And now, he had invested most of his money in a piece of land where he wanted to drill an oil well but oldtimers had told him “everybody ’round here knows that tract ain’t no good.”

Page had become interested in oil in 1889 after selling the real estate and gold and silver mining interests he had accumulated to begin drilling for oil.

His first two wells were in Colorado, but both were dry holes. They were followed by dry holes in Michigan, in the Seminole and Chandler areas and even at Oakhurst. None of his wildcats went deep enough.

But he finally struck oil in what is known as the Taneha Field. He organized the Victor Oil and Gas Co., sold that property and turned his attention to what was known as North Glenn Pool, where several gas wells were brought in. By 1908, Page had a substantial income.

He later gained control of the famous and prolific Tommy Atkins oil lease through litigation that went to the Supreme Court, and he became one of the three richest men in Oklahoma with a fortune estimated at $20 million plus thousands of acres of land in or near the future town of Sand

By the time of his death in 1926 at the age of 64, it was estimated that his wealth had increased by at least $10 million. He had established the city of Sand Springs and what he termed his “partnership with God,” several institutions to take care of widows and orphans as part of the Sand Springs Home Interests.

Page began the career that the world has heard of in 1908 when he had four men clear brush and briars from a hill where the Creek Indians had long maintained a campground and had a small frame house put up.

A spring under the hill threw up sand so the site became known as Sand Springs, the name given the town he founded in 1910.

The small frame building first housed a widow and her five children, the latter staying on after their mother died. The home gained residents rapidly, and then Page opened a widows’ colony where widows could live in small cottages with their children.

Page believed in keeping families together in a happy home life, and he tried to do that with his orphans home and his widows’ colony. He also financed college educations for any of the children who had the desire. He set up a bank, a railroad between Tulsa and Sand Springs, a dairy, a water system at Shell Creek and other interests all aimed at taking care of the widows and orphans.

Page also tried to interest Tulsa in buying water from his Shell Creek facility and waged a newspaper battle with Tulsa World editor and publisher Eugene Lorton, who was promoting Spavinaw Lake as a source of water.

Page owned the Tulsa Democrat from 1915 until 1919 when he sold it to Richard Lloyd Jones, who changed its name to The Tulsa Tribune.

The editorial battle didn’t end until Tulsans approved a bond issue to pipe water from Spavinaw, first in 1919 and again in 1921.

Never one to spend much on himself, Page maintained a plain office on the second floor of the Sand Springs State Bank that many considered inadequate for a man who transacted business involving millions. But it was all he wanted.

Page was born in Wisconsin in 1860, the seventh in a lumber miller worker’s family of eight children.

His school days ended at the age of 11 after his father died and he took a job as a telegraph messenger to support his mother. In rapid succession, he became a telegraph operator, a gold miner, a timber cruiser in Colorado and Michigan, and, before he was 21, police chief of Ashland, Wis.

Page told about one night in Seattle when he was jobless, penniless, supperless and wondering where to go and what to do.

That’s when he met a young woman in a Salvation Army uniform jingling a tambourine before him with an invitation to give. He told her that he had nothing, no job, no place to sleep and no supper.

“Take a dollar out of this,” she told him. She directed him to a place he could get supper, bed and breakfast and help in finding a job. Then she preached to him: “When you get a job and have a dollar to spare, put the dollar back and then tithe.”

He frequently gave double or more than one-tenth.

Page was known as a person who would give for almost any worthy cause, so people who needed help often were told “Go see Charlie Page. He will help you.”

Even the depot agent learned to send stranded families to Page to be helped until the husband and father returned from some distant oil field to take care of them. He was always willing to assist those who were willing to help themselves.

Photograph research by Rachele Vaughan.

Gene Curtis 581-8304
gene.curtis@tulsaworld.com

Gene Curtis is a former managing editor of the Tulsa World.