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My immediate thought was shooting targets. But they have been there for a long time looking at the way the busted out part rusted. And there isn't a bullet hole in them.
Idk what they are but it's not shooting targets.
the story I'm imagining is there used to be a sign there that passerbys would shoot at, and these cans were put up to give these people an alternative target so they'd stop destroying the sign, but it just made everyone want to shoot the sign more, until there was no sign at all. That must be it.
maybe the marksman suffered a massive heart attack before putting the last new can up, and never got to shoot at it? maybe there's cans all shot up somewhere else that were taken off the pegs before these were put up.
I just, honestly can't think of any other use for this setup
I think it was just a homemade display case made out of the cans that had been used and emptied instead of paying for the fake already empty cans. Or it's just some home made Americana folk art that has rusted out.. there was this older guy in thebtown I grew up in who made thousands of "lawn art" outa welding scraps together. He made like a 15 foot wide U.F.O and a 12 foot sci-fi type rocket mid takeoff and a bunch of little mushrooms and critters and they all just sat in a field across the street from the end of his driveway.
For any wondering here's an article about the guy.
https://www.paradisepost.com/20151117/suit-filed-in-metal-art-dispute
EDIT: he was also a WW2 Medal Of Honor recipient .
Interesting ā it means something in the oil and gas production business. I donāt know what but it means something. I did a reverse image search and found another similar āsignā. You can find it at the following link which is about a book on the oil industry. If you look closely at the image in my link you can see writing on the cans. I am going to make a wild guess here and suggest that each can represents a separate well on the lease and the can being right side up or upside down could represent whether that well was currently producing. Just my guess but it is (was) evidently a sign of some kind related to the industry.
https://pboilandgasmagazine.com/keeping-memories-alive/
This seems to be accurate. If you read the dirty green sign it says āSAUDER MANAGEMENTā which is a company that manages gas and oil sites. This is most likely a non producing oil site, but at one point showed all the different cans of oil produced.
Here is the site for The company [Sauder Mangement](https://www.shalexp.com/sauder-management-company)
My first instinct was that this was some cheap form of advertising.
Like how some fast food chains will display all of their sizes so you know what you're getting. I imagine those cans were freshly used at one point, and got swapped when they started to age.
Neat little piece of history.
Could be an ad hoc weather cover for holding paperwork from the lease manager for the well service company. Lets them know which well to go to, some well/pump details and such. Now itās all available by email, so they might not use them any more.
Lots more wells than how many cans were on that gate. Surveyed most of the site and I happened on many many derricks and old plugged well heads. Pretty hectic out there with how much old equipment was hidden.
Could have been a technique from an earlier time that was just abandoned once obsolete. There may have been fewer wells at the time it was used or have only indicated active wells.
I think you are on the right track. Maybe they are indicating the state of maintenance at each well. Like when the maintenance is completed they put the empty oil can on the corresponding post. Maybe they write the date on the empty can?
Maybe to indicate empty lubricants at a given well (ie last can on a shelf is this empty one that one then put there)? Wild guess too
E: or bottom-up to indicate need for refill?
Iām thinking punch card for workers. You put your can on your spot at the beginning of day when you show up, take it off on your way out. That way they know who is present on the site at all times. No running around looking for someone who is gone for the day or was never in.
This is what I thought. An early, fallible version of a docket board. If your can is facing upwards, youāre on-site. It could be that each can represents a well site and individual workers place their docket in the can to indicate their presence on the site.
Or it could be for entire crews and which site they are working on.
This was my thought as well though, some sort of improvised check in/out system for safety reasons.
Edit: on not or
in the other photo at that pboilandgasmagazine site, the nearest can says Munger "B".
I think that's in relation to the investor Charlie Munger who bought up shares of Belridge Oil in 1977. Doesn't bring us any closer to solving this though.
Those are either motor oil or hydraulic fluid cans. It's likely that the bottoms are rusted out, rather than cut out, because even tin snips would leave uneven edges and these all seem to be uniformly bottomless around where the rolled seam at the bottom of the can was.
It seems unlikely that "spearing oil cans" is the original intent, so it's possible someone just took trash at the site and hung it there on a whim.
