Memorial to Wallace Everette Pratt1885-1981

A M O S S A LV A D O RD epartment o f Geological Sciences, University o f Texas,

P.O. Box 7909, Austin, Texas 78712When Wallace Pratt died quietly at his home in Tucson. Arizona, on Christmas Day, 1981, at age 96, the world lost one of its most distinguished geologists. But Wal­lace P ra t t was not only a geologist, he was also a businessman, a scientist of broad interests, a humanist, a philosopher, and a magnificent hum an being. He combined the very best qualities of a creative scholar with those of a practical-minded executive, the qualities of a successful industrialist with those of a nature lover, and the qualities of an en trepreneur with those of a far-sighted prophet.

His career—indeed, his whole life—was a clear reflection of his character, his optimism, his vision, his courage, his flexibility, and his deep affection for and his genuine interest in his fellow men and women.

Wallace Pratt was indeed a “man for all seasons.” He was born in Phillipsburg, Kansas, on M arch 15, 1885. He recounted some of the

history o f his youth in a lively 1978 letter to Hollis Hedberg. His father, William Henry Pratt , a wounded Civil W ar veteran, traveled by stagecoach from New York to the river crossing where Kansas City now stands. Here he joined a wagon train bound for Oregon “headed by a ‘Pennsylvania D u tch ’ adventurer, M. J. Bostetter. By the spring of 1873. the wagon train had gotten as far as the present Phillips C ounty ,” north-central Kansas, immediately south of the Nebraska border, on what Wallace called “the frayed-out eastern margin of the short-grass country of the high plains.” “There was dissension. Part of the group chose a new leader and pushed on, but most of them, including Bostetter” and Wallace P r a t t ’s fa ther stayed and founded Phillipsburg. “ Beautiful country! Vast prairies—grass stirrup-high. W hat could Oregon have as good as this?” William Henry Prat t married Bostetter’s daughter, Olive Belle Bostetter, and from this marriage ten children were born. The senior Pra t t became a circuit-riding judge and wanted his son Wallace to study law. “ But Blackstone proved to be ‘the furthest thing I was from.’ ” His father was disappointed in him. “ M ore than that he was exasperated. ‘W hat are you going to do with yourself? Here you are 15 years old and you still d o n ’t know what you are going to do. You d o n ’t want to raise wheat. You d o n ’t want to study law. You d o n ’t want to learn banking. The only th ing you can think is, you want to go to college. All right, you just go to college. But d o n ’t expect me to pay your way. You pay your own way.’” Since there were four younger children in the family to be raised and educated. Wallace understood his fa ther’s position. On September 3. 1903, at the age of 18. with his savings of $142 (earned as a farm worker during the year following his graduation from high school) pinned to his undershirt, he did go to college—the University o f Kansas at Lawrence. He was the third young man from Phillipsburg to enter K .U .— his older brother Frank had been the first one, eight years earlier.

Photo, courtesy of The Lamp, Exxon Corporation

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The University of Kansas opened a new world for Wallace Pratt. His latent interest in geology was stimulated when, as a 19-vear-old sophomore, he came in contact with Erasmus Haworth, state geologist and dean of the School of Earth Sciences (“he was a second father to me”). From that point on. in his own words, “geology became for me not only a means of livelihood but quite literally a way of life." He worked his way through the university first as a night clerk at a local hotel and later as an assistant in various capacities to Professor Haworth. He received his A.B. and B.S. degrees simul­taneously in 1908. his M.A. degree in 1909. and in 1914, after five years o f professional experience, he was awarded the degree of Engineer of Mines in Geology. Thus it was that the world lost one more farmer, lawyer, or banker, but gained a geologist whose exercise and practice of his profession over the next almost three-quarters o f a century can only be described as truly extraordinary.

Upon graduation from the University of Kansas in 1909, Wallace Pratt joined the U.S. Bureau o f Insular Affairs as a geologist in the Division of Mines of the Bureau of Science o f the Government of the Philippines in Manila. He became chief o f the Division of Mines in 1913. According to Wallace his only real accomplishment in the Philippines was “largely fortuitous.” On January 29, 1911, Taal volcano, 40 miles south o f Manila, “blew its top .” Pratt, on his own initiative, rushed to the volcano before any other scientific observer and was the first to report the devastation and the frightful loss o f life caused by the eruption. He claimed modestly. “The eruption made me. It took a cata­clysm to do it.”

