Interviewer(s): S. Wiltz. Lafayette, LA

Affiliation: University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Lyle Mellington was born in 1925 near Sedan, Kansas, the southern part of the state. His father was a pumper in the oilfields and moved the family to Oklahoma when Mellington was about 10 years old. He graduated from high school a few months early because he was drafted into the Navy at the tail end of World War Two (1944); during that time he was trained in international Morse Code and spent time in the Pacific. When he returned to the U.S. he spent a year at a school in Missouri learning American Morse Code and in 1947 got a job with Interstate Pipeline Company (an affiliate of Standard Oil of New Jersey) as a telegraph operator in Oklahoma. In 1949 he was transferred to the Carter Oil Company (also affiliated with Standard Oil of New Jersey) in Kansas; there he worked on a gang and did a myriad of different jobs; later he worked as a foreman supervising drilling operations and workers. Carter merged with Humble Oil Company in 1958 and Mellington was transferred to Lafayette eight years later. After doing relief and drilling work for a few years, he got a permanent position in production in the Avery Island and Weeks Island Fields; he was later promoted to senior field superintendent there. During the 10 years before he retired in 1986, he was the senior field superintendent in the North Crowley Field, as well as in charge of the gas plant in Opelousas.