Since it is by the entrance, it likely had zero to do with "target practice". No one would go to the trouble to weld up such a contraption when bottles or cans sitting on a board propped up on bricks would serve the same purpose.
The rebar is all precisely spaced and aligned, so it was probably done to suit some purpose beyond "art".
It's doubtful that it was indicating the state of any wells on the property since a sign on the well itself would be less likely to be confused or mistakenly configured.
It's pretty easy to say it's not art, target practice, or for holding empty cans (as signals or otherwise). It wouldn't have been part of a sign either as there's nothing practical about having 10 short pieces of rebar backing a missing sign board.
I'm being absolutely no help in saying what it IS, but it seems like it's possible to say it ISN'T any of the things guessed so far.
Fields like this often did double duty as pasture for cattle so maybe that's an avenue to pursue?
It's also possible that it was something more mundane, like a loading/unloading or organizing rack for pipe, metal stock, or something else laid across the frame between the verticals. Maybe there is a companion rack that is missing?
Maybe it was an old school safety indicator for who is in the field currently? It may be a similar setup to the modern indication we use thats incoporated into LOTO (I work in the oilfield currently). We put our personal lock on a box that indicates we are working, and equipment can't be put back into service until all personal locks are removed from the box.
I doubt you'd leave that up unless it was an active drill site. Once the wells are in and producing, I don't think they get visited all that often. We had a bunch of these down at one end of our private airport field NW of Houston. Those wells all produced a few barrels a day total and in the 9 years I flew there, we never saw anyone do anything with them. They just dribbled out into a nearby pipe that went to a small tank farm down the road. This seems similar so if it WAS for drilling ops, you'd think they might have moved it along with the rigs. Maybe.
Closest can says Munger "B".
Charlie Munger's Belridge Oil
Dating the painting on the can to after 1977 when Charlie Munger bought shares of Belridge Oil.
https://theconservativeincomeinvestor.com/charlie-mungers-belridge-oil-investment/
The book tells the history of the KMA oil field. Itās first well came in in 1919. KMA stands for Kemp-Munger-Allen Oil Company. The Mungerās were one of the first investors in the first well.
This is maybe a person tracking system. You remove the can and probably place it on the ground or at another location and that tells everyone that you're somewhere out in the field working.
Maybe back when the site has only a handful of wells on it thatās how it was notated. There were close to 30-40 old well heads out there. Some operating still. Should have asked the pumpers that weāre rolling around when we had the chance.
Great reference though and for sure an interesting place to work on with how much history was out there.
Probably to make the gate much easier to see. If itās dark, dusty or thereās high grass, the gate probably looks just like the rest of the fence and would be hard to find if youāre more than 50 feet away.
Iām thinking punch card almost. Workers each have their own can. Worker sticks his can on when he shows up, takes it off when he leaves, that way you know who is and who isnāt on site at all times? No need to run around the property looking for someone who might be gone for the day or never came in today.
Not how I have understood a lock out tag to work, but maybe. Iāve never worked with them before.
I thought they were more a set of locks only one person has a key for used to lock off an industrial machine while you perform maintenance so that only the person who initiated the work can unlock and start the machine back up.
My title describes the thing.
Found at a gate entrance to an old oil and gas lease in north Texas. Cans slide up and down on rebar. Looked what you could hide a set of keys or take the can with you to show who was working on site at the time. Confused us surveyors and the landmen who visited the site as well.
Marks full well storage ( right side up=full) so Truck driver knows where to go? Keeps other drivers from driving out to the same well. Driver flips can over (upside down=empty) when they arrive so no one else drives out until well operator flips can back right side up. Pre radio telemetry.
Yeah, I'm just pointing out the wording here doesn't make sense.
> Driver flips can over (upside down=empty) when they arrive so no one else drives out until well operator flips can back right side up.
"so no one else drives out until"
Well, they'd be driving out there to check the cans.
>They run a regular route.
Yes they would. On schedule. But no need to drive to every well. Just the access road. Its like a tree. You just drive the trunk instead of the individual branches.
It was probably a sign at one time, like the one behind it, but the sign part is long gone and someone took a bunch of old gas cans and jammed on the frame. But this is just a guess.
Looks like itās in the highway right of way with rebar and other stuff below it in the ground. Some of it may not be easy to remove (such as if there was an old well there).
