Photograph taken for a story in the Daily Oklahoman newspaper.

Photograph used for a story in the Daily Oklahoman newspaper. Caption: "This 55-gallon steel drum was the bomb casing that held the explosive punch. (M. M. Kinley and Paul Adair, Houston firemen, are at either end, Harold Drilling, Elk City welder, kneeling)"

Photograph used for a story in the Oklahoma Times newspaper. Caption: "Center, Leo Willison, left, who taught son Leon to howl at Ponca City, demonstrates "from" to the young man who toppled 1,252 pins in six games at Jenks to grab the lead 540-man which ends next weekend."

Photograph used for a story in the Daily Oklahoman newspaper. Caption: "Leon Willison. . . Leads Classic with 1,252 pins."

Photograph used for a story in the Daily Oklahoman newspaper. Caption: "Target of the second half of the Times Singles Classic field this weekend will be the 1,252 score posted by Leon Willison of Ponca City, current leader of the premier singles tournament of the section."

Photograph used for a story in the Oklahoma City Times newspaper. Caption: "Ever blow the flame off a burning match? Well, here's what was supposed to be a garagantuan puff, 200 pounds of nitroglycerine, to blow the flame off og nature's brilliant torch that had lighted the Elk City oil field Tuesday night until Monday morning. The "nitro" is in the water-cooled drum at the end of the boom just as workmen edged it toward the flame in a rehearsal for a second try Monday before the blaze extinguished itself. Sunday the fire was snuffed out when the "nitro" went off at 11 a. m. but gas ignited again in four minutes from glowing metal in the crater of the 40,000,00-cubic feet wild gasser."

Photograph used for a story in the Oklahoma City Times newspaper. Caption: "Here is a water line crew inching toward the wild Elk City gas well fire at a crucial moment in battling the five-day blaze. Water from three dams on Elk creek was ready to gush into the crater below the inferno and cool it past fire danger once the blaze was extinguished."

Photograph used for a story in the Daily Oklahoman newspaper. Caption: "No one knows just what happened deep in the earth to make the wild well choke itself to death. But the enormous pressure of gas apparently gouged out the sides of the hole in such a way that they fell it on themselves and formed a natural plug. Oil men call it "bridging." Beforehand, through, the well belched up mighty columns of mud, soil and rock through the heart of the flame. That black column in left center is it. It rose 100 feet or more, but not as high as the flame at their peak."

Photograph used for a story in the Daily Oklahoman newspaper. Caption: "These flames are 100 feet or more behind M.M. Kinley and Paul Adair, the Houston fire fighters called in to combat the blaze. It is plenty hot at this spot. The bulldozer was used to shove up earthen embankments as close to the fire as it could possibly get. These offered some protection, just as did the improvised metal shield behind which the men are standing in the picture on Page 1, but it was dangerous and uncomfortable work at best, and extreme care was necessary."

Photograph used for a story in the Daily Oklahoman newspaper. Caption: "That dark mound in the right center of the picture probably was the villain of the re-ignition story. It was the traveling block, the pulley-like mechanism that moved up and down at the end of cable and supported the drilling tools, the easing, etc. It couldn't be pulled out of the crater because most of the time it was enveloped in flame. Photographer Owen got this shot at a moment when a vagrant breeze whipped the blaze the other way. the block, red hot, probably supplied the spark or the glow that ignited the gas again after it was blown out."

Photograph used for a story in the Oklahoma City Times newspaper. Caption: "Elk city's spectacular oil well fire was still blazing Sunday after it was blown out once by explosives and then re-ignited almost immediately. Myron M. Kinley, famed Houston oil well firefighter, and his crew of men will make another attempt to extinguish the blaze Monday. Sunday's attempt was the climax of a major-four-day engineering project under Kinley's direction before the fire was snuffed out of time. In the picture above, the oil drum holding 200 pounds of nitroglycerine at the end of a long specially constructed boom is above toward the blaze with a bulldozed under kinley's watchful eye."

Photograph used for a story in the Daily Oklahoman newspaper. Caption: "(Photo of the well fire, many guys with metal shields, a pipeline in the front, and more.)"

