soldiers routed american troops. the left the capital wide open to troops, who burned down the white house and the nation's capital. you can learn more about the burning of washington during the war of 1812, this thursday from anthony pitch. our live coverage starts at 6:45 eastern. more about the burning of washington, next saturday, august 23, as we take you live to bladensburg waterfront park for a discussion on the events of 200 years ago. on american history tv on c-span3. long, american history tv is joining our charter and cable partners to showcase the history of casper, wyoming. to learn more about the cities, visit c-span.org/localcontent.

we continue with our history of casper. this is american history tv. >> we are the middle of the salt the placefield, at it was probably first discovered. right behind me is salt creek. the spring is on both sides of the creek. that is where there was a spring of oil. oil was coming to the surface. in 1889, a fellow named shannon came out here. he was from a pennsylvania oil company and sell is going on and drilled the well three miles north of here. that was the first well in this area. it produced 10 barrels of oil per day. speculation in this area really when rampant and there was a lot of claims made

and leases and that type of thing. so, that was the beginning of the great salt creek oilfield. first started, it was a cattle town. cattle and sheep ranching was real big. when oil started, that was when it started to grow. there was such an influx of people. you got the instant wealth of the oilfield. whereas, before that, it was a half dozen ranchers who would come to the general store and buy goods for a month. once the oilfields started, casper started to boom. casper is where the first refinery was built. casper was the end of the rail lines. that is where the oil went -- to casper, to get on the rail line. to go to the larger refiners. where we are now is the northern end of the salt creek field. it is five miles wide and nine miles long. it is an actual oil dome.

where the pressure from underneath pushed the rocks up. the top part you wrote it off. that is where we are standing now, where the top portion of the earth was eroded away. this land was all federal land. there was free grazing going on out here. the speculators would come in and they would dig a six foot square hole, 10 feet deep. if they found oil, they had an oil site. these claims were 40 acres. so, if they found oil in a hole, they dug 40 acres around that as their oil site. many would dig a series of holes. then, that would tie several claims together. some of these guys have had these claims and with then either go ahead and terrel themselves or they would try to sell these claims.

they had to do $100 worth of improvements to these claims every year to keep the claim. drilling a well was an improvement. building a road was an improvement. capturing water to use in steam engines was an improvement. some of them did not do that. they could not get that much work done in a year and they would lose their claim. or someone else would jump it and take their claim. the big oil companies realized from the start that this was something big. they came in right about the beginning of things. a dutch company was the one that drilled the first two wells. a texas company became texaco. they were here. that was one that the small operators -- the guys with only one 40 acre lease out here, was battling. there was claim jumping going on out here. there were security riders.

they would ride on horseback and ride the perimeter to make sure that someone was not coming in and jumping. the midwest oil company had security riders, but they were not armed. some of the smaller, more unscrupulous people, their riders were armed. they would come in and just push out the unarmed guys. and take a claim, take the lease. prior to 1920, there were a lot of legal battles going on out here. two people claiming the same piece of property or something like that. just a surrender some out of legal battles. the government pretty much shut down all operations out here, until this was settled. about 1920, this all went to the courts and everything was settled. then, the drilling really started. most of the wealth out here were drilled in the 1920's. , there were 5628 different operators out here.

you are standing in the richest 80 acres in the united states. more money has been made on this 80 acres than anywhere else in the united states. iba was the first one to make a claim here. there was speculation that when rampant around here. everybody wanted to get claims , because itiba 80 was so rich. behind me is a well -- 6 northwest 24. it was drilled in 1928. 3,000 barrels of oil a day, free-flowing. this was such a great well, it is called the iba 6. when it came in at 3000 barrels a day --as it was falling, the pressure would drop off. whenever you get down to 1000

barrels a day, they would come in and give it 100 quarts of it wouldimulated, and go back to 3000 barrels a day. this would be going on for years. years ago,bout three was converted to a conjunction well. at that time, it was still making 100 barrels of oil a day. the great depression basically shut the oilfield down. there was not any money. nore was no money to drill, money to maintain the lease or anything like that. during the depression period, there was virtually no activity out here. when the depression was over, activity started getting back up. they started building wealth in the 30's again. then, came along the second world war. all moneys and everything was sent overseas to fight the war. if an oil company wanted to flood a well to abandon all well out here, they had to get clearance from a department to

flood the well. the war department wanted all of the oil. they wanted to make sure they were not losing any production in these wells. today, in the salt creek oilfield, we are under a co2 flood. there injecting co2 into ground to force the oil out. with this system of production, we are not pumping the wells. there flowing again like they did in the 20's. this is a very efficient means of production. it is sweeping the rocks very well and getting more and more oil out of the ground now. throughout the weekend, american history tv is featuring casper, wyoming. the local content vehicles team recently traveled

there to learn about their history. learn about other stops on our cities tour at c-span.org/localcontent. you are washing american history tv, all weekend every weekend on c-span3. >> here's a great add to your summer reading list. a collectionight," of stories from some of the nation's most influential people. risk.ecided to take the whether it is an illusion or not, i do not think it is -- it helped my concentration. it stopped me being bored. it stopped other people from being boring, to some extent. it would keep me awake. i would have longer conversations. if i was asked, what i do it again? the answer is probably yes. hoping to get away with the

whole thing -- it is not very nice for my children to hear. it's other responsible. if i say yes, i would do that all again to you. it would be hypocritical to say no, i would never touch the stuff. i did know, everyone knew. >> the soviet union and the soviet system in eastern europe contained the seeds of its own destruction. many of the problems that we sought the end began at the very beginning. spoke about the attempts to control all institutions and control all parts of the economy and political life and social life. one of the problems is that when you do that and try to control everything, then you create opposition and potential dissidents everywhere. that theyl artists have to pay the same way and once as they do not want to paint that way, you have just made him into a political dissident. if you want to subsidize housing in this country and we want to talk about it as a popular agreement, then put it on the

balance sheet. make it clear and make it evident. that makes everyone aware of how much it costs. when you deliver it through third-party enterprises, fannie mae and freddie mac -- when you deliver the subsidy to a private company with private shareholders and attempt to extract for themselves, that is not a good way of subsidizing homeownership. >> christopher hitchens, and gretchen morgan's , are a few of the engaging stories. history and american history professor joanne friedman discusses how the concept of honor affected alexander hamilton throughout his life. she maintains that his desire was so strong that it led