Salt Creek: The Saga of a Rocky Mountain Oil Field

by Sam L. Pfiester

Salt Creek, the Saga of a Rocky Mountain Oil Field, traces the 180-year history of one of America’s major oil fields. Told through a series of interconnected stories, each written from a different person’s perspective, Salt Creek brings to life the dreamers, schemers, scoundrels, visionaries, geologists, and tenacious men and women whose efforts ultimately led to the discovery of hundreds of millions of barrels of oil in Wyoming’s sagebrush country.As in Sam L. Pfiester’s previous oil history novels (The Golden Lane, Solomon’s Temple) all the characters are real people and all the incidents actually happened. Pfiester’s rich storytelling, based on years of intensive historical research, highlights hope and opportunity, avarice and exploitation, failure and tenacity, and ultimately, success and community--a true story of the American West.

174 pages, Paperback

Published December 10, 2018

About the author

Sam L. Pfiester was born and raised in Fort Stockton, Texas. He graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in Plan II. In 1968 he joined the U.S. Navy, serving two tours in the Vietnam War. The second tour he was senior advisor to a river patrol group operating in the Ca Mau Peninsula along the Cambodian border, and was awarded a Bronze Star for his service. Later he wrote The Perfect War (by Sam Lee) about his experiences. In 1971 he was hired as a petroleum landman for Clayton W. Williams, Jr., an independent oil operator. He worked for Clayton Williams for ten years, eventually becoming exploration manager. Since 1982 he has operated his own exploration company, Pfiester Oil and Gas. He and his wife Rebecca have three grown children and reside in Georgetown, Texas.

Reviews

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book will resonate with those of us who made our careers in the oil patch. The book starts in July 30, 1833 and ends in June 2017. It’s the story of one of the large and old oil fields of the Rocky Mountains. Given all the characters and the events I thought that the structure of profiling a collection of people through time and writing in first person was effective.
I learned a lot and know that some facts will stay with me forever.

The quotes Sam Pfiester places at the beginning and end of he book capture its essence:

"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. Through the unknown, remembered gate when the last of earth left to discover is that which was the beginning." -T. S. Elliot

"The West is hope's native home. some believe it's where the handouts grow on bushes and the hens lay soft-boiled eggs. Yet Western hopefulness is not a cynical joke. For somehow against probability, some sort of indigenous, recognizable culture has been growing. It is not of the boomers but of the stickers, not of those who pillage and run but of those who settle and love the life they have made and the place they have made it in." - Wallace Stegner

And finally - "The meek shall inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights." - J. Paul Getty