THE HISTORY OF GEOPHYSICAL PROSPECTING
PART FOURTEEN - FROM ALLIGATOR TO AUSTRALIA

Chapter 40  -  The Louisiana Land and Exploration Company

In the year 1890, Mr. Edward Wisner became interested in the agricultural possibilities of the coastal plain of Louisiana. If properly developed, he reasoned that coastal farms were bound to bring forth bumper crops. The soil was fertile, the rainfall plentiful and the labor cheap. Nature had richly endowed the area with luxuriant vegetation and excellent year-round hunting and fishing facilities. Wisner selected his lands in close proximity to one or another of the numerous waterways.

Wisner's largest land deal was with the Atchafalaya Basin Levee District. The timber lands that the Levee District had for sale were quickly bought up by the lumber interests, while the swamp and prairie areas for the most part went begging for lack of interest in their purchase. Wisner bought a quarter of a million acres for about 25 cents an acre on July 9, 1900, and he further contracted with the Levee District to take over all land that came back for unpaid taxes. The Atchafalaya Basin Levee District had no more lands for sale after the July 9th agreement with Edward Wisner. He had all the lands that remained and an option to buy all the land that was turned back. Wisner spent several years building levees and dykes. He drained the water off his land by whatever means could be devised. He constructed reservoirs and dug ditches and canals. Wisner installed pumping stations wherever they were needed.

By 1914 ten tracts out of the Wisner lands had been drained and setup into farm blocks ranging in size from a thousand to five thousand acres. With all the improvements included in the price, Wisner was getting $200 per acre. A number of blocks were in cultivation raising corn, beans, potatoes and alfalfa. William Ritchie, the father of the present Vice President of the Louisiana Land and Exploration Company, Frank M. Ritchie, was on Edward Wisner's payroll and helped him develop these model farms. Wisner died of cancer in 1914 and his farm dream died with him.

When Mr. Wisner died, some of his land went to satisfy debts he had left. The remainder went to his widow and his two daughters. Mr. Sidney P. Allen and Charles T. Knapp made a contract with Mrs. Wisner and her daughters on February 9, 1916, whereby a corporation would be formed to take title to all the properties of Mr. Wisner's estate. Mr. H. H. Timken agreed to grant a loan to said corporation, the Wisner Estate, Inc., said monies to be secured by a mortgage on all the land. Timken also settled a number of debts still outstanding against Mr. Wisner's estate. The new corporation was not a money maker and failed to pay the real estate taxes levied and imposed for the year 1919 , Mr. Timken had to pay the taxes from 1919 on. By 1922 the taxes and loans to the company had reached the sum of several million dollars and Mr. Timken knew that he must find some way of protecting his investment. Finally on November 9, 1923, Timken foreclosed the mortgages he held against the corporation thereby gaining title to the lands. Shortly after the foreclosure, Timken entered into an agreement with Edwin P. Brady, whereby Brady guaranteed to pay all of the property taxes on the land holdings until the year 1932, in exchange for the fur-trapping rights for the next ten years. Brady was also bound by contract to pay Timken 25% of the net profits from the fur-trade.

In the early 1920s, Colonel E. F. Simms of Houston, Texas, bought from the state of Louisiana, oil and gas leases on lands within the Louisiana coastal plain aggregating  1,102,600 acres. In 1924, Colonel Simms employed Dr. Johan A. Udden, Director of Economic Geology at the University of Texas, to make a geological report of this areal. Dr. Udden addressed his report to Henry M. Oliver of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, also a geologist, on March 7, 1925. Udden was quite optimistic about the possibilities of finding many new salt domes in the coastal area that Mr. Simms had under lease. He discussed at considerable length the fact that the recent use of both the torsion balance and of the seismograph to locate salt domes, had provided a much more economical means of spotting such structures than the random drilling method that had formerly been employed to search for the salt plugs.

