University of Central Oklahoma Oral History Project
Archives and Special Collections
100 North University Drive
Edmond, OK 73034
Interviewee:
Alfred Alexander “Jack” Drummond
Interviewer:
Date:
Location of Interview:
Terry Hammons
October 1978
Transcribed by:
Lindsey Johnston
AD:
TH:
A.A. Drummond
Terry Hammons
AD: But they have…it’s just like Jim Drummond, had no experience, no practical knowledge of
it. Well, they bought a big string of steers they wanted to be big cowmen you know they had the
big ranch. That ranch is 24,000 acres of land in the clear. Today it would be worth $400, it
would be worth $8 million. Well anyway, first thing they did, they lost $364,000 on steers and
instead of just settling down to grub that out you know on my pasture anyway getting a little
bunch of cows and raising calves the hard way you know, the way we do out here on this ranch.
They went in this big steer route. Well when the steers were gone and the market had dropped,
you got a big loss. You understand that can’t you?
TH: Sure.
AD: So then the bank wanted their money and they had to sell their land to pay the bank. So
they sold the land, this 24,000 acres to Adams, he owned the Phillips Oil Company, he was the
president of it, for fifty dollars an acre. So he had the money 24,000 acres at fifty dollars an acre,
that’s $1,200,000. Well he had the $1,200,000 but you had to be an oilman to have $1,200,000.
But he got…this Lohman was a whole lifetime just like I’d been a lifetime putting this…I
started, bought all this ranch in 1924, that’s fifty four years ago. Not it’s still Drummonds
without any…he hadn’t done anything to acquire it. Well…
TH: August Lohman would have died after World War II?
AD: Yes. No, let’s see…
TH: Because he was alive as of the trial with National right?
AD: That’s right. That’s right because he tried to throw me in bankruptcy.
TH: Mm-hm, [19]39.
AD: Yeah and I had done many favors for him but that shows you what envy can do. I was
always…
TH: Was he about your age or a little bit older or…?
AD: A little bit older. See I was always a…I was younger when I went to school and see I
graduated Oklahoma State University when I was how old?
TH: 1915, you would have been…
AD: Nineteen.
TH: Nineteen, yeah.
AD: Well you see most kids are just about a freshman in college then.
TH: Right. Yeah, you were out a lot earlier.
AD: But anyway, August Lohman, I thought he was my friend. I had done so many favors for
that man. Helped him with his…see, I could help him with the Indians and I would do it and
never…
TH: You said he liked you too...he…
AD: Huh?
TH: In the trial transcripts, it seemed as if he was torn two ways. He was the man that told you
to watch out for Smith in the lobbying of the Duncan Hotel. He was the guy that warned you
what was going to happen and then later he tried to cheat you. You could see how he…
AD: Yeah because he was very close to Lucas see at the National. He was the director down
there. He knew what was going on and I guess I remember talking to him and…but then when it
come to the show down then how in the world they…he claimed I owed him money. I never
owed him a dollar. He owed me money all the time.
TH: Could it have been that Lohman wanted to see you out of the area so that he could possibly
go into you land, buy your land?
AD: No, it was too far from ______ and too big for that. No, I went down there to the National.
See, Clarence Roberts was the editor in chief of the Oklahoma Farmer Stockman. He was in
college with me at Stillwater. He called me into his office at Oklahoma City and…(Tape
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skips)…in my lifetime. Gentner did, Cecil never did and I never did. And very few cowmen
ever do. We don’t farm an acre out on this ranch. Well, Mrs. Drummond showed me where we
were losing $1,000 a month from our farm operations because the farm men was stealing all
the…or the drought would come. Like right now they wouldn’t have a crop there unless you
irrigate. We never did that. Well, Lohman…I don’t know why Terry, that I’ve always in sighted
envy. I guess that’s what it is. People cuss me. I never mistreat anybody in my life, I really
haven’t. I’m generous. I’m kind. I’m thoughtful. I’ve never tromped on people’s toes. I’ve
always helped them. I’m the most generous man in this whole country. A lot of people got more
money than I have but I share. I’ve always done that and I’m the only one of the Drummond that
does too. Cecil Drummond except for his sons, he don’t even give land to his daughters. But
Lohman, why he…an ingrate to me is the worst…I think that’s ingratitude because when you
help someone and I never harmed him in my life, then when he would try to participate in
bankruptcy. Have you ever found the file on the bankruptcy?
TH: Yes. Yes.
AD: Well he was one of the parties to it wasn’t he?
TH: Certainly was. See if I can recall exactly how that…(Tape skips)…do some Indians.
AD: What?
TH: At that same time, you evidently had some Indians who was suing Ace Lucas. You were
supporting them, helping them to sue him. How come they were suing Lucas, how had they
cheated him?
