RUSH TO OIL LANDS ON ALASKAN COAST.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 15223, 22 May 1920, Page 5

RUSH TO OIL LANDS ON ALASKAN COAST.

■ ~ tn> ■ ■ SEATTLE,'^ March 31.— Hundreds of oil cairns, ■embracing thuusanda of acret of iaiid along "the Alaskan coast, from Mount ' St. liliaji on the boundary line Of Yukon Territory to the Alaska penr insula ■m the"* west, have been stakec ,by locators m the fe\y weeks, since President Wilson' signed' the coai and. oil 'jian^d ' leasing' measure,. _siccordihg.- to re./rioifis 'from Seward, Cordova, Anchorage and otheiv. cities i\i the North.; . „ News of the Bill's signing, eagerly awaited for weeks, . started a 'stampede that "old-timers" said rivalled the golc rushes of earlier days. ■ SewarcT starnpe.de.rs flocked to the oil 1 regions of flu Kenai peninsula, to Cold Bay On tlu Shelikof strait, and..»fco other, districtf. along ..the south-western coast, v Pron Cordova > the rush was m t^he directidn of Katalla and Yakataga, at the. base, of tho Bering and Molaspina- glaciers. Eleborate pi'eparations had been made to. relay word ""that the Bill had' been I signed. At Kodiak, locators were noti-' ifed by wireless from; 'Seward j ~ and left m- gas boats that had be^n chartered for, \veeks, }joun^"for.,the. oil regipiis. Oordovans, also; had ,Jsep£ high powered launches unfier charter, that, no time migivt he lost m making. ' locaition^. . Vyhjl^ many ; indications, of rich oil deposits had' been found along the coast, the only development of any importance had ' ; beeni at Katalla, where an ' 'Erigiish Company" drilled • j into oil anrJ secured ' a fractional claim of about 54 acres. Discouraged, by conservation orders from Washington, the company after expending nearly; , half -, , a million dollars 'm drilling and. development) abandoned work and sold. out to a hold-, ing company. A nujrjber. of wejls upon tho one patented clafm have Been producing oil since 1912, the/ product being chiefly distillate used by fishing boats'