Interviewer(s): D. Austin. Patterson, LA

Affiliation: University of Arizona

William Gilbert (W.G.) Shivers became involved in the history study after he learned about it from his younger brother, Robert Shivers (see AG047p, AG048). Robert was interviewed for the study and told his brother about it. W.G. called the university and tracked down our research team. He lives in Hull, Texas, but he and his son drove to Patterson for the interview. The interview is rich with details about the early fields, the process of rig building, and the conditions under which rig builders worked.

W.G. was born in 1922 in Beaumont, Texas. His grandfather had moved to the oilfield in Saratoga, Texas in 1909. He was a timber contactor and flathead, but then his brother-in-law went to the oilfield there and told him he could make $3 a day. He went to work for Gulf Oil as a member of a pipeline gang and in 1918 went into partnership with another man as a rig builder. He moved to Hull, Texas. W.G.'s father came home from the service in 1917 and got into rig building. When the company he worked for decided to move from Hull, he bought them out and remained. While he was still in school, W.G. began going out to help his father. After school he went into the Army. He returned home in 1945 and went into rig building in 1946. He stayed in the business for 11 years until the portable rigs put rig builders out of business. At that time he bought his first drilling rig, created Shivers Well Service, and began drilling fields in Texas. He continued buying and operating rigs until he had a fleet of nine rigs.