AD: Because Lucas was at the bank at Skiatook. He was president of the bank at Skiatook and
he used the Indian’s money and he skinned them right and left. He was a crook to tell you the
truth. I know what he was, he was a shady banker. And he would do anything on earth for
money. And I gave him that job. He was smart and we started him in down there at the
Oklahoma Livestock Marketing Association, $150 a month. And I made the motion to raise his
salary when we went to 200 and 250. I was on the board you know and I was the first manager
of the Oklahoma Livestock Marketing Association. Did you know that?
TH: Yes. Later then, you found he had somehow cheated Indians and you got them to sue to get
their money back?
AD: Well I don’t know. Maybe I was trying to get a little revenge I guess, something like that.
TH: Well you were trying to get him off your back.
AD: Yeah, that’s right.
TH: It seemed by 1938, [19]39, 1940 there were a half dozen suits going on at one time.
AD: That’s right.
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TH: You’d sue Lohman, Lohman would sue you.
AD: Everywhere. In fact, I was in every court. Every day I was getting ready to go to court
there for several years.
TH: In the newspapers it said that at one time you were involved in 102 lawsuits.
AD: Is that right?
TH: Yeah, 102. There were sixty five in federal court and thirty seven in district court.
AD: I think that was an exaggeration, Terry, I don’t believe that. But I know all my time was
either in court or getting ready to go to court. And one time Sam Boursin, he was a very
prominent lawyer in Tulsa, he said, “Jack.” I knew him quit well, he was in some sort of a
lawsuit to represent me. He said. “How long can you fight this litigation?” I said, “Indefinitely.”
I’ll never forget the incredulous tone of his voice, he said, “Indefinitely?” I said, “Yes.” I says,
“Well I live with my mother and I’ve got a good home. Got a place to sleep, place to eat, the
laundry’s done. I’ve got a half of the Osage head right.” Did you know I had half Osage..?
TH: Yeah.
AD: See I gave that to Jim. That trust pays insurance. I said, “I can use this car. I can use this
half an Osage head right payment to make payments on a car so I’ve got a car to drive.” And
says, “If I run out of money, my mother has got…she has unlimited money for my expenses.”
And I said, “You can’t break the whole Drummond family. And what my mother needs if she
doesn’t have it, my brothers give my mother anything she wants and she’ll give me anything
she’s got. So you’ve got to…as long as I’ve got mother and mother’s got sons, I’m in the right.
And when you’re in the right…” See, I have a little diddy that I sing to myself and did all these
many years, “A winner never quits and a quitter never wins.” I’ve told you that.
TH: Mm-hm.
AD: I have really sang that to myself many, many a thousand times. But then when you’re right,
you know, you’re tenacious, hell, you gotta be a fighter. I still have problems. For example this
girl with Jim and I don’t know what she’s going to do to him.
TH: Probably nothing. It’ll probably come to nothing.
AD: That’s what I’m hoping. I think it…(Tape skips)…was a damn hypocrite.
TH: This Lucas?
AD: Lucas, Ace Lucas. He was a hypocrite. He was a crook and he was very aberraceous. He
was very graspen and he used…by the way, he went in the feedlot business in a big way and he
had about 3 or 4,000 cattle and he saw that these cattle were going to lose 3 or 4, $500,000 and
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so he went off to Europe so that he could claim that this was in the name of the corporation. So
they would have to stand the loss and when they marked the cattle they lose all this money and
the National had to pay it and boy they wanted Lucas…anytime they speculated cattle. But he
was the manager, see. He was speculating that if they had made money he’d a pocketed it. They
lost money and it was the corporation. It was the company. And they threatened to fire him if he
ever did it again.
TH: He’s damn lucky he kept out jail it sounds like.
AD: Well I don’t know how he kept out of…he’s smart as hell. Smart and crooked. But he
could always manage to stay out of jail. That’s where he ought to have been but he never was.
TH: I understand that the Osage back in those days was an area of big parties and there was a
fabulous social life going on, is that so?
AD: Not with the white people, for the Indians. Now you take John Abbott, they were Peyotes,
you see, they were Peyote healers. That’s kind of a…Peyote being they get from old Mexico…
TH: Cactus.
AD: Huh?
TH: Cactus buds.
AD: Is that what it is, a cactus bud?
TH: Yeah.
