Red Adair hardhat

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Fri after work I picked up a Red Adair hardhat. We normally do not collect artifacts, but this is connected to Michigan and one of our collections. 

Dick Bolton (1944-2010) was the editor of the Michigan Oil and Gas News, 1973-1981, during which time he heard about the blowout [natural gas well fire] east of I-75 near Waters and Gaylord, Michigan, in June 1976. He drove to the fire to photograph and write about the blowout, and returned numerous times during the month the fire raged to report and photograph new information about the challenges Red Adair and his team faced there. (To learn more about Bolton and his collection, see his collection catalog record in the Clarke at https://cmich.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma991015695169303781&context=L&vid=01CMICH_INST:01CMICH&lang=en&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=Everything&query=any,contains,dick%20bolton&offset=0.)

Red Adair (June 18, 1915- August 7, 2004) was a firefighter who specialized in oil well fires. A Texan, he served in World War II. Adair began fighting oil and gas well fires after his time serving in the Army bomb disposal unit. He worked for the "original" oil firefighter, Myron Kinley. Adair earned global attention fighting over 2,000 international land and offshore oil and gas well fires. In the summer of 1976 Adair and his team worked for a month to successfully cap and extinguish a large, dangerous blowout [natural gas well fire] east of I-75 near Waters, Michigan. Adair retired in 1993.


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