Wallace Pratt returned to the United States in 1915. For the next two years he worked for the Producers Oil Company (an affiliate o f the Texas Company) first conducting geological reconnaissances in Costa Rica and M exico, and then as division geologist in their Wichita Falls, Texas, office.

In 1918, Wallace Pratt was approached by a small, one-year-old Houston oil company in urgent need o f new oil reserves. They wanted geological advice. He accepted the offer, and on March 1, 1918, Wallace Pratt was employed as the first and chief geologist of the Humble Oil and Refining Co. Shortly after, he also became the head of the Geologic. Lease, and Scouting Department. It was the beginning o f a brilliant career that would last 27 years and that would lead him to eventually become a vice president and member of the Executive Committee of the Standard Oil Co. (N.J.), now Exxon Corporation, since 1919 Humble’s parent company.

Wallace Pratt’s years with Humble in Houston illustrate some o f his qualities as a businessman and petroleum geologist: his courage, his excellent judgment, the belief in his own ideas, his unflagging optimism, his vision, his flexibility, his shrewdness as a trader, and his great ability to select, train, and deal with people. These were the years that marked the dawn of the professionals in the oil business, the years when, for the first time, science and industry began to work together in harmony, when geologic principles gradually came to pervade the thinking of the oil business. In this environment, Wallace Pratt was at his best.

At Humble. Wallace Pratt pioneered in the use o f m icropaleontology in the search for oil, and in the astute use of geological scouts. He undertook geophysical prospecting, initiated exploration research, recognized the significance of the new scientific and engineering developments in oil production, and, perhaps most importantly, began an extensive leasing program, particularly of large blocks of land not subject to competitive drilling and production. Wallace Pratt clearly saw how critically important it was to hold extensive acreage in attempting to develop new reserves. He himself negotiated many of these large acreage acquisitions. His most celebrated success was the leasing in 1933. after

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15 years o f patient negotiations, o f the one-million-acre King Ranch in south Texas, the largest single oil and gas lease ever purchased in the United States.

Wallace Pratt’s leasing and exploration initiatives resulted in Humble’s phenomenal growth in 20 years from a struggling small oil company to the leading producer of oil and the holder of the country’s largest petroleum reserves. This prodigious achievement was recognized by Pratt’s election to Humble’s Board o f Directors in 1925 and to Vice- President in 1933.

In 1937, Wallace Pratt left Humble to become a director and member of the Executive Committee of Humble’s parent company, the Standard Oil Co. (N .J.), in New York. In 1942 he was elected a vice-president of the company. During his years with Jersey, Pratt directed the worldwide exploration activities o f the company with the same sagacity and clear-sightedness with which he had guided the young Humble during its first and most critical years. But he was now playing a different role: he was now the international negotiator, the worldwide representative o f his company and o f his country. His open mind, his sense o f fairness, his broad outlook, and his attention to social and civic responsibilities served him well in this capacity.

In 1945, at age 60, Wallace Pratt, partly for health reasons, retired from the Stan­dard Oil Co. (N.J.). After the death in 1939 of his first wife. Pearl Stuckey, the mother of his three children, whom he had married in 1912, Wallace married Iris Calderhead in 1941. Upon his retirement, the Pratts went to live in a ranch house Wallace had built on a property acquired several years earlier in McKittrick Canyon at the foot o f the Guada­lupe Mountains of west Texas and New Mexico.

He first got interested in the property in 1921. “I had been told simply that it was the most beautiful spot in Texas,” he recalled, “so I drove 100-odd miles in an old Model-T to see for myself and it seemed to me that it probably was. So, over a period of years and largely with borrowed money, I gradually achieved full ownership o f McKittrick Canyon and its surrounding acreage.” Even though originally his interest in the property was purely esthetic, its unusual geological significance soon became apparent to him: the canyon displayed one of the most spectacular exposures o f an exhumed barrier reef complex anywhere in the world.

For 15 years Pratt and his wife lived in McKittrick Canyon, without a telephone and 60 miles from the nearest post office. The first home was built in the canyon in 1930, but a heavy rainfall in 1943 flooded the canyon and left the Pratts isolated for a week. In 1945, at the end of World War II, they build a second home at the mouth o f the canyon.

A pilot since 1933, Pratt often flew his single-engine plane in his many trips around the country to points as far as New York and Alaska. He frequently commuted by air to Carlsbad, New M exico, where he had an office. He did not give up flying until he was 76, and very reluctantly at that.

