I started off the new year with some easy, close-to-home hiking in the Woodside Anticline area. I drove south just far enough that I could avoid any snow or mud, just beyond Woodside, then turned west along the Green River Cutoff Road. There I parked and hiked about three quarters of a mile across a barren, gray flat to a survey marker. The final approach to the marker was up a short hill and ended atop a long north-south ridge that forms the eastern boundary of the anticline. The marker was set below the ground surface and I had to dig to find it. Luckily it was in the first spot I attempted to excavate.
A flat, barren walk
Train heading north
Climbing the hill
Witness post
Wooden survey tower
Rider on the trail below
The survey marker after I dug it up
Wood 1974
View south along the ridge
View north along the ridge
I took a less direct route back to the truck and found some fossils, including a couple of ammonites, and a section marker from 1923. I made a mental note to come back here to try finding more ammonites that might be worth collecting. I was grateful for the metal brace panel in the barbed wire fence that made it easy to negotiate.
Ammonite fossil
Fossil shells
Section marker and cairn
Fossil rocks in the cairn
1923 section marker
Maybe another ammonite?
Helpful fence brace
Next I drove into the heart of the Woodside Anticline to a basin in the head of the Left Fork of Summerville Wash where, in Google Earth, I’d spotted what looked like a drill hole and accompanying debris. It wasn’t until after this trip that I did some research and learned from this 1956 report that the well was called the No. 1 William Fitzhugh. It was started in 1923 and finished in 1924, and contained “helium in notable quantities“.
History of William Fitzhugh Well
I walked all around the area and saw a lot of things left behind from the drilling of the well. There were timbers and smaller lumber, rusty cans and containers, bricks, and burned coal. One interesting feature was a large pit with timbers sunk vertically in it. I can’t imagine what it was used for but it is visible in the 1938 aerial imagery of the area. The well pipe was capped but had an opening on top which had gas venting from it. It smelled like petroleum to me (maybe that’s just what it smells like deep underground), and I meant to drop a small rock down it but as I was photographing the stuff on the ground I simply forgot to. A dam and pond on a nearby hillside is also visible in the 1938 imagery and was surely used to store water for the drilling operation.
Parked near the drill hole
Can lid
Pit with buried timbers
Phillips 66 oil can
Large timber
Old wood
More wood
No. 1 William Fitzhugh well
Welded cap on the well
Brick stamped S.F.B. Co. Pueblo
Pile of bricks and debris
Golden bricks
Pipes protruding from the ground
Broken and burned bricks
Clinker pile
Cut out this end, stir well, made in U.S.A.
Below the dam and pond
Silted-in pond
I noticed in the 1938 aerial imagery that what is now the Green River Cutoff Road went from what is now US-6 directly to this spot, but no further. The Green River Cutoff from the Castle Dale area at that time went down either Cottonwood Wash or Lost Spring Wash toward Green River. At some point after 1938 it was re-routed to connect with the road that was constructed just for drilling this well, and is still the route used today. I enjoyed learning this tidbit and others that I wouldn’t have otherwise known if it wasn’t for spotting the well in Google Earth.
Photo Gallery: Woodside Anticline