Interviewer(s): Andrew Gardner. Franklin, LA

Affiliation: University of Arizona

Clyde Hahn was recommended by Roy Parr. Roy warned me (Andrew) that Clyde could talk up a storm and wouldn't mince words, and he was right! Emily and I met Clyde at his house in Franklin. His grandkids were down for the week, so we made ourselves at home in the den, and we had a long, interesting, and lively conversation. As one can tell from listening to the tape, Clyde moves fast in conversation, and although the topic of discussion jumped around quite a bit, his ability to tell a lively story is unparalleled. There are some vivid descriptions here of his recollections of the early oilfields he saw as a child. Clyde was sensitive to the environment and pollution from the beginning, and talks about the different attitudes about this subject on the rig. He also talks quite a bit about the changing character of the labor pool from which employees were drawn. We talked briefly about unionization as well.

Clyde Hahn, born in 1927, has been around the oilfield his whole life. His grandfather worked in the oilfields in Illinois, and his father passed through Illinois, Kentucky, and Arkansas on his way to Texas. They were there for the big boom, and Clyde started working on the rigs early. He worked for Standard Oil for a while, squeezed in a little college, and eventually got on with Humble Oil, which would later become Exxon. His choice to work for Exxon instead of Magnolia had to do with a layoff period that Magnolia went through around World War II - he didn't trust them. He worked in drilling until 1965 and then in production until he retired in 1986.