AD: Well anyway, they’d have these Indian camps. They have one of these houses around
where they go in there and it looked like a little church, see. And they’d have a fire in the middle
of it you know and they’d drink this Peyote, they’d get on the big drum. Well when John
Abbott, his Indian camp was just outside of Hominy, and when he’d have a meeting, he’d invited
maybe 100, 200 Indians to come there. And when he bought strawberries he’d have them come
in from Florida by the crate. He had bananas by the stalk. He’d by two or three, four beefs from
me. And they’d kill these beefs and go out there and when they killed these beefs they wanted to
go out in the pasture. They always wanted heifers, they never buy a steer. Because they say
heifer meat is tender and they don’t want a cow they want a not a yielding heifer. And I don’t
know what when those parties would cost him. But the white people never, never, never had
anything like that, it was only these Indians. But they had this Indian payment money that was
so much, so lavish. They had no way of…they want to spend it they…I know one Indian, he
would have maybe four or five new cars a year. Sometimes he’d have Cadillac and they would
say, “Well, you ought to have a Lincoln.” And if they’d have any kind of trouble with the car at
all, just drop it off and get him new one. The car agencies and the three stores that were always
the main big stores in the Osage was a Hobby Trading Company in Hominy, we still own it, have
a half a block there. The Big Hill Trading Company in Fairfax, that used to be a grey horse, the
Big Hill Trading. And the Osage Mercantile at Pawhuska, those…see you had to have a license
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to trade with the Indians because you had to be licensed so that they said that you wouldn’t cheat
them, see because everybody was trying to cheat the Indians. So when my father and Clark
Tucker owned the Osage Mercantile when Mr. Gibson wanted to sell out and they sold to these
two clerks and my mother had saved the money, the first thousand dollars so that my dad had the
money to pay for his half interest in that store. But then Mr. Price who owned the Hominy
Trading Company in Hominy died. He was down in Tennessee, he was a Tennessean. So my
father bought the Hominy Trading Company from him because he had a license and he could
trade with the Indians. So that’s when we moved from Pawhuska to Hominy. And then the Big
Hill Trading Company was Quarell’s. They were an old, old family in the Osage, the
Drummonds, the Quarells, and the Tuckers. But the white people, they didn’t have any money…
TH: By the 1920s, once there were good sized ranches, once you started making money, once
Chapman-Barnard once they had money up there, then…I’ve always heard about golf clubs and
fabulous parties and…
AD: No, that’s all BS. I don’t believe it.
TH: Don’t believe it huh?
AD: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don’t ever get that in your book because it’s not so.
TH: Okay. That’s what I wanted to get cleared up.
AD: No, no Terry.
TH: Did your social life then, revolve around Tulsa, if you had one?
AD: No, no, no. We didn’t have…the social life in the [19]20s, there wasn’t any social life.
TH: Just work huh?
AD: The church life. The church was the…all the women had was the…of course we were the
only boys that ever went away to college. And if you had an eighth grade education in those
days you were pretty good. And if you had a high school education, you were really…bout like
a bachelor’s degree now. And if you went away to college it’s just like having your master’s or
doctorate degree. People didn’t have the money and they didn’t have the inclination. The
minute the boys would get a job they’d go to work. And they had to work because nobody had
any money. Of course my father, with my mother’s help, was very frugal. And I don’t know, I
guess he might have had…at his death he might have had $100,000, I don’t know. He had the
store and he had his home. He had about 1,200 acres of land and I know I got $3,000 insurance
money. He had $20,000 policy and mother took a child’s share I remember and there was five of
us. Four children and the mother made five. She took a child’s share. So that’s $4,000. And I
spent that $4,000. I was a sophomore. My father died on August 22, 1913. That was Fran’s
birthday on August 22nd. But our fun before that was in church. You know I told you we’d have
these picnics the last day of school and whenever they had a ______ match or a box supper or a
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spelling match, the whole town went, men, women, and children. That was our social life. But
that was pioneer days social life. That’s one that Flora Park can tell you all about.
TH: After you were already grown though and married, what did you do?
AD: Worked. Didn’t do anything but work.
TH: Boy Madeline must have gotten awfully, awfully bored sitting there in Hominy after being
used to Forth Worth and Dallas.
AD: She did, she did. And that’s the reason that she…when I got to making money she had to
have a Pierce Arrow car and she began to have love affairs with other men. That’s the way she
got rid of her boredom is they would fly to her so she’d reward them and let them get in her
panties. Well I told you about the fight when she had the fight with this girl over in Parnell
department in Tulsa.
TH: Mm-hm.
AD: She got mad because Parnell was cheating on her you see. So she wrecked the thing good
and boy, she didn’t say a word when I got Mary Hogden to testify that divorce case about that
fight that they had in Parnell’s room. You could have heard a pin drop, boy. When those things
began to come in the judge said, “Well, we heard enough. I’m going to hold this trust.” This
land was in trust. “And at Mr. Drummond’s death, half will go to the mother and half the
daughter.” But nothing was said about a divorce. “So I’m going to hold that this is a trust and
I’m going to dissolve it, one third of the father, one third of the mother, and one third of the
daughter. Now your lawyers come to my office and settle this deal up.” That’s the way it…well
that’s right. There’s where you make a mistake, see if I had married a local girl. If I had married
Fran Drummond, my life would be a different deal. Because she was a worker too, she wanted
to go down to that office just like Betty’s down there right now working away. She ran that
office and ran it in tip top shape. But Madeline, she never cooked me a meal. I told you that.
TH: Mm-hm.
AD: She didn’t do anything but dress up and boy she was good lookin’. Had fancy clothes,
drove a Pierce Arrow car.
TH: Do you think it would have helped any if you had taken more time to go to Tulsa and do
more things? Helped your marriage and made her less bored?
