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For Texas Oil(Galveston Daily News, February 12, 1901) Pittsburgh Dispatch--Largest Storage Tanks in The World Hold 50,000 Barrels Each. Colonel James M. Guffey has just contracted with the Riter-Conley Manufacturing Company for five of the largest oil storage tanks ever constructed for this monster gusher in Southeastern Texas. The tanks will each have a capacity of 50,000 barrels of oil, and will be made of Pittsburgh steel and by Pittsburgh workmen. Colonel Guffey has also purchased 310,000 feet, or almost 30 miles, of pipe from the National Tube Company for the line he will construct to tidewater at Port Arthur. This line will be laid by expert oil men sent to Texas by Colonel Guffey. Over $250,000 will be spent alone on the tanks, the pipe, and the construction of the line. The new tanks will consume one thousand tons of open hearth steel that will be made in Pittsburgh. Each tank will be 120 feet in diameter and 35 feet high. These monsters will be erected on a 150-acre plot purchased by Colonel Guffey and his partner, John Galey, at Port Arthur, and in addition to them, one or two tanks, with a capacity of 25,000 barrels each will be built near the Lucas well. The Riter-Conley Company is sending complete compressed air riveting and caulking machines to Texas. All records will be broken in the construction of the tanks. A record was made in the construction of the first tank, only ten days having elapsed after the order was received until the tank sections were on their way by fast freight to the new oil field. The Riter-Conley Company will push the work through at record speed, and will send about 75 or 100 men to the field to erect the tankage. All of the fittings for the pipe line were also purchased in Pittsburgh, so that the new field is distinctly one of Pittsburgh capital, Pittsburgh ambition and Pittsburgh skill. The largest tanks heretofore made were those in the McDonald field, each of which had a capacity of 37,000 barrels of oil. The Riter-Conley Company made 49 of these alone in that field during the oil excitement a few years ago. Colonel Guffey has started four or five new wells in the immediate vicinity of the Lucas gusher. It is believed that a large field will be opened for the consumption of Pittsburgh steel and for the exercise of Pittsburgh genius. The pipe line will be composed of six, eight, and ten-inch pipe made in local mills. (comp. by W. T.Block)
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