Panoramic Photograph Entitled- "Southern Montana Oil Co. Elk Basin Oil Field, Photo by Lucier, Powell, Wyo. April 1, 1917.". by (SOUTHERN MONTANA OIL COMPANY) LUCIER, A. G. [photographer] - 1917

Powell [WY]: Southern Montana Oil Company., 1917. Original silver gelatin photograph measuring measuring 39 x 10 inches, caption in the plate in white. Small stain to the blank upper margin else very good.First of all we have to love this photograph for having a man with his arms outspread placed in the very middle of the image. It bespeaks a person very exalted to be present in a deserted and beautiful landscape. Southern Montana Oil Company incorporated on October 30, 1916, and had established offices in Missoula, Montana, by 1917. All of its directors came from Anaconda, a region known for its copper deposits. The directors (I.W. Walker, A.F. Mavity, R.A. Cobban, F. Shannon, and T.P. Stewart) decided to pursue petroleum riches in southern Wyoming.By April 1917, the new exploration company was drilling wells in the Elk Basin oilfield, which crosses the state line between Carbon County (Montana) and Park County (Wyoming). The giant Elk Basin field has a dramatic history of its own, as noted in First Wyoming Oil Wells. Southern Montana Oil successfully completed a well that produced 25 barrels of oil a day.y November 1917, company manager George L. Means reported to Colorado’s Fairplay Flume newspaper that drilling operations were getting underway on eight, 40-acre tracts near Meeteetse, Wyoming (once a hideout for outlaw Butch Cassidy). Drilling commercially successful wells proved elusive however, and by 1921 Southern Montana Oil Company stock was offered at only two cents per share. After the company failed, its stock was described in subsequent inheritance litigation as valueless.The photographer, A. G. Lucier, was one of the first in the area. He opened his photography studio in Powell in 1909. He was later hired by Tex Holms to be the photographer of his famous 18-day tours of Yellowstone Park. He was also published heavily in the local paper, the Powell Tribune. He also tried his hand at motion pictures, filming 25,000 feet of film at the Pine Ridge Agency. For his work in the Elk Basin, Columbia University sent him a congratulatory and flattering letter. By 1920, he and his wife had set up a stand near the current Buffalo Bill Visitor's center and sold photographs of the dPark and it fauna andflora to tourists.