Since Colonel E. F. Simms and Mr. H. H. Timken between them controlled a goodly portion of the Louisiana coastal plain, it was natural that they should have met and discussed the advantages of cooperation in developing the potential mineral wealth on their properties. Henry M. Oliver was instrumental in bringing together the two big property holders and Dr. Udden's report was to point the way in which they were to proceed with their joint venture. On January 19, 1926, the Border Research Corporation was organized. On February 2nd it became a Maryland corporation and on February 13, 1926, it received the lands belonging to the Wisner Estates, Inc., some 705,000 acres of fee land. At about the same time Colonel Simms 1,102,600 acres of oil and gas leases came into the possession of Border Research Corporation along with 150,000 acres of additional leaseholds. Thus the total aggregate of coastal holdings came to just under two million acres. Border Research Corporation also acquired from Mr. Simms a million and a half acres in the state of Sonoro, Mexico, close to the border and not far from Tucson, Arizona. It was from the Sonora holding that the corporation derived its name.

The first Director's meeting of Border Research was held on February 26, 1926, with the following directors in attendance; H. H. Timken, E. F. Simms, B. F. Bush, Henry M. Oliver, Sidney P. Allen and Lee Hager. B. F. Bush was elected President; H. C. Hardcastle was made Vice President; Sidney P. Allen was elected Secretary-Treasurer. Two out of the six directors were geologists, Oliver and Hager. The stock of the Border Research Corporation was distributed as follows: 1,000,000 shares to E. F. Simms, 250,000 shares to H. H. Timken and 250,000 shares to Sidney P. Allen.

Border Research hired Dr. Johan A. Udden to make another geological report and appraisal of the combined coastal holdings of the new corporation and on February 19, 1927, he again submitted his report to fellow geologist Henry M. Oliver. Dr. Udden was even more enthusiastic then he had been in his earlier report about the potential worth of the bayou and swamp country of Louisiana. In the time interval between the first Udden report and the second Udden report, March, 1925, to February, 1927; about ten Louisiana salt domes had been found by refractions and torsion balance. Dr. Udden had heard rumors about a number of these finds. Starks in Calcasieu Parish, Fausse Point in Iberia Parish and East Hackberry in Cameron Parish had been discovered by refractions and then brought into production prior to Udden's second report. Even more strongly than before, Dr. Udden recommended the use of geophysical instrumentation for the exploration of the two million acres gathered together under the Border Research name.

Border Research Corporation was to enjoy a short life of only a little more than a year before the need was feIt for a reorganization. One of the last acts of Border Research in 1927 was to hire civil engineers Frank M. Ritchie and James S. Webb to survey its coastal holdings and to begin the preparation of more accurate land maps. On May 5, 1927, Border Research Corporation changed its name to The Louisiana Land and Exploration Company, the title it holds today. Earnest B. Tracy was the first President of the L. L. and E., serving in that capacity until 1946. Mr. Frank M. DeWolfe was secured as Vice President and Chief Geologist. DeWolfe set up offices in the Esperson Building in Houston, from which he directed the exploration activities of the company.

Robert M. Youngs of New York City was the most active and enthusiastic of the original Board of Directors. The new company needed to seIl stock and Mr. Youngs was to push that sale to friends and business people in New York in a vigorous campaign. Mr. Youngs became the second President of the Louisiana Land and Exploration Company and is now serving as Chairman of the Board. The present President of the corporation is Mr. Ford M. Graham.

In Dr. Udden's 1927 report he made a conjecture as to the worth of the two million acres. To quote: "while necessarily arbitrary, if placed at fifty million dollars or more, would seem to me to be entirely conservative." It is worthy of note in passing that since the year 1962, the annual gross income from oil, gas and sulphur for the Louisiana Land and Exploration Company has exceeded fifty million dollars; so Dr. Udden's estimate was indeed conservative.

In 1927, the strong men on the Board of Directors of the Amerada Petroleum Corporation were Everette De Golyer, Alfred Jacobsen, Robert M. Youngs and Dean Mathey. This quartet was drawn into the Board of Directors of the Louisiana Land and Exploration Company. In 1927, Amerada, through its subsidiary, the Geophysical Research Corporation, had just moved to the fore in the geophysical business on the Gulf Coast. It was inevitable that GRC would be called upon to help put L. L. and E. in an enviable position in the oil business by an intensive campaign of salt dome finding by the refraction seismograph. Of that quartet of strong men, only E. L. De Golyer is gone; Jacobsen, Youngs and Mathey still retain their positions as Directors of both Amerada and of Louisiana Land.