OIL FROM SHALE

(Taken From The State of Nevada Historical Marker At Elko Airport)

(Click to enlarge)

The following photographs were taken August 13, 2001 on the southern outskirts of Elko (0.8 mile south of the end of Morris Lane off Bullion Road).  They show the "remains of a short-lived oil extraction plant, which reached the peak of its productive capacity in the early twenties. Driving of the main shaft began in 1916. Of several tries at extracting oil from shale, this was the only successful operation in Nevada.

Robert M. Catlin, Sr. spent many years experimenting on the extraction of crude oil from these beds before beginning the commercial production of oil. After a production period of less than two years, the plant was closed in the fall of 1924. Hi-power Catlin oil was too expensive to compete with the fossil oils of that day.

Easily 50 years ahead of his time, Catlin did, for a few years, give Elkoans and Nevadans, a dream and the community an oil boom in the Roaring Twenties."

The mine tunnels have been closed.

Top B&W photo is of Catlin Oil Shale Plant 1923 (courtesy of Northeastern Nevada Museum document # 46-77)

Lower B&W photo is from The Nevadan November 24, 1974

Color photos taken on August 13, 2001

Taken from article in Elko Free Press Extra June 18, 1985

Catlin Shale Oil Plant - August 2001

^ Catlin Oil Plant

^ Oil Shale Bed

^ Tailings Above (East) of Plant

^ Sunset at Catlin Oil Plant

USGS Bullitin 729 Oil Shale of the Rocky Mountains Region, 1923 Dean E. Winchester

(from Northeastern Nevada Museum)

USGS Topographic Map Southern Pacific/US Bureau of Mines Oil-Shale Plant

Links

Highway marker at Elko Airport

Elko: The First 100 Years
Elko's Population in 1916 was estimated at 2,500

Catlin Shale Oil Company

Morris Lane off Bullion Road.  Only concrete ruins remain of the company begun in 1916 which operated about ten years before closing due to the high cost of refining