A Golden Flood Returns

When a wandering oil wildcatter named Steve Owens brought in the first producing oil well in West Texas 54 years ago, a local newspaper headline rhapsodized that THE GOLDEN FLOOD IS STRUCK. Before long, oilmen and adventurers from all over the country converged by the thousands on the flat, dry plain that spreads over nearly 100,000 square miles through Texas and New Mexico. Known as the Permian Basin, the area became one of the nation's biggest oilfields; it accounts for about 20% of U.S. domestic oil production.

Today the golden flood is returning.

As one result of the national drive for greater energy independence, the Permian Basin is booming again. Now rising above the West Texas city of Midland (pop. 63,000), which serves as the white-collar headquarters town for the oil companies operating in the area, are a multimillion-dollar 14-story office tower and that symbol of a successful city, a Hilton hotel. A half-hour's drive away is Midland's twin city, Odessa, a blue-collar town built around a sprawl of refineries and oil-well service and supply firms. There the boom is reflected not in the skyline but in the HELP WANTED notices outside the machine shops and the POWDER ROOM signs inside them. Skilled labor is so short--1,500 jobs are currently going begging--that firms are hiring women to train as machinists, drivers and even roustabouts. Of the 150 employees at Miether Machine Works, 33 are women--all hired in the past few months.

The business of drilling for oil and supplying those who do it is booming not so much because of new discoveries as because of new prices. During the 1960s and early 1970s, when domestic crude sold for an average of $3 per bbl.,

Odessa and Midland sat on the prairie like towns in which the clocks had stopped. Oilmen capped marginal wells, sold their drilling equipment abroad or simply abandoned it in the fields; oilfield hands moved on to Canada or Alaska, or took other jobs. But then, in September 1973, Congress allowed "new" oil--produced above a 1972 base level --to float up to the world price, now about $11 per bbl. Suddenly, the producers, promoters, roughnecks and fortune hunters flocked back in droves to the oldtime West Texas boomtowns --and they are still coming.

Some Snags. Employers are paying handsomely for help. In the past six months, the wages of general oilfield workers have moved up from $6 to $6.44 an hour, first-class machinists who got $3.50 last summer are getting $5.65 an hour, while stenographers have jumped from $400 to $705 a month. Lynda Armstrong, 31, abandoned her ambition to be a nightclub singer to earn $1,000 a month as an oil-patch roustabout. "I'm no women's libber," she says. "I just want to do it if I can and let them pay me."

With oil revenues cascading into their city, Odessans enthusiastically approved a $20 million bond issue for the expansion of their hospital--at a time when larger cities have been voting down far more modest proposals.

There are some snags, however.

While thousands of new arrivals have been able to land good jobs quickly, more than a few end up dealing with freelance employment "agents." Typically, they hire down-and-out job seekers to work at the wells for $4.50 an hour. The catch: the agent gets the $4.50 and takes $2 for himself before passing it on. Another severe problem is housing, which has failed to expand to accommodate the explosive growth of Odessa's population--from 93,000 to 102,500 last year. Even those with money are often forced to leave for lack of a home, and Odessa churches and citizens have bought dozens of bus tickets for the destitute. Housing is somewhat more plentiful in Midland but is far too expensive --and distant--for the average oil-patch laborer. "Midland is a good place to raise children," goes the local saying, "Odessa is a good place to raise hell."

Indeed, the restaurant and nightclub business in Odessa is thriving along with the boom. Patrons often have to wait for 45 minutes on weekends for a table at the Oilpatch, one of the most expensive spots in town. For Herbert Graham, 35, and his brother Phillip, 34, business is so good that they have been able to earn back their original $100,000 investment in The Other Place, a discotheque they opened a year ago, in just five months. Last month they opened another nightclub, the Continental Cowboy. "We were thinking of going out of town to build," says Herb, "but our bankers said don't do it. This is where the action will be for the next ten years."

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