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Carey, Red (audio interview #2 of 2)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - Red Carey was interviewed at the home of his friend, Jake Briegel, by Jake's daughter. Jake and his wife left them alone during the interview. Carey is a large man who was used to getting jobs because potential employers believed he was strong and able to do heavy work. Although he was retired, he still spoke in a strong voice and described his work in colorful language. 5/31/1978
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- 2020-10-05
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- *** File: lhowrcarey2.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-3:44)... The liner was removable. It could be taken out of the hole if the owner wanted to make the hole deeper in hopes of getting it to produce more oil. Drilling crews tried to avoid drilling into water bearing structures called "white sand;" that area is usually below the oil bearing strata. Gas bearing structures are usually above oil bearing ones and the gas pressure helps to push out the oil. There was a lot of technical work that went into the discovery process. Engineers and geologists, called "mud smellers" by the drilling crews, advised them about where to set pipe and other things. (3:44-6:09)... Signal Hill was, at the time of the interview, one of the oldest oil producing oil fields in the country. Some people claim that more money was spent on promoting the field and attracting investors than what was earned from producing the oil. The discovery well, Alamitos No. 1, was still producing at the time of the interview. Drillers have to know how to do all the jobs involved in drilling an oil well, but laborers don't. Carey always tried to learn about what was going on and asked questions about why things were done the way they were. (6:09-11:40)... Most drillers learned how to drill oil wells by working on drilling rigs. It was a challenge to manipulate tools in a hole 6" in diameter between 10,000' and 25,000' underground. Sometime drilling crews used small cameras to figure out where the hole they were drilling was really going. Sometimes underground strata forced the hole off in one direction or another. The crew could lower this little camera into the hole and use it to take a picture of a compass. Then when they pulled the picture out of the hole, they could tell which way it was going. If they wanted to control the hole's direction, they sometimes put a triangular shaped piece of metal, called a whipstock, into the hole to try to force the hole to go the way they wanted it to go. (11:40-15:39)... Sometime when an oil well was on fire a crew would drill another well nearby and use whipstocks to direct the hole toward the one that was on fire. Then they used the new hole to relieve pressure in the first one and that allowed them to put out the fire, There were control heads on top of the wells, and those were used to control the flow of oil out of a well and they could also be used to control a fire. But sometimes the fire burned them up or a gas filled well blew them out. Then the crew had to find another way to fight a fire. Sometime they used nitroglycerin to snuff out an oil well fire. Other times, cranes brought in large bells and dropped them over the burning oil well to put our the fire. Then cement was pumped in to make sure the fire stayed out (15:39-20:32)... Carey's first job was in Torrance with the Chancellor Canfield Midway Oil Company . They drilled several wells and he worked there for a year or so. It took 5 to 6 months to drill a 5000' hole. When he was working for Union Oil Company in 1928 in the Rosecrans field, it took them 61/2 months to drill 5,500' hole. Just 9 years later, in 1939, on a Superior Oil Company well, the crew set up a rig, spuded it in, drilled the well, set the casing and had it ready to produce in 17 days. Earlier drilling rigs had much less power. One unitized rig he worked on it cost $180,000 just for equipment and tools. In the early days, sometimes it took 30 days just to rig up a well. Before they had unitized rigs, they had to build the rig, bring in the pieces and bolt them in place and string up the rigging. (20:32-24:15)... Carey worked in many different oil fields; they were always hiring It was dirty and hard work and many workers didn't like the hours. Well drilling continued around the clock. Sometimes he had to work double shifts. Workers used to change shifts every 30 days. Now they change every week. He moved around to find better paying jobs. The booms lasted different lengths of time. Signal Hill had many booms; there were many oil zones and the discovery of each one sparked another boom. Sometimes drillers would be in such a hurry to complete a well that they drilled right past a strata containing oil. They used heavy drilling mud and this was an easy mistake to make. (24:15-27:27)... He worked all over California from the central valley to the Mexican border. He and his wife owned, at the time of the interview, an interest in several oil wells in Santa Ana Canyon. They have been collecting royalties of about $10 to $20 a month for 10 to 12 years. The wells produce about 300 to 440 barrels a month. When Carey's mother-in-law passed on, his wife inherited her mother's share of the wells. He notes there have been earthquakes in that area recently and hopes that may change the underground oil zones and make their wells produce more oil. (27:27-32:16)... Most of the time he worked in the oil fields, he lived in Long Beach and commuted to jobs in places like Torrance. For a while he lived in Taft and worked in Bakersfield. When he couldn't find work in the oil fields, he worked as a pile driver for about 10 years. He worked on building bridges all over and got paid extra when he lived away from home. He finally quit because he didn't like being away from home. He returned to Long Beach, in 1948, and found a job at as a pumper for Long Beach Oil Development. Eventually he became a field operator and retired after 25 years with the company But he didn't receive a pension when he retired. He would have had to work a year and a half longer to qualify for a pension but when he reached age 65, he was laid off. Had he been allowed to keep working, he would be receiving about $400 a month more from his pension. Other workers were even worse off; they were laid off 4 months before they were suppose to retire. (32:16-35:41)... Long Beach Oil Development is a consortium of companies that contracts with the City of Long Beach to produce oil from the harbor area. People who work there don't have civil service protection. The consortium brought in a lot of revenue for the City. Carey belonged to a union but the union only helped workers with wages and fringe benefits. The union didn't do anything when he was laid off because the company's action was legal. The company also had a providence fund; they matched workers' contributions. (35:41-39:01)... He worked on and off in the oil fields. If there wasn't an oil boom, he did other work. He worked in a flat glass factory for a while, as a longshoremen and in construction. He "boomed" around. Once when he was younger, he went to Arizona where his brother was working on the railroad. He found a job as an electrician wiring houses. When he returned to California, he couldn't get in the electrician's union because he didn't have enough experience. In the past, when workers were laid off there was no unemployment insurance. They had to depend on the grocery store and gas station to give them credit. (39:01-45:05)... Carey was drafted at age 37 and went into the service in 1943; he served as a combat engineer for 2 years but he was considered too old to be sent overseas. The rest of the company with which he went through 17 weeks of basic training was sent overseas, and he was left behind. In fact, he went through basic training 4 times and got many letters from soldiers who were sent to Europe. While he was in the service, he learned to say "yes sir." The worst thing about the service was that it separated him from his wife and it was monotonous. When he got our of the service, he laid around for a couple of months before going back to work. but never collected unemployment insurance. He and his wife didn't have any children so they always worked. End of tape
- SUBJECT BIO - Ivan "Red" Carey described himself as a "boomer." He worked in oil booms in southern California during the 1920s and 1930s. When he couldn't find an oil related job, he took other temporary work to support himself and his wife. After World War II, he did maintenance work for Long Beach Oil Development until that consortium laid him off before he could qualify for a pension. In this single interview, Carey talks about his early life in Phoenix before he migrated to southern California with his family. Here he found work as a laborer in the oil fields and discovered he could earn more there than his father who was an experienced teamster. So he continued working on oil wells where he learned to perform many jobs on a drilling rig and observed how the oil business changed while he was working it it. The interview was part of a project to study the impact of the discovery of oil on the development of Long Beach. TOPICS - drilling oil wells; being in the army during WWII; and working for Long Beach Oil Development;
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