101 Ranch Oil Company - Ponca Lease

Ponca Lease

With new money, and using his practical knowledge of geology Marland choose a new well site at an elongated and isolated hill near Bodark Creek that he thought was a geological high as well as a topographic high. However, the hill Marland picked was a burial ground for the Ponca tribe. Actually the Ponca bound their dead, laid them upon scaffolds and wild animals devoured them. These scaffolds were on the crest of the hill in the exact location that Marland wanted to drill.

Marland and the Millers met with White Eagle, Chief of the Ponca and emerged with permission to drill off the crest of the hill on an allotment owned by the Ponca Indian, Willie-Cries. For a $1,000 annual payment and a 12.5% override, a lease was obtained from Willie-Cries, and on June 11, 1911, that well “Willie-Cries-For-War” struck oil and stayed in production until 1976, bringing wealth to the company and its investors. (1).