The years in McKittrick Canyon restored Wallace Pratt’s health—indeed, he would live to be 96. He pursued some private consulting activities and served in a number of part-time private and official capacities—he was, for instance, special assistant to the chairman of the National Security Resources Board in Washington in 1948. He traveled, he lectured some, but most important, he had time to think. These were his most reflective, philosophical years.

Som e of his more significant thoughts, particularly those concerning petroleum geology, had been expressed in some of his many earlier publications. In his priceless little book, Oil in the Earth, based on four lectures delivered before the students o f the Department o f Geology o f the University of Kansas on March 17 to 19, 1941, he had already advanced the fundamental view that hydrocarbons are norm al constituents o f

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marine sedimentary rocks, a view that has profoundly influenced exploration for oil and gas since then. In the same volume, he also expressed in his own articulate manner a thought that he would repeat many times and in many different ways: “ Where oil really is. then, in the final analysis, is in our own heads!"

But, in my opinion, the most brilliant expression of Wallace Pratt’s views concerning petroleum exploration was contained in a paper that he delivered in Austin, Texas, in October 1951. at the 18th annual meeting of the South Texas Geological Society.

The paper was originally titled “A Philosophy of Oil-Finding” but was later changed to “Toward a Philosophy of Oil-Finding.” The ideas expressed in this paper are as valid today as they were 31 years ago! It should be read and reread many times by every petroleum geologist in the world!

In that paper, Wallace Pratt combines admirably his views on the occurrence of hydrocarbons in nature, his philosophy of petroleum exploration, and his profound belief in the free enterprise system as the most propitious environment for the discovery of oil and gas reserves. An eternal optimist, he held that “unless men can believe that there is more oil to be discovered, they will not drill for oil . . . The undiscovered oil field exists only as an idea in the mind o f some oil finder.” But ideas in the minds of men, Wallace Pratt believed firmly, can only be translated into the discovery of new fields in the proper political and economic environment, where exploration can be “carried on by literally thousands o f independent enterprises; thousands of individuals, each an oil finder in his own right; each free to put to the practical test o f the drill his own ideas and theories of where oil might be found; and each spurred on to the drilling o f exploratory wells by the assurance that if he made a discovery, he would reap a reward commensurate with its value to society.” He considered freedom and incentive to explore as essential ingredients for the discovery of new oil fields.

He also warned that the most formidable obstacle to the discovery o f oil is “dogma with relation to the occurrence o f oil.” “We must maintain at all times an acute awareness o f what we do not know” he adds, and “if, unconsciously, we identify the unknown with unfavorable, and if we explore only the areas we know to be favorable, we leave undiscovered many oil fields.” As in common law, he said, ’’let us presume that an area is favorable until we have really proved it to be unfavorable.” He considered that the proper mental attitude which marks the oil-finder includes “faith, persistence, the venture spirit, and vision.” Wallace Pratt certainly possessed all these qualities.

But great as he was as a petroleum geologist, Wallace Pratt will be remembered above all as a distinguished philosopher of the science of petroleum.

Wallace Pratt’s accomplishments have received the recognition they deserve—he was accorded practically every award and honor that can be presented to a petroleum geologist. He was. in 1945. the first recipient of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists’ most prestigious award, the Sidney Powers Medal “in recognition of distin­guished and outstanding contributions to and achievements in petroleum geology.” In 1948, he was awarded the Anthony F. Lucas Medal by the American Institute o f Mining and Metallurgical Engineers; in 1950. Dwight D. Eisenhower, then president of Columbia University, bestowed on him the university’s James Forman Kemp Medal; in 1954. he received the American Petroleum Institute’s Gold Medal for Distinguished Achievement; and in 1969, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame o f the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum in Midland, one o f the first 12 petroleum pioneers so acclaimed. In 1972, the American Association o f Petroleum Geologists selected him as the first recipient o f the Human Needs Award in recognition of his having “given so much of himself to others.” In 1976, he was named the “Grand Old Man of Exploration” by the directors of Tulsa’s

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International Petroleum Exposition. There were many other honors: he was a director of AIM E in 1942-1944, a director o f API from 1928 to 1934, a Fellow o f the Geological Society o f America, and honorary member o f many scientific and professional societies.

In 1960, so that his wife might receive the therapy she needed for her arthritis, the Pratts moved to Tucson, Arizona, where they had purchased a home at the foot of the Catalina Mountains. After his wife’s death in 1966, Wallace Pratt married her closest friend, French-born Suzanne d’Autremont. A great debt o f gratitude is owed to Suzanne Pratt. Not only did she and Wallace share a loving companionship, but the devotion with which she cared for him in his last years enabled him to carry on many o f his activities even though his failing health made it impossible to do so with his characteristic vigor.

