Rangely has long, colorful and diverse history

RANGELY I As the weather turns colder, the warmth of family and friends that make our communities special. Rangely is a town, young in official incorporation, old in terms of known oil fields in the United States and rich in diversity and perseverance.
Eldrid Hilkey stated “Wives cried when their husbands were moved here, but cried when they had to leave.” (This Is What I Remember, Vol. III)
The people who have lived through the booms and busts of an oil town know the importance of loyalty and have proven time and again they can and will survive.
The history of Rangely is best described in three parts, the Native American and pre-history years, the pioneering and ranching time and the periods of energy development.
Prior to 1882, settlers did not make Rangely a permanent home. It was claimed by the Ute Indians. The easier winters and hunting opportunities made the area very enticing. The first written record of the area is from the Escalante Expedition.
C.P. Hill, a man named Studer, D.B. Chase and their relatives began trading with the Indians in 1882. The first post office came along in 1885 and the first school, affiliated with Garfield County, began in 1888.
The school closed in 1890 due to a lack of funding and a new school was built on the Hefley Ranch later that year.
Rio Blanco County became an official county in 1889, and the M.J. Patterson Contracting Co. of Denver completed the bridge near White River City.
According to Wikipedia, “It is one of Colorado’s earliest state-funded vehicular bridges and one of the oldest roadway trusses in Northwestern Colorado.”
The Weber formation and Mancos Shale formation are among the largest in the United States. They were originally drilled in 1901, although the seeping oil was used by the Indians for medicinal purposes long before that.
Shallow wells were drilled by 13 different companies in the next few years, but only six wells, producing a maximum of 10 barrels per day, resulted. In 1906, Union Oil, with Joe Trachta, went down 3,100 feet. However the rig burned down in 1907.
By 1924, Raven Oil Co. had 10 pumping wells producing 600 barrels per day.
The Texas Co. had a test well that year, but one rig burned and their second was hit by lightning. They managed to get three rigs operating by 1927.
In 1931, Chevron began work on its first deep well — the Raven A-1 Discovery well. After a year of drilling, Chevron punched through the sandstone layer and into the pocket of crude oil.
The historic well went online in 1933, producing 230 barrels per day at a depth of 6,335 feet. (www.rangely.com)
The Great Depression led to Chevron capping the well, waiting out the storm. World War II brought back the demand for oil and, in 1943, the well was re-opened and the Rangely boom was in full swing.
In 1944, the road to Highway 40 was graveled to get oil out and equipment in. In 1947, the town was officially incorporated. In 1948, there were 478 wells covering 30 square miles. By 1956, the field peaked at 82,000 barrels per day.
The infamous Weber Reservoir and the shallower Mancos Shale have, continues to and will provide Rangely as well and Rio Blanco County with tremendous job opportunities, tax revenue and security.
Although the booms and busts make revenue somewhat unpredictable, the fact remains it has accounted for 70 percent of the property tax revenue for our county.
Rangely has had agriculture along with coal production longer then the energy production, but certainly the oil field has helped create the toughness, variety, success and truly compassionate, caring people that make up what Rangely is today.
Rangely is home to one of the largest and oldest oil fields in the country, with shallow wells drilled since 1907, and the huge Weber-Sands deep field (originally 465 one-mile-deep wells) drilled in the 1940s. That field is still producing under the auspices of Chevron-Texaco and its predecessors since being unitized in 1957.
In 1882, Charles P. Hill and Joseph Studer brought in herds of cattle and established a trading post where Douglas Creek enters the White River. Other cattlemen and sheepmen soon followed. Pioneers came by wagon to establish homesteads.
As more people moved into the area, a town center gradually developed. Stores were established and homes were built.
In 1913, the townspeople got together and built a new school. This attractive clapboard building was turned over to the Rangely Museum Society in 1971 and was moved to the Outdoor Museum in 1993. It houses a series of exhibits that reflect the life of the town in those early days.
At one time, persons who ran afoul of the law were handcuffed to light poles along Main Street. A jail was built and this practice was discontinued. The old jail has been restored and placed at the museum.
In 1997, the town’s volunteer firemen built a replica of a fire station to house old fire equipment.
It was known from the earliest of times that there was oil in Rangely.
There are place names such as Stinking Water Creek, where surface waters mixed with oil. However, it was not until after World War II that an oil boom truly took place.
Thousands of people descended on Rangely. Many lived in tents or dugouts. A local entrepreneur hauled in abandoned trolley cars from Salt Lake City and rented them for shelter.
There are also vast deposits of natural gas and coal around Rangely. Only recently have natural gas deposits been extensively developed.
However, coal from the earliest pioneer days was mined for home consumption. Later, coal was hauled from the mountains to serve the needs of neighboring communities in Utah and coal was used to fire steam-operated rigs and engines in the early exploratory days of the oilfield.
The Rangely Outdoor Museum has some exhibits from those times and its directors plan on establishing a section for old mining and oil field equipment.