Midian Town site 14BU381
Butler County,
Kansas Results of Phase III Archeological Investigations at the.
By
Marsha K. King Labor Day weekend in Texas.
Kansas
State Historical Society Contract Archeology Publication Number 13 1996
1.5 Miles east of Santa Fe Lake Road east to one mile west of the junction with K-196 was the area of the investigation. The small portion 254K-5060-01 project area fall of 1996. A major portion of the town site had been graded and leveled before the investigation. Midian is at 10th street and Shumway Street. From 1905 to 1915 Midian had 75 individuals. Began drilling in 1878 at Oil City in the county. Midian is on the Shumway, Enyard, Ralston and Paulson oil leases. The height of the oil boom was 1925. Eldorado was 12436 in 1925. Eldorado oil fields were the location of the first electric drilling and pumping operation in the Mid-Continent region. The Barnhill or Midian substation was constructed in 1923. The oilfield town of Midian was located halfway between Eldorado and Towanda, in Butler County near a passing track of the Missouri Pacific Railroad from which the town took its name. The passing track was named after Midian Shrine which was new at that time. Located on prairie upland between Walnut and Whitewater rivers. Shumway Dome associated with the oil deposits of this portion of the Eldorado Oil Field. The growth and decline of the town was related to the development of the oil field. We recognize the names of the oil companies as City Service and Gulf Oil that built and maintained the town as it was linked to the oil field development. The town was defined by the school district since houses seemed to go from one oil field town to the next. Covered 6.5 miles square. Education and religion services entertainment and other social gatherings were held in the schools. The Eureka – Trap shooter strikes brought in during the spring of 1917 in section 11 were the wells which began the race for the development of the Midian section of the Eldorado oil fields. The wells with those in the Ralston, Enyard and Shumway leases antedated the rapid growth of Midian. In its heyday the town contained a number of businesses. A post office was established in 1918. Depot general stores by Charles Thurman and Ray Wright had a butcher shop by Miley Groves and Mr. Sims was the barber. An Oil field supply, a doctors office, a fire station, a water and ice plant, a pool hall, theater, a welfare hall used for dances picture shows and sometimes as a church. A three-story brick dormitory for teachers was built near Midian main intersection. There was a model home to show workers living in dormitories what their families could have if they moved to the town. There was a filling station restaurant and garage. A bakery and the north side of the road identified by Green as “silk stocking row” from east to west the school buildings included the elementary and high school and the “teacherage”. Numerous panoramic views of the town were taken.
During the peak period of the highest population and greatest oil production Midian housed several thousand individuals mostly oil field workers and their families. The abandonment of Midian did not happen rapidly it started in the 1930’s by the mid 30’s it had shrunk to a few building near the Midian intersection. Midian schools were closed in 1940.
Figure
4. Structural contour map, on top of eroded Ordovician, of the giant El Dorado
oil field, in Butler County, Kansas (from Reeves, 1929). Contour interval
50 feet. It is a typical transpressional (“pop-up”) structure,
about 15 miles long and 9 miles wide. It is bounded on the east by the Nemaha
fault, which was not mapped—following the accepted procedure for contouring
at the time this map was prepared. “Cherokee” (Middle Pennsylvanian)
strata overlie the eroded Cambro-Ordovician Arbuckle.