THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by the
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
NOME, .ALASKA
Telephone Main 125 $1.50 PER MONTH
P. O. Box 610 $16.00 A YEAR
E. P. BOUCHER . Managing Editor
CLINTON GRAY . Production Manager
Entered as second class matter October 14. 1943, at the
post office at Nome, Alaska, under Act of March 3, 1879.
Subscribers not receiving their paper by 5:30 p.m. call
Main 125 for special delivery. After 6:00 call Black 125.
_LA^K-OF-CHARACTER STUDY
r "
rr T / OK ADD A
^ \ JAW'... A
S' ) Little eve
'■^y J SHADOW'... AND
• / A LOT OF
FIVE O'CLOCK
SHADOW.. AND —
; $
-you GET a
; dictatorial
* TYRANT/
Alaska Oil Production For 1961
Estimated At 6 Million Barrels
Once it was the dream of
bright, shiny gold that lured i
men to Alaska’s barren wastes.
Now a new hope of great
wealth brings the prospector i
north. But it is the black gold, |
oil, that he looks for, armed |
with science’s most modern
tools.
By WARD T. SIMS
KENAI, Alaska UP — A mod
em version of the historic Alaska
gold rush is bringing another
horde of hardy men to the moun
tains and Arctic plains of the na
tion’s 49th state.
They are still searching for
gold—but this time it’s the black
gold, oil.
And the quest is beginning to
pay off, although not spectacular
ly. Alaska’s oil production is
climbing in a steady arc which
state officials believe holds a
bright promise for the future.
Oil production through May 30.
1961, was 2,368,967 barrels, a fair
amount for a state which didn’t
have a producing well three years
ago.
The search for oil in Alaska has
been going on since the turn of
the century, but the first strike
was made only four years ago, in
July 1957.
A Richfield Oil Corp. drilling
rig made the big breakthrough in
the rich Swanson River field on
the Kenai Peninsula, where all of
the state’s 30 - odd producing
wells—the number climbs almost
weekly—are located.
While most of the drilling act
ivity to date has taken place in
the Kenai area, wildcat activity
has spread out across the state.
Exploratory wells have been
drilled in the Yakutat area, along
the east coast of the Gulf of Al
aska; in the Icy Bay area; on the
Duktoth River near Cape Yaka
taga; at Iniskin Bay, Bear Creek
and Egegik on the Alaska Penin
sula; and at Nulato and Napa
tuk Creek in the Bethel Basin.
An intense search by geophysi
cal and geological crews is now
taking place along the barren J
Arctic slope, location of the
Navy’s Petroleum Reserve No. 4. ;
Pet 4, as it is called here, takes
in some 15 million acres of land
at the top of the continent, in the
Pt. Barrow-Colville River - Mead
River area along the north slope
of the Brooks Range.
Geophysical and geological
crews from 13 major companies
are scattered along the Arctic
slope from Barter Island, on Al
aska’s eastern border, to Pt. Hope,
on the Chukchi Sea, a short skin
boat ride from Soviet Siberia.
Eleven exporatory contracts
now are outstanding in Alaska,
covering some 6 million acres of
land.
At the outset of this year, there
were 15,863 oil and gas leases
covering 33.287,120 acres of fed
eral land in Alaska.
The state, too, is deep in the
oil business, although the major
share of land located within Al
aska's boundaries belongs to
Uncle Sam.
Late this spring, a competitive!
sale of oil and gas leases in the
Tyonek area, across Cook Inlet
from Anchorage, brought in more
than $7 million in oil and gas
lease rentals and bonuses alone.
In addition to this $7 million,
the state, since the discovery of
oil on the Kenai, has realized
some $16 million in revenue from
her oil and gas resources.
Drilling statistics show an im
pressive upswing in oil and gas
activity.
Results for 1961 show: 15 new
wells, two new gas wells and
three blanks. Of the three dry
holes, only one was a wildcat.
With production picking up, the
state made a complete review of
its petroleum resources and prob
able production through 1961.
"On the basis of that review,"
said Phil R. Holdsworth, State
Commissioner of Natural Re
sources, "we are estimating that
oil production during 1961 alone
will be 6 million barrels."
Letter-size and Legal File Folders
Available at The Nome Nugget
'Grissom’s Flight
More Hazardous
Than Shepard’s
CAPE CANA\rERAL, Fla. OP —
| Spaceman Virgil Grissom told
j newsmen Saturday the details of
his flight into space. He was
smiling and apparently at ease
during the interview after he had
been presented with the Distin
guished Service Medal of the Na
tional Aeronautics and Space Ad
ministration.