AD: Well, yeah that would have given her entertainment. But you know, if you were handling
all the business that I did, you didn’t have time to go. You didn’t have time, you didn’t have the
inclination and you didn’t have the connection. You know society was just like…say you’re in
Oklahoma City, you don’t go to the country club. You don’t have time. You don’t have the
money. You don’t have the desire. But if you’re going to be one of these country clubbers, boy
you gotta work at it. You just do nothing else damn near. No, we didn’t even go to the country
club at Ardmore. We could have done that. And Fran liked to dance so when we went on these
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cruises she always won the…she was the best dressed woman on the ship and always won the
prize for the best dancer and everything like that. But boy I’ll tell you, how I’ve accomplished
what I’ve done, I don’t see how I’ve done it myself, Terry. But it’s just like, I was up always at
three o’clock in the morning and generally I never got to bed before midnight and in productive
work. But it’s not only a knack of earning, you’ve got to have the knack to save. And you’ve
got to have a knack to do things worthwhile. And it’s like when I started out to San Antonio
Texas, the fact that I could pay the freight and carry the freight and carry the pasture bill, is what
started me off. It’s financing. And when Clarence Roberts couldn’t find another man in the
State of Oklahoma except me to set up this National the Oklahoma Livestock Marketing
Association, he called on me to do it and I did it in three weeks. And I didn’t have my clothes
off one single night or day. I had a driver, O.B. Pope was my driver. And we had to have 500
bonified cowmen that would take a one share of stock in this cooperative. It only cost a dollar.
Will Rogers was one of the 500.
TH: Was he?
AD: Yeah. But I’d go to the town and contact these ranchers and get them to sign up and then he
would sleep. My driver would sleep while I was working on these ranches or these towns and
then when he’d drive to the next one, I would sleep in the car. And that’s the way I set up the
Oklahoma Livestock Marketing Association. It’s hard work.
TH: Will Rogers signed up huh? How’d you get him to sign up?
AD: I knew him. He used to work for Lee Russell. He was a cowboy under Lee Russell. Lee
Russell said he was a poor cowboy but he was always fun. He was always cracking jokes and
singing song. He lived at Claremore, lived out from Claremore. Will Rogers was a very
outstanding…good natured. Of course, you see, they’ve always known us all over the state
because we are a pioneer family, Terry. And they’ve been involved in any scandal, never.
We’re just hard workers. I guess we work too hard. As you say, if I’d a married a country girl,
but Madeline Russell made her debut down there. She was a debutante, had that out at the
country club at Forth Worth. They were in the top crust along with the Wagners and they bought
the Wagner home right across from Winfield Scott’s home there in Forth Worth. But her family
was big shots and I told you about Mr. Russell said, “Jack, don’t you marry Madeline because
her mother didn’t raise her. She won’t make a good wife for you.” He was practical and he
liked me. His son was an alcoholic and did everything that he didn’t want his son to do and I
was everything that he wanted his son to do, just working like a damn wild man all the time. But
no, I wasn’t a good married man. And then see, she was a Catholic and I wouldn’t be a Catholic.
That made my mother-in-law turn against me. I couldn’t see any reason for being a Catholic. In
fact I didn’t even have time to go to church. I wasn’t a very good Presbyterian. But every time I
went to church, I sat by my mother and that was all my life whenever I was in Hominy. She
never failed to go to church every Sunday. And if I was there I went with her and sat right in the
same seat. We had a…on the right hand side of the church, third row from the front.
TH: Now by 1924, [19]25, you’re involved in cattle business in…
AD: In a big way.
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TH: But you’re also…you have got the land in the south.
AD: Down here at Madill, yeah.
TH: Now you’re buying land down here, you’re getting land in Texas and…
AD: Well, I had this corporate…the land at Ada and I bought that seemed to be…I bought the
ranch where Jack Drummond is either two or three dollars an acre and let Cecil Drummond have
that. John Paige went broke and he owed the First National Bank in Oklahoma City and they
sold me that 2,000, 3,000 acres either two or three dollars an acre. And I turned around and let
Cecil Drummond have it. Think of that, to buy land that cheap. And it was blocked ranch too.
But of course there were a lot of Indian land in between it and they was still buying that Indian
land. Jack Drummond’s got that ranch. He gave it to…John Roy’s got a part of it. But, yes…
TH: You were buying land all over the entire state by the 1920s or just up in the Osage?
AD: No, no. I had this ranch. They’d come to me to pasture cattle in the Osage. That’s how I
met M.O. Cardin. He had this land down here and he went broke. These cow men went broke
you see. And he had 1,800 steers. Haven’t I ever told you about this?
TH: Mm-hm.