During his Tucson years, Wallace Pratt read widely in many and diverse fields. But his greatest pleasure was his spirited and prolific correspondence with two generations o f friends and colleagues scattered the world over, a correspondence characterized by pointed and intelligent questions on a wide variety of subjects: politics, science, contem­porary affairs, petroleum exploration activities, and recent articles and books. It was never easy to answer his inquiries, but it was always a stimulating experience. He enjoyed visitors and would take pride in showing them his garden from where he could point to the Catalina M ountains and remark “Those are the oldest rocks in the world. Two and a half billion years old. Imagine! Granite for the most part.” And he would recollect how when he was a boy in Kansas he wanted to see granite so badly that he could taste it. “But there is no granite in Kansas . . . .”

Wallace Pratt wrote very well—lucidly, gracefully; he had the unusual ability of treating the most scholarly subjects in simple, direct, and understandable prose.

In the 1970s, his hearing began to fail and his eyes began to bother him. He had inoperable cataracts for the last 20 years o f his life. Old pleasures o f going to the University of Arizona to hear lectures had to be foregone. During the last 15 years o f his life, Wallace Pratt enjoyed the faithful friendship o f Laurence Gould, the world- renowned Antarctic glaciologist and explorer, himself retired in Tucson. When Wallace could no longer read, and his enjoyment in life was greatly diminished, Larry would visit him almost daily to read to him his correspondence, newspapers, and a variety o f articles. They would converse at length, take drives together, and shared a relationship filled with mutual pleasure and satisfaction. Larry’s last visit to Wallace Pratt was on the afternoon of the day he died. He found that, ill as he was, this remarkable man had been dictating letters until late the night before. His mind never ceased to function despite his physical decline.

Wallace Pratt was slight o f build and gentle of manner—“a never prepossessing 115- pound Kansas Yankee” he would say. But his intellect, character, and personality belied his stature. He influenced everything he touched and inspired all who came in contact with him. His foresight was impressive: in 1927 he already had considered the eventual inevitability o f producing synthetic liquid fuels from coal, and in 1935 he discussed oil imports and the need for energy conservation. In 1944 he predicted the discovery of important oil deposits in the North Slope of Alaska, and in 1947 he dwelt at length on the existence o f oil and gas in enormous quantities in the continental shelves of the world. His early estim ates o f the ultim ate oil resources o f the United States were con­sidered wildly optimistic, but have turned out to be much closer to reality than many made in the following 40 years. He discussed the eventual use o f solar energy long before it began to receive the wide attention given to it today.

Wallace Pratt was a modest man. He attributed his success to the excellent people with whom he had been associated and to being in the right place at the right time. If

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Wallace Pratt had indeed been in the right place at the right time, he certainly was the right man to be there—the man who through his many talents knew what to do and how to best take advantage o f the opportunities he saw.

He recognized the need to encourage the development o f professional societies and to support educational institutions. He gave generously to both. Over the years, his alma mater, the University of Kansas, benefited from his gifts, among which was the establish­ment of the Merrill W. Haas Chair in Geology.

Wallace Pratt considered himself lucky. As he said many times, “it has been my marvellous good fortune that my avocation has been my vocation.”

As Wallace had requested, his ashes were scattered on the Pratt ranch, near McKittrick Canyon, where those of Iris, his second wife, are also dispersed. Perhaps in anticipation of this and to assure the preservation of this magnificent locality, Wallace had donated, as an outright gift to the nation, 5,632 acres to the National Park Service to form, with 72,000 adjacent acres acquired by the Park Service, the Southwest’s newest national park—the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. It will be a fitting and eternal monument to Wallace Pratt.

Not long before he died. Wallace wrote me a postcard, the last of our many exchanges o f correspondence. His farewell on this last card expresses the wishes of all of us for him now: “Vaya con D ios.” Wallace.

Wallace Pratt is survived by his wife, Suzanne, a son, Fletcher, 12 grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren.

AcknowledgmentThis M em orial is a shortened version o f the M em orial that was published in the

A A PG Bulletin (v. 66, no. 9, 1982).