The Air Force captain, 35, had
successfully 'followed the subor
bital trail first flown last May 5
by Alan B. Shepard, but his jour
ney was much more dangerous.
He reported his capsule control
system was sluggish and he had
trouble with it as he tested it
in the weightless environment of
space.
Then when his parachute low
ered him into the ocean at the
end of his 5,280-mile-an-hour trip,
he reported by radio that there
was a six-by-six inches hole in
the chute.
Finally, his 118-mile high, 303
mile long flight ended in near
tragedy when the explosive bolts
of his escape hatch fired premat
urely and Grissom had to scram
ble quickly out as salt water
! rushed into the opening.
The wind from the whirling
blades of a rescue helicopter
drove him beneath the surface for
a moment, but his buoyant space
suit popped him back up like a
cork.
Meantime, efforts of another
helicopter to salvage the water
filled capsule failed and the $5
million space craft with its pre
cious instruments and its film
record of the flight sank beyond
hope of recovery in three - mile
deep water.
Sentiments of the National
Space Agency were summed up
by one official who commented:
“We’ve got only one Gus, but
we’ve plenty of space capsules.”
Anyway, most of the desired
information came back on radio
telemetry and the agency said
there would be no delay in the
U.S. space program as a result of
the mishap.
Salmon Reared to Maturity In
Captivity Are Not Commercial
SEATTLE OP — An experiment
in which salmon were reared to
maturity in captivity was report
ed Saturday by the State Fish
eries Department.
It said the experiments, con
ducted at the Bowman’s Bay Sta
tion near Deception Pass, began
in 1954.
While the tests showed that
chinook and silver salmon can be
brought to maturity in a salt
water pond, fisheries officials
said they see no commercial
possibilities. They said the fish
in confinement grew more slow
ly and the females produced only
one-tenth as many eggs as those
maturing in the ocean.
Did you know less than half
as many people drown in swim
ming pools as drown in bathtubs?
"DO IT ALL
WITH ONE CALL"
☆
Modern Laundry
AND
Dry Cleaners
☆
Complete Dry Cleaning
and
Laundry Service
☆
FOR PICK-UP — CALL
MAIN 113
☆
Jim and Rulh McLean
Proprietors
j Senator's View Is That
President Unlikely To Call
Up The National Guard
WASHINGTON UP — Sen. A.
Willis Robertson, D - Va., says
President Kennedy isn’t likely to
declare a limited emergency now
and call up the reserves and Na
tional Guardsmen.
But if he does, Robertson added
Friday, the Senate Appropriations
subcommittee could approve the j
money for pay and subsistence
for up to a million men.
He also said nearly $1 billion
could be added quickly to a pend
ing military money bill if Ken
nedy asked for it to help meet
the Berlin crisis.
Robertson, acting chairman of
the appropriations subcommittee,
said that in addition to such
money for aircraft, missiles and
Navy vessels, more than $500
million could be added for Army
hardware.
Superase Bond Typing Paper j
For Sale at the Nugget
Liz Has Plastic Surgery to
Remove Scar from Throat
HOLLYWOOD UP) — Elizabeth
Taylor is home again after a brief
hospital stay during which a plas
tic surgeon operated to erase a
one-inch scar from her throat.
The actress left Cedars of Leb
anon Hospital Friday, two days
after the operation.
Her scar was formed over an
incision made when the dark
haired beauty was battling pneu
monia in London last March.
Physicians at that time ordered a
tracheotomy — opening in the
windpipe—to ease her breathing.
“Women give us solace, but if
it were not for women we should
never need solace.” —Don Herold
I CALL MAIN <>5 for I
Arctic Sanitary I
Service |
I
The Chevron emblem is your assurance of
supreme quality... dependable perform
ance. You'll find it on over a hundred dif
ferent Standard Oil products serving the
needs of the 49th state.
In addition to the familiar Chevron and
RPM fuels and lubricants, there’s a com
plete assortment of specialty products for
• business, home and farm.
Long-lasting protective coatings for all
I types of roofs, stains, solvents, paint thin
| ners, rust preventatives, heating oils...
I these are a few of the many top-quality
I products sold by your local Standard Oil
I Representative.
1 When buying any petroleum product, al
■ ways look for the Chevron emblem —your
■ assurance of quality.
^4 T.«.’»"CktnHVmr lid Glinn iislp In. 1.1 fit. OH.