Amos Frederick Diehl

Amos F. Diehl Passed Away July 20th, Drilled Discovery Well In Lance Creek

A pioneer of Wyoming's oil industry, and the man who drilled the discovery well for the Ohio Oil company in the Lance Creek field in 1918, Amos F. Diehl, passed away last Thursday, Jul 20, in Lusk at the age of 75 years.

Amos Frederick Diehl took a prominent part in the development of the Lance Creek oil field in Niobrara county during the past twenty years, and only until his health became so that he retired from active work, did he relinquish his constant interest in the field which was to become Wyoming's largest active oil center. Born in Pennsylvania in 1864, Mr. Diehl became first interested in the oil industry in that state. After many years experience there and other eastern fields, he migrated with his family to the then newer oil centers of the west. Coming to Wyoming in 1913, he drilled his first location in this state in Johnson county, near buffalo, in 1914.

During the pre-World War period, Lance Creek first came to notice of the oil interests and several companies started work in Niobrara county. Diehl was driller for the Ohio Oil company and completed the Discovery well for the Ohio on section 36, which precipitated the boom that followed immediately after the war.

He is survived by his wife, Margaret, four sons and two daughters. Mrs. Diehl has been in poor health for several years and the couple made their home in California with a daughter. Mr. Diehl often returned to Lusk and Niobrara county to visit with his sons and look after his business interests here, and had been staying here with his sons Fred and Robert, most of the spring. His wife's health was such that the children were afraid the shock of his death might be too great for her. She being unable to make the trip from California; the children decided it best that their father's body should be laid in his final resting place in the community he held such an interest in. The sons are: Robert, Richard, Addison and Fred; two daughters, Dorothy and Helen. One daughter, Romaine, preceded her father in death in 1931.

Funeral services were held from the Peet Mortuary Chapel Saturday afternoon, July 22. Burial was made in the Lusk cemetery.

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