Fonds F3269 - Charlie Stalnaker fonds

Charles Stalnaker, 1891-1979, was born in West Virginia. Though he had some formal education he preferred the life afforded to him by the oil industry because it was not as regimented as other businesses. Charlie Stalnaker learned by doing. He started his career in the West Virginia oil fields as a tool dresser before becoming a driller. After returning from service as part of the American Expeditionary Forces in the Great War, he returned to his career in the oil patch where he soon became an oil well “shooter” for the Independent Torpedo Company in 1922. Stalnaker worked all throughout the United States, and he helped established Independent Torpedo’s magazine and factory in Shelby, Montana, where he became the only source of nitroglycerine available to service the fledgling Alberta oil industry based out of Turner Valley.