AD: M.O. Cardin had 1,800 steers and he wanted me to pasture them up on the Lattimore so I
agreed to take them, seven dollars a head. So when he came to the bank down here at Madill and
they said, “Well, if you’re going to move them out of this county to the Osage, you get
Drummond to move this loan.” It was $100 a head on 1,800 four and five year old steers. So I
went to my banker and he said, “Why, if you’ll endorse the note, we’ll loan him the money.” So
they loaned M.O. Cardin $180,000 on 1,800 big steers and he moved them from down here to
the Osage. That was the year the bottom went out. When he shipped those cattle out, I not only
lost my grass bill, but I had to pay $50,000 on that man’s $180,000 loan. And that caused me to
come down to Madill to try to make back my $50,000. In the meantime, he took bankruptcy but
he didn’t list me in his bankruptcy. But he said if I’d help him he’d pay me back. Well, I’d pay
for cattle for him. Then that time I was supervising it, making money. And…(Tape skips)…and
he kept buying another piece of that land that was cheap and I’d pay the taxes on it and he’d use
it and pay me no rental. Well that was a nice arrangement for him. But then when I was off at
World War II, he died. So when I came back from World War II, his wife and son and daughter
were living out here on the ranch where Ed Benton lives now where our Wheelan lot is. In the
meantime, they had built the lake and taken a big part of this ranch for Lake Texoma. Well I
went to Mrs. Cardin and I offered if she’d give me a peaceful possession of the ranch and
vacated, turn it over, I offered to give her a release of this $50,000 note. And she said she
wanted $10,000. Said they didn’t have anything and she asked me $10,000 for possession. That
would be 3,000 for her, 3,000 for Junior, that’s M.O. Cardin Junior, and 3,000 for Ellen. So I
went to Don Welsh and I’d just got out of this George Smith litigation, cost me $432,000. Here I
was facing another one where they owed me $50,000 and they wanted me to give her $10,000
and I didn’t owe them a dime. They owed me $50,000. But Don Welsh said, “Well, I can win it
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but your attorney fee will be more than the $10,000.” Well I had already paid Charlie Gray up
there, I don’t know, over $30,000 and Jim Kane 20 or 30,000 through the accounting work. Well
it cost me $432,000 up there and I didn’t want to launch in it so I paid her the $10,000 to get
peaceful possession. And then I started selling oil leases. I found out that when you have the
minerals down here you can sell an oil lease and that brings you in a bonus in cash and an annual
rental of a dollar an acre a year. And that’s when I was in the Madill…in the Royal Hotel when
that man came in there looking for A.A. Drummond. And I went down to less than fifty dollars
in money and I said, “You’re talking to him, what is it that you want?” He said, “I want an oil
lease on your 160 acres on section 266 and I’ll pay ten dollars an acre, $1,600 for a ten year
lease, a dollar a year delay rental.” And I said, “Well, where’s your lease?” He said, “I’ll write
it up.” He had a portable typewriter. I had a typewriter right there that I was using. I’ve always
used a typewriter. That’s the way I’ve made my living. So I write my leases and my own
contracts, go down here to the Cattlemen’s Convention, get all these pasture contracts or buy
cattle or buy contracts, buy another contract. Well anyway, he wrote me a check, $1,600. I
signed the lease. I went upstairs, Fran was there and I said, “Lookee here Fran. I just sold this
oil lease for $1,600.” I said, “You know, I’m going to try to sell leases on this other land we’ve
got.” And I did and so in a year or two she said, “You’re never going back to the Osage” and we
didn’t. That put me in the minerals business and then I used that money to buy more land, to tie
up more land. I bought several of these _______ companies with as little as $100 down. Then
I’d go to the Federal Land Bank, get the money and pay for it. But that’s what put me down here
trying to salvage $50,000. And out here at Terrell County, Texas, that was my friend and
partner, Monty Quarter, and he was about to lose his ranch and I went out there to help him
finance it and I put up $40,000 that I got out of the Stockyard Loan Company to pay his taxes
and pay his judgments and straighten him out. And then he didn’t have the $40,000 and he
deeded me…when I deeded the land back to him he gave me one fourth mineral interest and
that’s the thing that’s building this…see we got $208,000 for four sections for our one fourth of
four sections here. Last year we leased another section. This week for $125 dollars an acre and
our one fourth makes $22,000 of course that goes to the Drummond Family Foundation. But the
only reason that I’m out there, Terry, is good heartedness see. I had a friend in need and I went
out there and helped him. I had no more idea than…just like this old Indian up here in the
Osage, he had to have the surface to mortgage to the Federal Land Bank. And the only thing we
could share would be the minerals. So he gave me one fourth for what he owed me. But my
goodness, I’ve sold nearly half a million dollars worth of oil leases on that fourth. So you see,
but I had no idea it was worth anything. But look at what…the good lord just took care of me.
Now all the same way with the…
TH: Which one Indian was this?
AD: The old Bigheart, Chief Bigheart. Yeah, he was really…of course I believe you told me or
somebody said, “Well he had advisors to tell him you know to keep it.” But anyway, they did
keep it which was a smart thing to do. It’s made all the Osages…and by the way, those mineral
interests, I’ve been trying to find out what they’re bringing in and I got a report on this James A.
