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Bartlesville, Ponca City: a tale of two (oil) cities(Daily Oklahoman, The Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Mar. 14--It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Like characters in Charles Dickens' 1859 novel, the triumphs and tragedies of Bartlesville and Ponca City will forever be entwined. Separated by just 70 miles of highway, the fortunes of these two mirror image Oklahoma communities have been tied to the oil and gas industry for nearly a century. Sometimes they have triumphed together. Such was the case in the early 1900s when oil patriarchs Frank Phillips in Bartlesville and E.W. Marland in Ponca City helped the twin cities burst forth from the Oklahoma prairie with architectural splendor, opulence and culture seldom found outside the great metropolises of the world. Sometimes they have shared tears. ConocoPhillips began delivering termination notices this month to several dozen employees in Ponca City and more than 120 in Bartlesville. "There was a sense of fear and foreboding when the layoffs were announced," said Kevin Tully, senior minister of First United Methodist Church of Bartlesville. "In the paper we just see numbers, but when it takes on faces and you're dealing with families ... we're of course very worried along with these folks." "I think people are really struggling to make sense of this," added Mike Seabaugh, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Ponca City. "Some of these folks have been here with the company their whole careers. It's very traumatic." One's loss, other's gain And sometimes one city has benefited at the expense of the other. That seems to have happened with increasing frequency since 2002. That's when Phillips Petroleum Co., founded by Bartlesville's Frank Phillips, merged with Conoco Inc., the successor to Ponca City's Marland Oil Co. The result was ConocoPhillips, a huge international oil company headquartered in Houston. A recent gut-wrenching chapter in Oklahoma's century-long tale of two cities was written Feb. 17 when ConocoPhillips announced it would be transferring 750 jobs away from Ponca City over the next three years, including 250 this year. Of the jobs being moved this year, 70 will be moved to Bartlesville, officials said. For Bartlesville, population 34,800, the announcement was bittersweet. Seventy new jobs during a worldwide economic recession are always welcome, but "I agonize over the loss in Ponca City," said Bartlesville City Manager Ed Gordon. "We have compassion and sensitivity for our sister city of Ponca City," echoed Bartlesville Mayor Tom Gorman. For many in Ponca City, population 24,700, the announcement was just plain bitter. "E.W. Marland would be turning over in his mausoleum right now," said one longtime resident, who requested anonymity. Backbone of economy Back in Marland's heyday, his oil company employed about one-third of the town's work force, said David Keathly, executive director of the Marland Estate. Conoco employed as many as 5,200 in Ponca City as recently as the early 1980s, said Craig Stephenson, the community's city manager A similar "company town" atmosphere existed in Bartlesville, where at one time in the 1980s Phillips employed about 9,000 employees, half of the town's work force, Gorman said. Oil industry employment had diminished in both cities by 2002. Bartlesville had about 2,400 Phillips employees and Ponca City had about 2,100 Conoco workers at the start of the ConocoPhillips merger. Conoco's name appeared first on the nameplate, but former Conoco employees in Ponca City have fared worse than their Phillips Petroleum counterparts in Bartlesville since the merger -- at least in terms of layoffs. The number of ConocoPhillips employees in Bartlesville has grown to about 3,000 since then, while the number in Ponca City is expected to drop to about 700 within the next three years. Determined to make their cities less dependent on a single corporation, leaders in both cities have been working hard in recent years to diversify -- at times working together. Nowhere is that more evident than in tourism, where Keathly said Ponca City and Bartlesville have been working cooperatively to promote their oil legacies and landmarks. To the extent the communities are successful in their joint efforts, the closing line of Dickens' Tale of Two Cities may resonate in the thoughts of Ponca City and Bartlesville citizens for generations to come. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known. To see more of The Oklahoman, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.newsok.com. Copyright (c) 2009, The Oklahoman, Oklahoma City Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |