When Brussels Went Looking for Oil

When most people picture Brussels, Wisconsin, an oil field is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. Yet during the winter of 1950–51, somebody actually drilled for it. Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. The test took place on theNestor Alexander farm in the Town of Brussels, and the man behind the effort was R. W. Mattlock of Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Mattlock was not simply taking a wild guess with a shovel. He had experience drilling for oil in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio, and he believed that the geology beneath Door County might resemble formations associated with petroleum production in his home state. For a brief time, then, the question beneath a Brussels farm was not how well the corn would grow or how much milk the cows would give. It was whether there might be oil underground. The idea did not appear from nowhere. By 1950, Americans had been chasing petroleum in unlikely parts of Wisconsin for generations. A Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey report later traced the state's oil fever all the way back to the 1860s, when the success of Pennsylvania's petroleum industry inspired prospecting throughout the country. Wisconsin entrepreneurs formed companies, leased land and drilled test holes despite repeated warnings from geologists that the prospects were poor. Door County had attracted attention before Mattlock arrived. But Mattlock had a specific geological argument. According to a March 1951Milwaukee Journalaccount preserved in a Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey report, he was interested in theTrenton limestone formation. In Michigan, similar limestone was associated with the state's oil-producing basin. Mattlock believed comparable rock might lie at useful depths in Door County. That was enough to justify finding out. And the place chosen for one of those tests was Brussels. Contemporary newspaper evidence places the activity firmly in the winter of 1950. TheDoor County Advocatecarried a front-page story on December 5, 1950, under the headline'Union Oil Drillers to Start Work Wednesday.'A second front-page report followed on February 6, 1951:'Will Abandon Oil Drilling in Brussels.'Those contemporary article references survive in later documentation of Door County's petroleum exploration. The state geological record supplies the crucial location. The well was on theNestor Alexander farm in Brussels. Early in January, the drillers reached the limestone Mattlock had hoped to encounter. That was the good news. The bad news was considerably more important. There wasno oil. Mattlock abandoned the Brussels well that January. No gusher erupted. No petroleum company transformed the countryside. No Brussels oil boom followed. The drill had answered the question. Failure at Brussels apparently did not convince Mattlock that all of Door County was hopeless. By March 1951, he and another Michigan oil man, Orville Regner of Menominee, were negotiating leases on thousands of acres elsewhere in Door County near the Lake Michigan shore. About 2,000 acres had already been leased when theMilwaukee Journalreported on their plans. Mattlock still believed the geological comparison with Michigan deserved testing. His argument was easy enough to understand. Oil wells on the southern edge of Michigan's producing basin commonly reached depths of roughly 800 to 1,200 feet. If comparable formations existed beneath Door County, perhaps petroleum could be found at comparable depths. Brussels had not produced it. Maybe another location would. That optimism ran directly into the skepticism of Wisconsin geologists. The 1952 state reportHistory of Oil Exploration in Wisconsinwas decidedly less enthusiastic than the people doing the drilling. After reviewing decades of exploration, the report concluded that enormous amounts of money had already been spent searching for Wisconsin oil and that prospects for profitable production in much of the state were exceedingly remote. No drilling evidence had persuaded state geologists otherwise. Decades later, the verdict had not changed. In 1985, Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey geologist Roger Peters compiledOil and Gas Test Holes in Wisconsin. He noted that dozens of Wisconsin test holes had been drilled since the 1860s and that none had produced oil or gas commercially. The report's Door County entries includeR. W. MattlockandBrusselsamong the county's exploration history. Wisconsin, Peters wrote, had no known oil deposits. Thirty-five years after the Brussels experiment, the answer was still the same. Here is where it is tempting to turn the story into alternate history. What if oil had come pouring out of the ground on the Alexander farm? What if drilling rigs had followed? What if farmers had begun leasing mineral rights and Brussels had suddenly found itself at the center of a petroleum rush? Those things didnothappen, so there is no reason to pretend they did. But the fact that serious drilling occurred at all is remarkable. A working farm in rural Door County became, however briefly, a geological test site. An experienced Michigan oil man believed strongly enough in the possibility to put drilling equipment into the ground. Newspapers considered the operation important enough for front-page coverage. And beneath all the speculation was a simple question that could only be answered one way: Keep drilling. There is something almost perfect about the surviving account. The drillers were searching for one particular geological clue. They found it. The Trenton limestone was there. The petroleum was not. That distinction mattered. Mattlock's geological reasoning had not been entirely imaginary—the rock formation he was looking for actually appeared beneath the Alexander farm. But finding the right kind of rock was not the same thing as finding an oil reservoir. By January 1951, the Brussels experiment was finished. The machinery could leave. The farm remained a farm. Most Brussels history understandably revolves around the things that gave the community its identity: Belgian immigration, farming, churches, family networks, language, food and traditions carried across generations. This little episode belongs to a different category. It is a story about somebody looking beneath Brussels rather than backward into its past. For several winter weeks, men drilled downward through the earth because they believed something valuable might be hidden there. They found limestone. They found geological information. They did not find oil. And perhaps that makes the story better. Brussels never became another Oil City. But for one winter in 1950–51, someone was willing to bet that it might. E. F. Bean,History of Oil Exploration in Wisconsin, Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey, Open-File Report 52-3 (1952).This is the most important independent source. It preserves the March 9, 1951Milwaukee Journalreport identifying R. W. Mattlock, the Nestor Alexander farm in Brussels, the Trenton limestone discovery, Mattlock's geological reasoning and the abandonment of the well after it failed to produce oil. Roger Peters,Oil and Gas Test Holes in Wisconsin, Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey, Open-File Report 85-1 (1985).This later statewide compilation documents Wisconsin's long history of unsuccessful petroleum testing and includes Mattlock and Brussels in the Door County records. Door County Advocate, December 5, 1950, 'Union Oil Drillers to Start Work Wednesday,' p. 1; andFebruary 6, 1951, 'Will Abandon Oil Drilling in Brussels,' p. 1. The existence, dates, page numbers and titles of these contemporary stories are independently preserved in bibliographic references to Door County's petroleum-exploration history. Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.