Drummond, they call it the Alfred A. Drummond Insurance Trust that’s in the Liberty, and it’s
paying about $1,500 a quarter. Well that insurance premium on that $100,000 is just $1,604 a
year and now that Osage head right alone is paying $6,000 a year, $1,500 every quarter and four
quarters, four times 1,500, $6,000. I don’t know how long I’ve owned that mineral but that’s the
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way it paid for my cars when I was fighting that George Smith litigation. And then I knew that I
had to…I knew Jim would never pay this. And see how smart I was there? He would never pay
those premiums on it and I had $300,000 worth of life insurance in the Northwestern Mutual and
I lost that, Terry, because I couldn’t…one, I had one of those hard years. I couldn’t pay the
premium. So I knew…I just got $2,500 worth of insurance right now and it’s the sorriest
investment I’ve got. I pay $500 a year for $2,500 worth of life insurance to the reserve officers.
You have to be a reserve army officer to have it. I’ve been paying that for thirty years and thirty
two years I think. Well it was thirty years because $500 a year is $15,000. I paid out $15,000 in
premiums and look at the interest they’ve got off of my $15,000 because they get $500 a year
and if I die I just get $2,500. So it’s the poorest investment that I could possibly have of…I’m
not very proud of that but I don’t have any more insurance than that $2,500. But when I was
a…in Jim Drummond’s I took $100,000 policy for him and it’s $1,604. Then when he was
twenty six I guess, he could take $50,000 more without any physical examination. So we took
that $50,000 for him. So now he has $150,000. He has accumulated, I think I’ve put 10 or
$12,000 worth of…no maybe…it must have been 20,000. I’ve put $20,000 worth of security
like this Osage head right. We valued that at seemed to me $3,000. But now there’s about
nearly $40,000. And the income from the trust more than pays these insurance premiums and
it’s climbing up all the time and it’s compounded. But that’s how I happen to have this quarter
ranch. Between World War I and World War II and between this divorce fight, I stayed with
Watsons. He had a ranch at Wynona. They used live near Cecil down on the creek you know
when Cecil lived in that two room house. It was Joe and Daisy Watson. They were older than
me and very close friends. And he was a little rancher, had about 200 head of cattle. But he was
a rancher and just barely could make ends meet so I stayed there with them a whole lot. Lived
among them but I’d go out to the ranch so I began to buy land in this pasture for he and I. And
I’d scrape up the money and buy this land in his name. Well when I came back from the war I
knew that I had this ranch with Joe Watson. And so when I got out there Joe said, “Jack, you’ve
got this ranch in the Osage and down here in Madill and I just need this ranch and I saved this
money that you’ve got into it.” Saved $12,000 and said, “Here’s the $12,000 so you got your
money back.” And of course it was in his name so nothing I could do but take the money. Of
course I bought land down here so it turned out. But he won that land but he could never have
been able to block that land. They thought I was a marvel at blocking land and I did. I blocked
the Watson Ranch and I blocked the Paige Ranch. Nearly every ranch that the Drummonds got I
was responsible for, I was the land man in the family just like Chuck Drummond. Well anyway,
that showed me human nature. But it turned out for the best. For Monty Cardin when I saved
his ranch for him, then I got a fourth of the mineral rights but look at what it’s done for me. Now
down there at Joe Watson, we were very the closest friends and when I come back from the war
he had saved up the money. He operated the cattle while I was gone. He had the money he said,
“Here’s your money” but I need the land. Then I come down here and bought more land and it
was a better investment because down here I sell oil leases, see. Better to reinvest the money in
land down here than to keep it up in the Osage where you have the surface only.
TH: You mentioned last week that there was a time in the [19]30s when you had several
thousand head of cattle on plantations and the river roam…
AD: That was down in Louisiana.
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TH: Mm-hm. How’d you get involved down there? Tell me something about that?
AD: Well, there’s a place named Plaquemines Plantation and our big problem here is the winter
time. And I’d bought some steers, we bought cattle everywhere we find them and there was
a…this Plaquemines Plantation had been a sugar cane dealer with all big line of these slave
houses you know. One time…of course now it’s an oil field. So I went down there in the clover,
cattle get fed on this clover. And so Bill Corbin, I took him down there and he was really a
gambler. He was the one that got me into this Ada ranch. See, I bought that ranch and sold it to
Leman Crummon for fifteen dollars an acre in county and sixteen for the other. But I bought that
from First National Bank in Oklahoma City with Bill Corbin.
TH: The Ada land?
AD: Yeah, at Ada. It’s where Birdsmill is, you know where they have that big spring, I used to
own that. And they call it the Cardin Ranch there at…if you come from Ada to Madill down 99
you come right through that ranch, right along that ranch. But then we were running steers there
for them to get fat on that clover and then we would go to market them at New Orleans, see.
And our cattlemen, we was speculators, speculating in steers. So then we had, seemed to me
like…then we got a big cow herd and we put…going to run cows down there.
TH: Down where, at Ada or…?
