Company History

In 1948 our family moved to Akron, Colorado as they had purchased a small ranch about 20 miles southwest of Akron.  My Grandfather who stayed behind in Kansas moved two years later after he had sold and closed the farms around Manter and Johnson.  Their farming experience had told them that this spot in Northeastern Colorado was going to be a great place to be.

At about this time a group of individuals who owned a company named Kimbark Oil and Gas leased minerals on the land they had purchased for the ranch/farm.  They  brought a small drilling unit from Kansas and drilled a test well.  Alfred Ward Sr. watched this with great interest.  He had owned ground in Texas where wells were drilled and even witnessed Red Adair extinguish a blowout right across the fence from his land.  The gentlemen from Oklahoma imparted considerable knowledge to Sr. during the weeks it took to drill the well.  Needless to say , by luck the Oklahoma group struck oil.  This was the first discovery south of the South Platte River in Colorado.  While Sr. and his son owned the minerals and received income from the find they continued on with the farming operation.

Shortly there after Sr. was flying his airplane to Denver when he spotted a drilling rig about 15 miles west of the farm and ranch operation.  Landing his plane on the county road he stopped to visit the drilling rig.  At the time of his arrival he introduced  himself to  Robert Goodall of Ogallala and his partners who were drilling this well.  They had just laid down the core (actual rock samples cut with a coring tool that produces four inch round cross section of the rock formations the coring tool penetrates).  Visual observation  by the geologist on site and others were leaning toward the fact that the well was most likely a dry hole.  Mr. Ward had seen the core from the well on his ranch and felt that the well was not dry.  He volunteered to fly the core to Core Lab in Denver for analysis.  He did so and returned later in the day and announced if they did not want to test the well, he would like to make a deal and buy the well from them.  They agreed on a price and made him a partner and tested the well.  It flowed oil to surface in a very short time.  The group drilled several more wells in the area and Continental Oil Company drilled on their acreage to the north and were successful.  The  Goodall and Ward group joined up with Continental and eventually developed a substantial oilfield.

The rest is history.  Since 1952 Alfred Ward & Son has been an active player in drilling, and producing oil and gas in northeastern Colorado and later in the Central and Western Kansas.  I prefer to call us a micro independent but am proud of the fact that we are one of the few original Colorado independents that is still in business.