Photograph used for a story in the Oklahoma City Times newspaper. Caption: "Here four workmen huddle behind a metal shield for protection from the intense heat of Elk City's wild gas well before the blaze snuffed itself out. They are part of the crew that had rigged explosives and water line to blow out the 5-day-old blaze and flood the wild well's crater with water to prevent a re-ignition of the 40,000,00 cubic feet of gas estimated spewing from the earth."

Photograph used for a story in the Daily Oklahoman newspaper. Caption: "The jumble of metal at right was once worth many thousands of dollars. It was oil well drilling machine before the Shell well caught fire. The flames quickly reduced it to tangled junk. Crews managed to hook cables to this and pull it out. Here, the wreckage is surveyed by J. H. Carmichael, 52 1/2 SW 24, and Herman Awes, Tulsa, superintendents for Heimerich and Payne, Inc., the drilling contractors on the lease."

Photograph used for a story in the Daily Oklahoman newspaper. Caption: "Four minutes after it was "snuffed out" by 200 pounds of explosives, Elk City's oil well fire was blazing anew. Yhe picture above was taken by A. Y. Owen, Daily Oklahoman photographer, with Big Bertha camera from half a mile away. The picture was made just as the large mass of flowing gas at the top of picture was ignited from below."

Photograph used for a story in the Daily Oklahoman newspaper. Caption: "Those shields are comforting in the face of that heat. In the picture at the right, a worker, one of dozens, is shown ready to duck behind the shield at his left after working for a time in the intense heat from the blaze. He is connecting pipe for water lines to the crater."

Photograph used for a story in the Daily Oklahoman newspaper. Caption: "This is what the camera saw from half a mile away a second after the explosive blew the fire out of that smoke. The photograph at the bottom of the page was made the instant the explosive snuffed out the blaze. The fire was replacedby white smoke and clouds of steam, but minutes later started to blaze again. The lower photograph was made with a Big Bertha camera located half a mile from the fire scene."

Photograph used for a story in the Daily Oklahoman newspaper. Caption: "This was the crucial disappointing moment last Sunday morning when the Shell Oil fire near Elk City was out-but wouldn't stay. Note the light cloud of smoke at the extreme right. That is smoke, steam and vapor from the original blaze. It hung close by during the four-minute interval in which the flames were extinguished after the big nitro puff. The darker cloud in the center is greasy smoke from the smoldering debris in the crater after the fire was out. At the left is the first flash of flame after the gas was ignited again. Cars in the foreground are on a lease adjoining the Sheel Oil Co. spread."

Photograph used for a story in the Oklahoma Times newspaper. Caption: "Carl Dahl and Karl Jaunzem . . . new department head and assistant."

Photograph used for a story in the Daily Oklahoman newspaper. Caption: "The Japs "messed up the hands a little, " during the two years he was in a prison camp, and that wasn't so good for a man whose sensitive fingers made a living plucking the strings of a guitar."

Photograph used for a story in the Oklahoma Times newspaper. Caption: "Police officer Calvin Stephens, who collects antique guns as a hobby, appeared at the police station with these two weapons Wednesday."

Photograph taken for a story in the Daily Oklahoman newspaper. Caption: "Ouch! Two persons were injured Wednesday afternoon when two cars collided at the three-way corner of NW 10, Walker and Classen. Damage to cars, above, was heavy. Mrs. Ethel Boyd, 49, Fay, Dewey county, a passenger in the one car, was taken to Mercy hospital. She suffered cuts and several ribs were broken. Bobby Lee Jones, 24, route 9, was driving the other car. He was treated for bruises. Jones told F.C. Daniels and W.A. Williams, police accident investigators, he was following behind a truck going northwest on Classen. When the truck turned left at the intersection, he said the car driven by Eugene Grant Boyd, 53, also of Fay, was right in front of him. Boyd was not injured."

Photograph used for a story in the Daily Oklahoman newspaper.

Photograph used for a story in the Daily Oklahoman newspaper. Caption: "W. T. "Bill" Johnson Wednesday stowed away his badwearther gear in a spanking-new office."