AD: No, no, in Louisiana. We have steers on Ada. We never had anything but steers on the Ada
ranch. But he’d buy them all over this country and put them on the Ada ranch and then we’d
winter them there and then they’d go to the Osage to summer on our pasture. See that was a
grass feedlot and we’d accumulate and assemble these cattle in Texas, in Oklahoma, in
Louisiana, tried to get a bunch because you have to come with the grass, Terry. When the rise of
grass is when the grass starts to spring time and if you’re going to get your steers fat, they’ve got
to come with the grass because the grass has so much strength in it, the nourishment is balanced
like a balanced diet in the human’s meal of protein, carbohydrates, and fats. Now in our creek
feeding, we have found that we… (Tape skips)…as they’re born… (Tape skips)…all winter
long. The grass dries up… (Tape skips)…so strong. The green grass is with this mill…if you
creek feed them… (Tape skips) Alright we were buying cattle and we saw how the clover…the
clover would be just like a _____ and it comes early in the spring. The clover will be coming
down there in January you see, or maybe December. Here, this feed is on, see. It gives you a
winter pasture and it makes the cattle fat the way this grass does up here in April and May and
June. You take January, February, and March, they’re getting fat down there putting on pounds
and we could easily bring them up here then to these pastures in April already half fat. Started
off all in bloom you see. Or if they’re fat enough, they market just fine, well we can sell…New
Orleans we can sell calves. Finally then we went to the cow and calf route because it got too
hard to buy the steers so we bought the cows and then in 1927 was when the Mississippi River
was fifty feet wide. That’s when the dikes broke. And I had Bill Corbin down there…I forget
how many thousand cattle we had down there but we had them at Plaquemines and the only high
spot would be the levies. And when we brought our last train load of cattle out, there was a
nigger with a poking stick going there to see if the track was still there. It was slushing on the
wheels, up on the wheels of the train. That was a nightmare I talked to Bill Corbin every night
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down there to see how many more cattle he could get out. But we got out…I think we loaded
about 186 as near as I remembered drowned. We had one brave cow that swam twenty five
miles. What do you know about that, a brave a cow that could swim twenty five miles and got
out? Oh that flood of [19]27 I’m sure that was the time of it. Then we just brought these cattle
out of the Louisiana up here at the Osage. You see…
TH: Now you did not own the land down there?
AD: No.
TH: You were leasing, you were leasing plantations?
AD: They tried to sell me that Plaquemines Plantation at ten dollars an acre. I forget how many
3 or 4,000 acres. And today it would be worth 1,000 an acre, oh I don’t know, it’s an oil field.
Gee whiz. No, I never bought any land except in Texas, Oklahoma.
TH: And you were using the land down there because it was so warm you got good grass…?
AD: The warm winter.
TH: You got warm winter grass.
AD: And early green clover pasture. They didn’t have anything except clover pasture. Then
when that clover’s gone, it’s just weeds and stuff like that.
TH: Ben Ball was in on that somehow wasn’t he?
AD: Yeah, Ben Ball, he was when I had cows. Corbin when I had steers, Bill Corbin. But I
never went back with steers after 1927. But I was down there, Ben Ball it seemed to me we had
maybe 1,000 ,1,500 cows. Ours was a cow and calf operation.
TH: And that was after [19]27?
AD: Yeah, after [19]27. We went back…they built the dikes back and… But I had cattle both
before. It was all steers before [19]27 and with Bill Corbin. Later, when I had cows and calves,
it was Ben Ball and that’s when we would sell the calves as dealers in New Orleans. New
Orleans has always…see, French eat veal. Did you know that?
TH: Yes, it’s very, very good too.
AD: Well that’s why…
TH: My favorite meal is cordon bleu.
AD: Well all the…that’s French people, see. So they don’t like…that’s the reason that New
Orleans is such a good veal market because of the French population are veal eaters.
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TH: Now veal are under a year old?
AD: Yeah. Generally it’s a 2 or 300 pound calf, very tender. There’s a lot of water in it you see,
nothing is tenderer than a veal. But you see, the choice beef is when these steers…calves are fed
from like…we’ll sell them at 500 pounds and they market then at 1,100 pounds and you’ll feed
them soddage and soddage has got green corn in it but then the last 100 days he puts them on
crack corn plus molasses plus protein. Give animal protein to an animal. That’s what you know
you found out when we were there and he showed you his sallies and he showed you his corn
cribs, shell corn. But see the feeding operation changed. It used to be grass, Terry. That’s
something that you need to get fixed in your mind. These [19]20s and before, those were grass
operations. When these cattle were going to Kansas City and St. Louis by the train load, not car
load, train load. There wasn’t any trucks in those days and there wasn’t any sale barns in those
days. It was just these big central markets, that was Kansas City, St. Louis, St. Joel, Wichita,
Chicago. That was the markets that we would send to, mostly Kansas City and St. Louis.
TH: Feeder cattle, they would go into Omaha and Sioux City primarily?
AD: No, the feeder market was Kansas City. We were in Kansas City one Monday morning and
they had 65,000 cattle. Every pen had a cattle all the alleys had a cattle. Now Kansas City might
have 2 or 3,000 on a Monday. 65,000 cattle…
TH: Would it be correct to say that it was people in the north, Wyoming, Colorado, who began
feeding cattle in Iowa prior to the ranchers down here? Weren’t there feedlots as far…
AD: Let me tell you, the one’s that fed them were farmers up there. You didn’t have the
feedlots. Feedlots came later. They came with the sale barns and the trucks. That’s a new deal.
