Appalachian History

(continued from yesterday...)

Gib Morgan never wrote down his tall tales before he died. But in the hands of two early 20th century men, working independently of each other, and with different motives, the real life of Gilbert Morgan of Callensburg, PA, created Gib Morgan, the myth.

Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio oil field workers picked up Morgan's stories and retold them after 1900 in the Texas, Oklahoma, California and Illinois oil fields. Subsequently they came to the attention of Mody Boatright, a University of Texas professor active in the Texas Folklore Society from 1943 to 1964.


Boatright compiled 51 tales reputed to have been told by Morgan into the folklore study Gib Morgan, Minstrel of the Oil Fields. The 1945 publication was the first of its kind to study the impact of the oil industry upon the folklore and the folkways of the American people. It won Boatright national recognition as a folklorist.

Meantime, back at the turn-of-the-century, traveling salesmen for the Red River Lumber Company of Bemidji, MN (which probably supplied rig timbers to California and Illinois oil fields) had also heard Morgan’s tall tales. Many oil field workers, who knew the Morgan stories, simultaneously went to work for the Red River Lumber Company’s logging camps and sawmills (in California and Minnesota).

In 1914, Archie D. Walker, secretary of the Red River Lumber Company, employed his cousin William B. Laughead, a former lumberjack turned free-lance advertising man, to develop an advertising campaign for the sale of lumber produced in his company's new Westwood, CA mill. Most of his buyers at that time purchased soft white pine, traditionally harvested on the east coast, and were apprehensive about the quality of the wood grown in the west.

Walker wanted an imaginative advertising campaign which would catch the interest of prospective buyers, while reassuring them that west coast timber was indeed of good quality. Walker urged Laughead to incorporate the Paul Bunyan folk myths into the advertising campaign, hoping that the use of such an unusual gimmick would spur the company's sales.

Frontispiece illustration of Paul Bunyan, by William Laughead, from "Paul Bunyan and His Big Blue Ox" pamphlet.

Laughead developed a series of postcard-size pamphlets in which Paul Bunyan tales and cartoons of the character he'd drawn accompanied the Red River Lumber Company's ad for its goods and services. Some of these tales were based on Laughead's recollections of stories he had heard --Gib Morgan's stories--ten years earlier in a Minnesota lumber camp.

A total of three advertising pamphlets for the company were sent to prospective buyers within the industry during the 1910s and 1920s. Introducing Mr. Paul Bunyan of Westwood Cal. was published in 1914. Tales About Paul Bunyan, Vol. II rolled off the press two years later.

Few buyers, apparently, appreciated Walker and Laughead's efforts, and most threw away the Red River Lumber Company advertisements. And thus, first editions are scarce. Those that do remain are rare collectors' items due to the immense popularity of Laughead's third pamphlet, published in 1922.

The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan was really a revamped version of Laughead's first work. Although intended for the same specialized audience of lumbermen, this booklet unexpectedly had a much more far-reaching impact on society at large. The popularity of a lengthy review of the pamphlet appearing in the Kansas City Star served to introduce the legendary folk hero to the general public.

The instant success of the work necessitated the reproduction of new editions for years to follow, culminating in 1944 with the Thirtieth Anniversary Edition. It was occasionally given other titles in subsequent reproductions, one of the most common being Paul Bunyan and His Big Blue Ox.

William B. Laughead, through his Red River Lumber ad pamphlets, created much of the Paul Bunyan canon we're familiar with today. Gib Morgan's tall tales are an integral part of that culture.

And Sistersville? Make a point to visit it in September to attend the WV Oil and Gas Festival. The Gib Morgan Wrench Throwing Contest is a highlight.


sources: www.oil150.com/essays/2008/09/emlentons-lumber-industry-was-intertwined-with-oil-production-and-traditions
http://oilstorieshistories.blogspot.com/
www.foresthistory.org/ead/Laughead_William_B.html
www.wvculture.org/shpo/nr/pdf/tyler/75001899.pdf
www.marietta.edu/~crowthes/sishistory.html
Gib Morgan, Minstrel of the Oil Fields, Mody C. Boatright, ed., Dallas: Texas Folklore Society, 1966
Handbook of American Folklore, by Richard Mercer Dorson, Indiana University Press, 1986
Folksongs and Their Makers, by Henry Glassie, Edward D. Ives, Popular Press, 1971


Gib+Morgan Sistersville+WV appalachia +history+of+appalachia appalachian+history

Sistersville, WV mushroomed into a boom town overnight with the discovery of oil there in 1891. The rural village of 300 people suddenly had to house 15,000 souls from the massive influx of oil men, drillers, leasers, speculators, camp followers, floaters, wild-catters, and hangers-on. By the end of 1892 164 wells and 55 drilling stages were producing up to 20,500 barrels of oil a day.

