Letter describes Anchorage oil seep

As a footnote to the article in Petroleum News’ Nov. 13 issue about the oil and gas potential under Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city, geologist Robert Blodgett has discovered a letter dated July 25, 1921, to Alfred J. Brooks of the U.S. Geological Survey describing an oil seep “within less than a mile of the town of Anchorage.”

The oil seep appears to be the one that Brooks described in that same year and the writer of the letter, attorney A.G. Thompson, described the seep as “traveling upon a stratum of clay about 25 feet beneath the level of the plateau and finding an exit back of Chester Creek near the Spenard Road.”

Thompson says that the seep is “typical of those of the Katalla region, showing in the first instance before we dug it out, the blossom or yellow skum (sic.) of the oil exuding from the ground in connection with water.” Thompson also said that he was secretary of the Anchorage Oil and Development Co. which had been drilling a well to 300 feet, four miles east of Anchorage, presumably referring to the Old Wildcat well that Petroleum News mentioned in the Nov. 13 story. That well contained “some indication of oil,” according to Thompson, although no records of what the well found appear to exist today.

“In view of the exceptional advantages of drilling and prospecting this section for oil provided by the railroad and steamship transportation, it seems very desirable that the geological survey take at least a reconnoissance (sic.) of this field at an early date, this fall if possible, and I would urge that you divert one of your survey parties … to this field before snow covers the ground,” Thompson said.

Thompson goes onto say that there will likely be “an oil boom here” before the first of the year. We don’t know what Brooks’ response was although he did publish an article about the seep. But the oil boom didn’t occur — or, at least, not for another 50 years. And that’s another story.

—Alan Bailey