BOOM AND BUST!

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22491, 27 August 1938, Page 21

BOOM AND BUST!

When Calgary Struck Oil

(SPECIAI.I.T -WBITTBN FOB THE PBESS.)

IBy A.WJJ

THEY don't have racehorses in western Canada —at least they did not in my day, and as far as I know it is still "virgin territory!" But they do have excellent substitutes. Among others, gambling on wheat futures and poker were two hot favourites ever ready to relieve Canadians of their surplus Occasionally our Canadian cousins emulate their sharp-witted friends across the border and "go for the big stuff." It was in the early spring of 1914 that as the veriest of unskilled, unemployed labourers, I roamed the streets of Calgary, Alberta's thriving railroad centre. I was in company with two other New Zealanders. Both were betterendowed with cash than myself, and this brings me to the point of my story—Calgary was staging an oil boom. Perhaps it was envy of the good folk of Texas and Oklahoma that was the moving spirit behind the promotion of this boom—it was, as subsequent events proved, certainly not oil. Seepages of oil were reported on a ranch a few miles out of Calgary, and overnight the city was in the throes of an oil boom. And such a boom. The printing presses worked overtime turning out gilt-printed share certificates by the hundred thousand. Option "hounds" scoured the surrounding country and secured first refusal on almost every property within a day's ride of the "strike," which by this time had (if the truth were then only known) reached its maximum production of about eight barrels a day. Calgary in those days was submerged in the slough of depression. Every second shop and office was vacant. Rapid Company Promotion A horde of slick company promoters swept down on the town, and inside of a week there were no empty premises. They had all been converted into bucket shops. There were scores of them, each staffed by high-pressure salesmen, unloading the gold bricks on to the public. Touts stood outside each office, and if the passer-by so much as faltered in his gait these gentry

almost dragged him into their lair. Once they were inside a parcel of share certificates inevitably changed hands. Having been sadly bitten in my early youth by an unfortunate oil promotion scheme in Taranaki. I alone, it seemed, was not impressed. My two companions were. Indeed, I strained our friendship to the breaking point in my endeavours to steer them past one of the innumerable bucket shops, each emblazoned with posters depicting the millions to be made by investing in oil in one or other of the multitude of companies by this time floated. Every company, it seemed, had struck oil in payable quantities. How else could one account for the pictures—actual photographs at that —which embellished the prospecThe face value of shares was only a few cents—five, if my memory serves me—and to possess several thousand of the beautifully printed scrip invested the average westerner with a high sense of commercial standing. Markets were rigged, and 5 cent shares in certain companies reached as many dollars in almost as many minutes. This broke down the last resistance of those who had been inclined to hold back. Everybody was in—boots and claws! The wells continued to gusli—on paper. Weeks passed, till the whole of western Canada was flooded with oil scrip. Millions of dollars changed hands for shares. Calgary rose to the occasion and built an imposing stock exchange, costing tens of thousands of dollars. Then, overnight, the panic set in. The boom had burst. An avalanche of unwanted scrip inundated the exchange. Emulating the Arabs, the bucket shop proprietors folded their tents and departed for fresh fields. Calgary was left lamenting with scores of empty shops and thousands of empty pockets. And when everything was washed up it transpired that the Calgary oilfields comprised that one "gusher" yielding about eight barrels a day. To this day travellers in parts of western Canada are wont to comment on the mural decorations of ) many of the "little grey homes in the west," the main theme of which is provided by gilt-printed share certificates.