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF W. E. PRATT1919 Geologic structure and producing areas in North Texas petroleum fields:

American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 3, p. 44-70.1921 A note on supposed evidence of the volcanic origin o f Gulf Coast salt domes:

American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 5, p. 91-94.1922 A new Gulf Coast salt dome: American Association o f Petroleum Geologists

Bulletin, v. 6, p. 252-254.1923 (with Lahee, F. H.) Faulting and petroleum accumulation at Mexia, Texas:

American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 7, p. 226-236.____ Oil and gas in the Texas panhandle: American Association o f Petroleum

Geologists Bulletin, v. 7, p. 237-249.1926 Two new salt domes in Texas: American Association of Petroleum Geologists

Bulletin, v. 10, p. 1171-1172.1927 Oil in the making: The Lamp (August).____ Diatoms seen as probable source of petroleum: Oil Weekly, v. 47. no. 3.

p. 33-34, 44.1928 Sermons in stone. The religion of a geologist: Boston, The Congregationalist. 1931 Industry must drill 20,000 wells yearly: Oil and Gas Journal, v. 30, no. 9.

p. 19. 102-103.

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1934 Hydrogenation and the origin of oil. in Problems o f petroleum geology (Sidney Powers memorial volume): American Association of Petroleum Geologists, p. 235-245.

1937 Discovery rates in oil finding: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 21. no. 6, p. 697-705.

1938 Thirty year oil fields: American Association o f Petroleum Geologists Bulletin: v. 22, no. 12. p. 1698-1699.

1939 (and Weeks, L. J.) History of oil exploration with particular reference to finding rates, in Finding and producing oil: American Petroleum Institute, p. 7-18.

____ The basis o f proration in Texas: American Association of Petroleum GeologistsBulletin, v. 23, no. 9, p. 1314-1319.

1940 Geology in the petroleum industry: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 24, no. 7, p. 1209-1213.

1941 Oil in the Earth: Lawrence, Kansas, University o f Kansas Press, 105 p.; 2nd ed. (1943), 110 p.

1942 Good geologists make good neighbors: American Association o f Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 26, no. 7, p. 1207-1213.

1943 Undiscovered reserves equal to those already found held probable: Oil and Gas Journal, v. 42, no. 34, p. 78-80.

____ Our petroleum resources: Mineral and Metallurgical Society Bulletin, no. 269.____ Finding the world’s oil: The Lamp (December).1944 Distribution of petroleum in the Earth’s crust: American Association o f Petroleum

Geologists Bulletin, v. 28, no. 10, p. 1506-1509.____ Oil fields in the Arctic: Harper’s Magazine (January).____ Our petroleum resources: American Scientist (April).____ Our petroleum resources. Plenty of oil in the world, our job is to find it: Mining

and Metallurgy, v. 25, no. 448, p. 222-224.____ W e’re crying wolf in oil again: Nation’s Business (May).____ Are we running out of oil?: Liberty (June 3), p. 15, 53-55.1945 Geology is a way of life: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin,

v. 29, no. 5, p. 491-494.1947 Petroleum on the continental shelves: American Association of Petroleum Geolo­

gists Bulletin, v. 31, no. 4, p. 657-672.____ Petroleum on the continental shelves: Economic Geology, v. 42, no. 1, p. 83-85.____ Petroleum on the continental shelves: The Lamp, v. 29, no. 2, p. 18-21.1950 The Earth’s petroleum resources, in Fanning, L. M ., ed., Our oil resources; 2nd ed.,

p. 137-153.____ Editor (with Dorothy Good) World geography of petroleum: Princeton, New

Jersey, Princeton University Press, American Geography Society Special Pub­lication no. 31, 464 p. (includes 2 chapters by Pratt: Petroleum in the polar areas and petroleum on the continental shelves).

____ (Discussion) Calculating petroleum reserves: American Association o f PetroleumGeologists Bulletin, v. 34, no. 8, p. 1756-1757.

1951 (Discussion) Calculating petroleum reserves: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 35, no. 1. p. 109-110.

____ On the estimation of undiscovered oil reserves: Journal of Petroleum Technology,v. 3, no. 4, p. 9-10.

. ,, The United States and foreign oil: The Yale Review (Autumn), p. 94-114.

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1952 Toward a philosophy o f oil finding: American Association o f Petroleum Geolo­gists Bulletin, v. 36, no. 12, p. 2231-2236.

1954 M onopoly versus competitive effort in oil finding: Colorado School o f Mines, Mines Magazine, v. 44, no. II, p. 42-44.

1957 Geologist’s long-term forecast o f petroleum supply and demand [abs.]: American Association o f Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 41, no. 2, p. 357-358.

1965 Petroleum on continental shelves: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 49, no. 10, p. 1711-1712.

Printed in U.S.A. 10/