Miami Geological Society Publications
MGS- Merritt 1995

In the 1940's, the area around Grossman Hammock was used for oil exploration activities, conducted under terms of State Lease No. 1 of the Trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund (a State board created in 1855 to promote the economic development of the state's wetlands areas). The particular circumstances and purposes leading to the drilling of the "Grossman well" in 1944 by a firm called the Miami Shipbuilding Company were unclear at the time and have not become clearer with the passage of time. According to the recollection of N.D. Hoy (U.S. Geological Survey, retired), the firm was associated with W.G. Blanchard, a sponsor of several oil exploration projects in southern peninsular Florida during this period. Apparently, the driller had little knowledge of the subsurface conditions that he was likely to encounter. An individual named "Mr. Starr" began to visit offices of the Florida Geological Survey and the U.S. Geological Survey to ask for information and advice, and reported that "freshwater with an odor of sulfur" had been encountered at about 1,200 feet below land surface.

Herman Gunter, State Geologist of Florida, then asked Garald G. Parker of the U.S. Geological Survey in Miami to investigate "Mr. Starr's well" and to obtain water samples for analysis. N.D. Hoy of the U.S. Geological Survey visited the site on December 23, 1944. Upon his arrival, he found water gushing from the well casing, which extended 1 to 2 feet above land surface in an otherwise undisturbed natural rocky glades setting. All drilling equipment had been removed. Upon inquiry, he was informed that drilling had been discontinued about 2 months earlier. He was also told variously that the well was for oil exploration and for the purpose of "finding out what kind of water was down there." Years later, in 1969, a Grossman family member stated that the well "was a test prior to actual drilling" of a deep oil well. In 1949, the Coastal Petroleum Corporation drilled an 11,519-foot deep oil test well a short distance away from the 1944 well. Only minute quantities of oil were found, and the deep oil well was abandoned in the early 1950's.

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