecks. In Miami, Aug. 27. (P) A counterfeit $10 bill turned up today in the cash drawer of the Miami police department jail. And it fitted the description of a bill listed as bogus in a circular on Police Sgt.

B. D. Rumpf's desk. Rumpf, who discovered the bogus bill, said he is sure it wasn't there when he went off duty at 10:30 pm "Friday. some the toppled beams and ripped sheets of galvanized iron are woven into new machinery just in stalled.

As with the houses, there's no apparent reason to what collapsed or what stood. Some rusted old-timers will be open for business as usual. Some nice, new Young eels are so transparent that printed matter could be read through their bodies. pretty structures of sheet alumi num are a mess. A kid-construct ed shanty high in a tree near Canal rff Emergency Service Phone 70 Tire-Battery Service anywhere Black's Standard Service Foot of Edison Bridge Air Force Expansion Backed by Senate Washington, Aug.

27 Congress today approved plans for an ultimate vast expansion of the air force but how soon the record peacetime air fleet will be built remained unanswered. The senate by unanimous consent passed the so-called 70-group air force bill which previously was okayed by the house. Changes were made which will send the bill back to the house. Today's action did not, however, restore an $800,000,000 slash in the air force's appropriation voted early by the senate. The bill instead merely provided authority for the military to buy when congress agrees to put up the money all aircraft deemed necessary to bring the air arm up to the 70-group level.

How soon this goal might be reached was something only con II EM0DEL Point is unsullied. Another Incongruity Another marked incongruity is in evidence "just down the road. The Rev. R. E.

White moved in here last week from Panama City with wife and six children to take over the wooden structure that is both the parsonage and place of worship for the Church of God. They intended to sit it out there last night but neighbors persuaded them to go to a shelter. The place of worship and the parsonage is reduced to kindling wood and finer. It looks like a pile of jackstraws. And not too distant is a far more flimsy house occupied by a fellow reputed to be a gambler and shun-ner of honest toil.

He didn't lose as much as a pane of glass. EPAIRS onfy a CAevroet wff satisfy me I know it gives more V'n, pmj I 111 R. J. WHITAKER General Contractor P.O. Box 1903, Fort Myers Tor my TILE WORK Bnh Kitchen tuarry Tile Window Silln 25 yenrs exprrlenre Inauret proper installation P.

E. ARCHEY P. O. Bos gress can answer since funds for expansion must come from the air force's annual appropriation. 'mmmmmmmmmmmmmMmmMmSSSSSSLm MSattBaB FOUND DEAD IN HOTEL Miami Beach, Aug.

27. () Jamea Terry, 45, refrigeration engineer' from Detroit, wag found You're longest, hiavimt car in entitled to these FlllD with WIDI" TRMD FISHER UNISTEEL BODY CONSTRUCTION aead in a hotel room here today. CERTI-SAFE HYDRAULIC BRAKES CURVED WINDSHIELD with PANORAMIC VISIBILITY EXTRA ECONOMICAL TO OWN OPERATE MAINTAIN WORLD'S CHAMPION VALVE-IN-HEAD ENGINE 5-INCH WIDE-BASE WHEELS PLUS LOW-PRESSURE TIRES FISHER BODY STYLING AND LUXURY Damomher! For EXTRA VALUES exclusive to Chevrolet in its field! Grand Army Plans Final Encampment Indianapolis, Aug. 27 boys in blue, with dimmed memories of '65, came to Indianapolis today for a "final" encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic, "Yes, this will be the last," said Theodore A. Penland, Vancouver, GAR commander-in-chief.

"The boys are getting so feeble," the old Civil War veteran added a little sadly, "They'Ve got to stay at home and take care of themselves." The 100-year -old commander, veteran of the army of the Potomac, was the first to arrive among the six expected for the meeting. Wheelchairs were on hand to carry the commander and Albert Woolson, 102-year-old chief of staff, from Duluth, who arrived on another train 10 minutes later this afternoon. By agreement of the si veterans at the 1948 encampment in Grand Rapids. this is to be the GAR's last get-together. After CENTER-POINT STEERING AND IT'S THE LOWEST PRICED LINE IN ITS FIELD! Momes, Commercial Buildings And AH mher Structures- TH MOST BEAUTIFUL AV rtL rp BUT OF ALU "READY-MIX" CONCRETE IS Tha luxe 4-Ooor Sda jnext Wednesday night's "camp-i fire" reminiscences, the grand army that once had 408,489 mem-i bers will be a mere scattered hand-jful of veterans.

1 Not evervone is sure that this 'actually will be the last GAR meeting, though it is being proclaimed so on a special postage stamp. I Charles L. Chappel of Long i Beach, told homefolks he'd "be proud to be the last com-j mander," Unless another eneamp-! ment is planned. Commander Pen-land made it clear there'll be no I election of new officers here. The 102-year-old Califomian has advanced to the senior vice com-i mander's post in the past year through the death of three other i national officers.

If he should out-i live Penland, Chappel would become commander. He expected to arrive here, by plane tomorrow. HURRICANE PROOF FORT MYERS READY-MIXED CONCRETE, INC. Union and S. Jackson- Phone 1053 Plants in Fort Myers Naples Chevrolet ComDanv Hough 1922 Hendry St.

Phones 93 and 797.