A 1936 article from the Cincinnati Enquirer ranked the Ohio River town of Sistersville as one of the wickedest turn-of-the-century towns:

"Houses were even torn down to make room for a drilling derrick. Shacks and tents were thrown together to help house the people; houseboats lined the river banks on both sides of a mile or more up and down the river--moored so closely that one could walk by stepping from one to the other without going ashore--and helping to feed and sleep the people and at the same time furnishing liquor, amusement and entertainment of every kind to suit the taste of those seeking it, for nearly every houseboat was a speakeasy, gambling room or worse.

"Saloons, gambling houses and theaters sprang up over night. One popular saloon was burned down during the night during the Hey-Day and early the following morning before the ruins had cooled and ceased smoking the erection of another building on the site commenced."

Enter Gilbert 'Gib' Morgan.

Gib Morgan (1842-1909) was a tool dresser, driller, roustabout and pipe-line laborer. He was never a rich man, he never owned an oil company, he could hardly be considered important at all, except for one thing. Gib Morgan was a brilliant story teller.

Wherever he went, this gypsy oil man carried his stories with him, and left a little piece of himself behind before moving on. We know some of his stories today, both under his own name, and as a portion of the Paul Bunyan tales.

Gib Morgan was already getting noticed during the Civil War for his yarns while a private in the Tenth Pennsylvania Infantry. Because of poor organization at the war department, his company was hunkered down in the same location for months. To help keep up his comrades' spirits, he passed the time with stories.

Morgan returned home to Emlenton, PA in June, 1864, and began working steadily in Pennsylvania's Venango County oil fields. He married Mary Ritchey, and they had three children. It was not until his young wife died and their children were adopted out that Gib Morgan began wandering from oil field to oil field.

Oil field crewmen used huge wrenches in the backbreaking work of connecting steam lines or laying pipeline. It was dangerous, it was exhausting, but a drink from the saloon and a trip to the local house of ill repute would ease the pain. As would the levity and camaraderie provided by men like Gib Morgan.

Photo caption: First Oil Well Drilled in the Great Sisterville Field, Tyler County, W. Va. Taken 1907.

By the time the Pole Cat Well (pictured above) blew the lid off Sistersville, Morgan had worked fields in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, and his 30 years of tale-telling had earned him the nickname 'Minstrel of the Oil Fields.' In the stories he spoke of himself in third person, as in the following tall tale from the boomtimes in Sistersville:

"When he was in West Virginia, Gib Morgan, more as an accommodation to his friends than anything else, put up a boarding house for oil field workers."

Then word gets out about his delicious buckwheat cakes, and he draws so many oil field workers he’s forced to develop mass production methods:

"He bought a dozen of the largest concrete mixers and steam engines to turn them…Into these mixers his workmen dumped flour and milk and eggs…[the batter] was turned into a pipe line leading to the kitchen. The griddles were bottoms of 43,000-barrel oil tanks, each heated by a gas well underneath it…Seven big strapping men skimmed over the hot surface of each griddle continuously [on sides of bacon fat under their feet]…followed by another crew who handled the batter hoses…

"Another crew with shovels turned the cakes…a fourth took them up and tossed them to the waiters…Melted butter and maple syrup flowed through pipes along the half-mile counters, and at each seat were spigots from which the customer drew…Gib fed twenty-five thousand oil field workers at a time…[He] had to put up a sign: ONLY DRILLERS AND TOOL DRESSERS FED HERE."

(continued tomorrow...)


sources: www.oil150.com/essays/2008/09/emlentons-lumber-industry-was-intertwined-with-oil-production-and-traditions
http://oilstorieshistories.blogspot.com/
www.foresthistory.org/ead/Laughead_William_B.html
www.wvculture.org/shpo/nr/pdf/tyler/75001899.pdf
www.marietta.edu/~crowthes/sishistory.html
Gib Morgan, Minstrel of the Oil Fields, Mody C. Boatright, ed., Dallas: Texas Folklore Society, 1966
Handbook of American Folklore, by Richard Mercer Dorson, Indiana University Press, 1986
Folksongs and Their Makers, by Henry Glassie, Edward D. Ives, Popular Press, 1971


Gib+Morgan Sistersville+WV appalachia +history+of+appalachia appalachian+history