Brief History of Montezuma Creek Don Kemner
I left California with a welding machine, a fourteen-foot trailer, and a light plant for electric power and arrived in Montezuma Creek on December 31, 1957. I was assured a job by Shell Oil Company on their lease work, building tank batteries and shipping lines for future oil development. On locating at the "water wheel," as it was called, I was grabbed by Superior Oil Company and did not get to work for Shell until later years. In the late 1950s it took at least five hours to go from the Aneth oil fields on the south side of the San Juan River to Shiprock, New Mexico. It took as long to go to Cortez, Colorado, from the north side. There were no roads, only trails. Very few automobiles were driven by the natives of the region. Sheep was their livelihood. The women of the Navajo tribe would hide until the "Anglo" was gone. No liquor was allowed on die reservation, and they would take it away from anyone caught with it. Punishment was severe enough so that you were barred forever from the reservation if you got out of turn. Oil shipping and gas lines for El Paso Natural and Four Corners pipeline were next in order. The El Paso plant was built about 1961. These tank batteries were tied in to the main lines and oil began to find its way to the outside world via pipelines instead of tank trucks. Oil wells were never developed unless they had a potential of five hundred barrels per day. It was not uncommon to have a well produce three thousand barrels a day. Gas was flared all over the basin just 303