Just like all the _______ operation was the same as Dwayne Smith. They were farmer feeders.
And a lot of them would feed just one load. Some would feed two loads. Now Dwayne Smith,
he was a big feeder, he feed 1,000, 1,400 head you know. But they didn’t have many feeders
like him in those days. But many feeders would feed one load or two loads. They’d feed them
just like they have one old sow or two old sows or maybe fifty hens you know for their eggs.
They just fed the corn up, that’s the way marked with their corn. And I don’t know anything
about Wyoming and Colorado and all I know about is the Flint Hills of Kansas and the Osage.
See the Flint Hills were just like the Osage. They call it Flint because it was white rock you see.
That’s a strong, strong protein, that white rock. That’s where the grass is strong and makes them
fat. But the sand stone, they’ll put on flesh but they won’t harden like they do on limestone. The
limestone fattened cow…the grass is good, you can hardly beat it. But you have such a change
after…see, World War I is one operation. World War II had been a different one. With World
War I you had these big central markets. Down here the big market was Forth Worth. San
Antonio was late coming in and it was a small market. But Forth Worth used to have 30, 40,000
cattle. They come in from all over Texas to Forth Worth. And that’s the way they had to market
the cattle. They had to come to a central market to get a buyer. Then you see that was a time of
grass fed beef from the Flint Hills of the Osage and of Kansas and it was trains and of the
Commission Company of the central markets. And your transportation was a railroad and then
train load loss. You didn’t ship by car loads hardly then, only the ones who had enough cattle.
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You have to have enough volume because they made such little money. If you make ten dollars
a head you was making good money but if you make ten dollars a head on 100 head, that’s
$1,000. That wouldn’t pay much expenses. But if you make ten dollars a head on 2,000 that’s
$20,000 and you can do something with it. See, you had to have volume and you had to have
credit. That’s the thing and it was the day of the big operator in order to have…you had to have
enough credit to buy volume and that’s why Armour and Cudahay went into the cattle loan
business to finance these people to have these big strings of steers so they’d come into market
with them. They’d buy them and slaughter them and put them in their freezer like that port wood
like you see in that Sand Springs Packing Company deal. But it’s just a change then come the
truck you see. A truck with the sale barn with the feeders and the feedlot, see that’s all a new
way of life.
TH: That’s all post Second World War?
AD: Yeah. But before, it was farmer feeding like Dwayne Smith. Railroads for transportation,
big central markets for the marketing and that’s the thing that you need in your book to reveal
how the change in the cattle industry is really a remarkable change. And let me tell you that
when I was just a kid and we would sell beefs to the Indians for these big feasts that they’d have
in the Osage… Now the white man didn’t have them see, just Indians. But they had this money
and the only way they could spend it was to have a great big feast you see. And they’d come out
and buy heifers out of out pasture and they’d want to kill them with their rifle and they’d bleed it
right there. Then they’d come in to that creek where the Penn camp was right there behind
the…John Adams was on one side and this other was a little further out. But Blackbird told me
that he himself, when he was a boy they had gone out with the Osages and killed buffalo on our
Nicecola (?) pasture and that’s where Jim Glenn was…there was a section eight oil field. But
just think that in my lifetime I knew the Indian that had killed buffalo out there in the Osage.
From this day of these big feedlots, these sale barns everywhere, and truck, 100 percent
transportation, why even like here at Madill, they’ve torn down the stock yard. They don’t ship
cattle by railroad anymore, not at all. That’s been the big change. And you see, now they
have…it’s a rarity to have a farmer feeder like Dwayne Smith. Most of them is these big
feedlots. And boy the one that goes into those big feedlots like Chuck Drummond. You heard
him tell you that he lost a million dollars. I don’t see how in the hell…they still spend through
the note. Now they haven’t sold out that ranch, it’s a tremendous profit, $750 an acre, got a 2 or
$3 million dollar profit out of it. But I don’t know who he’d ever paid that loss back. I don’t see
how he could. But that saved their neck. But he had enough…they had enough property in
accumulation of the families to pay that. They was losing $300,000 a year on that Poteau ranch.
See they bought that ranch from Kerr McGee. Let me tell you this interest is a hell of a burden,
hell of a burden. Well it’s…what are you looking at?
TH: Just checking to see how much tape we’ve got. We’re just about to finish out two hours of
tape.
AD: Oh?
TH: Yeah. I’ve gotten a lot of what I wanted to ask done. We’ve had a real good afternoon.
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AD: Well, you need to just clearly understand as well as I do how these ranches were formed
you see. When these cowmen come in here, water was a big problem. They didn’t have ponds
in those days. That’s another thing I forgot to tell you about. If they build a pond they had to
build it with a scraper see and mules. Now they build them with bulldozers. So they had to go
out there and…
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