The hype was unbelievable, but it seems that oil was never found. Investors were certainly not impressed.
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In 1914 there was an oil boom in Pitt Meadows.
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Well, no one seems to have found oil. But local newspapers in the summer of 1914 were filled with giant advertisements promoting Pitt Meadows Oil Wells, Ltd., which always seemed to be on the verge of striking black gold.
A July 1, 1914 advertisement in the Vancouver Sun featured a panoramic photo of an oil field stretching as far as the eye could see, with oil derricks here, there and everywhere.
But the photo was not in Pitt Meadows. The cut line below the photo read “What a California Oil Field Looks Like.”
Nonetheless, the ad encouraged readers to “put your money into Pitt Meadows Oil Wells, Ltd. Building Vancouver Industry, who are your neighbors and who have been spending your money to develop an oil field like the one above, right here.” within one to one hour drive from downtown Vancouver.”
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The hype had begun on June 4, 1914, when the Vancouver World announced in a front-page headline: “LOCAL UNION ON EVE OF PITT MEADOWS OIL FINDER.”
There were three subheadings: “Oil can be found anytime within 25 miles of this town,” “Operations have been going on for two years,” and “Strong local union spends large sum on preliminary drilling.”
According to The World, “work is long past the prospecting stage” at a site near Sturgeon Slough, with a “boring” one 1,228 feet deep and a second 1,178 feet.
Both had been flooded by then, but the presence of “heavily sulfur-laden salt water” convinced “experts” that oil was nearby.
The crew searching for oil also used a minometer, which is supposed to “detect the presence of oil below the surface.”
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The World said the minometer’s inventor was “not speaking for publication” about how it worked, but the main investor behind Pitt Meadows Oil Wells, logger William Innes Paterson, “is prepared to back it with all his wealth.”
Paterson had raised $40,000 to launch the company. Investors included BC Lieutenant Governor Thomas Wilson Paterson, who may or may not have been associated with WI Paterson, and his brother Thomas Frank Paterson, co-owner of several logging companies.
According to his biography in British Columbia Pictorial and Biographical, a 1914 guide to local bluebloods, TF Paterson had been on the editorial staff of the Vancouver World in 1897-98 and was vice president of Burrard Publishing Limited, which published the Vancouver Sun. .
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This may explain why most of the Pitt Meadows Oil Wells ads appeared in the Sun and World and not in the Province or News-Advertiser.
The ads didn’t stop.
“Wake up Vancouver, there’s oil in Pitt Meadows,” said an advertisement on June 8, the day brokers began selling shares of the company. “Now gas is coming out of the well.”
The ad came with a map showing the location of the proposed oil wells, with a handy arrow pointing to the exact spot, which was just east of a bend in the Pitt River. Today it would be between Swaneset and Golden Eagle golf clubs.
An even more colorful “Wake Up Vancouver” ad ran on June 11, showing a man awakened by an alarm sounding “Oil Oil Oil.” A large eye was also shown looking at a spurt of oil. However, upon close inspection, it’s a load of money.
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The stream of money also appears in a June 20 ad that shows a man with a telescope on top of his house, peering through the stream as he surveys an oil well farther away, perhaps Alberta or California.
“ARE YOU THE MAN OF THE HOUSE?” she said in bold.
“If so, you’re missing out on the best opportunity of your life. By purchasing Pitt Meadows Oil Wells, Ltd., you are speculating with the best known and most successful men in Western Canada, who have spent almost $60,000 of their own money to prove the existence of oil in Pitt Meadows.”
Oil was a very popular property in 1914. There was a 15-page “Oil Section” in the June 20 Vancouver World that featured numerous advertisements from companies looking for oil in BC and Alberta.
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Unfortunately, Pitt Meadows Oil Wells never found any lucrative oil fields. All that seems to remain of the company is its stock certificates and some fantastic old advertisements.
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