The story of a legend

Long John Latham rescued me from West Texas in the spring of 1955. I had taken a course in oil writing at the University of Texas in 1951 under A.R. McTee, who had been to Alaska in the first oil boom, I think in the 1920s.

When I got out of the Navy, I went to San Angelo, Texas, and theStandard Times and worked on the oil page. I soon learned that writing about fabulous oil discoveries wasn’t much fun unless you owned the resulting production. So there I was, in a tiny house on a sandburr-filled lot in an area recently destroyed by a tornado.

At the eleventh hour Long John contacted me and offered me a job onOffshoremagazine as the first full-time editor. He had been a western writer, a fine artist, and was probably the best boss I ever had. He had been everything on Offshore, from visionary to mail-out man.

Reporting on the offshore oil patch in the Gulf of Mexico proved satisfying. The Gulf was filled with all sorts of challenges. We ran stories about mooring drilling tenders, the geology in the Gulf south of Louisiana, and the marine life. A small creature called a Teredo ate its way through concrete. Another small animal, with a name that shall remain mysterious, ate its way through metal.

Every lease sale was a big story. Heck, every well was a story. We wrote about rigs drilling in 112 ft of water and others 27 mi from shore.

Mobile rigs and drilling tenders were still being classified as if they were some kind of insect. Almost every month a new mobile unit design was announced. The Gulf was filled with LSTs and converted Navy ships and an array of old and new boats.

A young West Texan named George H.W. Bush had a three-legged mobile unit calledScorpionbuilt for his Zapata Offshore company. At its Galveston launching, reporters swarmed over it like - like reporters. Each leg was moved by 21 electric motors. You could stand on top of the crew quarters and control each leg separately to hoist the unit upward. R.G. LeTourneau even invented a new kind of motor for it, with wire that had a square cross-section and could deliver more power. The issue on Scorpionwas the biggest I worked on.

Every day held its possibilities of adventure, or misadventure. Insurance companies wended their ways through nautical and petroleum vocations. Crews sometimes went to work in round-bottomed boats, which did indeed roll - as your stomach did. The specialists of the offshore area were taken out often in Bell 47G helicopters. One time, there was a hurricane named Flossy, andOffshore had a spread on the damage Flossy caused. There were continuous proceedings to see which government owned a particular piece of ocean bottom.

We also covered the beauty of the offshore rigs, like ghostly ships on seas that could change minute by minute. Our photo gallery proved popular, and others copied it.

Shortly, it became clear to me that the GoM offshore scene deserved its own Paul Bunyan. I invented one named Plaquemines Pete, named for that Parish in Louisiana. Pete was a fourth generation offshore oilman. Only 14 men could then claim that title, and the other 13 were liars. Pete’s grandpa drilled a well in the river off New Orleans. When it was dry he built a causeway and gave the crescent city its first water based gambling casino.

Pete pioneered in mergers. He merged a company that wasn’t finding much oil with a company that wasn’t selling much oil. He had good intentions, though.

In search of adventure, Pete drilled at the North Pole with a new type of rotary table. The rotary table turned with the rotation of the earth, while the drill bit held steady. Pete’s math was wrong. The earth turned only once every 24 hours, and for all I know, he’s still drilling.

The point is no situation was ever too challenging for Pete. No water too deep, no well site too distant. No seas too great. No idea not worth trying. Ingenuity and perseverance kept him moving ahead.

I wrote only two Plaquemines Pete stories, which were well received. But two was enough. The industry burst out of the GoM, and the many more oil patches today deserve their own legendary characters.

Jim Cockrum
Editor of Offshore magazine 1955-57