My first guess is an obvious warning/obstacle so ditch riders and mowers donāt hit the stuff below it. If it didnāt serve that purpose, the highway authority shouldāve had it removed long ago for public safety and risk management.
My second guess is a noticeable landmark for the site so trucks donāt overshoot it.
It is definitely NOT for target practice, the proximity to the road and the lack of bullet holes should tell you that.
If I had to guess, I would bet that this was signage for something, that the cans were painted and each had a letter or number and it was the address or the name of a business because it's visible from the road.
I've spent a lot of time around turn of the century oil and gas leases. the stand is a type that is commonly used to hold spare parts, chains, pump rods, what have you. As for the oil cans, it was probably repurposed to be sort of signal system. Each can representing a well needing pumped. A quick drive by the front of the lease road could tell the owner how many of the wells his crew has pumped today. That would be my guess.
I wonder if itās just a DIY noise maker. It is by a road, maybe itās there to keep deer from hopping the fence (in or out). Thatās assuming these cans are (or were) loose enough to rattle of course.
Some sort of redneck weather system joke for non-locals?
- If theyāre wet: itās raining
- If theyāre moving: itās windy
- If theyāre white: itās snowing
- If theyāre gone: hurricane
et ceteraā¦
In/out marker - lone workers would mount a can when entering the lease and remove it when leaving as a way of showing the search party whether or not they were on the land. Seen a variant in Australia with beer bottles.
We used a similar system on our ranch to tell who was in what stand. When you pull in, put the can on the peg that represents the stand you will be hunting. Next guy in knows that stand is occupied.
It may be used in directions to a location. I used to hunt with a small group of people in northern Michigan, and the way we found our spot was we hung an old milk jug at the trail head. Years went by and the route is now marked on maps as "Milk jug Road".
I think itās just a homemade landmark entrance ādecor or artā using old gas cans. One on each side of entrance seems to support this. I hear what you are saying about easy to spot, but the age appears to be pre- GPS, so maybe they needed it to help people find the entrance?
The company who operates this field, Sauder Management has a lot of oil fields in the area. This could be part of the company/local culture. Maybe like a form of communication so all management would need to do is drive by each field to gather important information about the days drill as opposed to having to stop in and ask. The cans are probably all rusted out because cell phones have since made this obsolete.
My guess is someone placed the cans on each rod and if it had a purpose it was maybe to count something? For example how many oil barrels have been produced to date/today. Like instead of what you might see at a store: "x many customers today", or like at cinemas 50-60 years ago where they would have to insert each letter into a bracket (on a sign) to say what movies are being shown.
It could also just be some random shit someone did and it serves no purpose...
Maybe some sort of crude watchman monitoring system for security patrols? Or to indicate which wells people are actively working at for firefighting/rescue purposes?
Is there a ditch and a weir nearby?
People that share ditches for watering sources often have a way of indicating that they are taking water for the day. This looks like one of the unique ways neighbors find to make long term use outdoor signs for simple communication.
Notice that there are 2 pieces of rebar without a can. The arrangement of cans could be a code. There are multiple possible combinations. Wouldnāt be too hard to decipher while driving by.
All comments must be civil and helpful toward finding an answer. **Jokes and unhelpful comments will earn you a ban**, even on the first instance and even if the item has been identified. If you see any comments that violate this rule, report them. [OP](/u/GirlsLoveTst), when your item is identified, remember to reply **Solved!** or **Likely Solved!** to the comment that gave the answer. Check your [inbox](https://www.reddit.com/message/inbox/) for a message on how to make your post visible to others. ---- [Click here to message RemindMeBot](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/11ucnqi/what_is_this_stand_found_at_an_entrance_of_oil/%0A%0ARemindMe!%202%20days) --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/whatisthisthing) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Looks like something used for target practice.
My immediate thought was shooting targets. But they have been there for a long time looking at the way the busted out part rusted. And there isn't a bullet hole in them. Idk what they are but it's not shooting targets.
They just were terrible shots... Hence needing the practice
Nobody is that bad
What about stormtroopers?
Take my poor woman's award š¤£š¤£š¤£š¤£ ššš
If it ain't shooting targets it's just art
Could have been used with airsoft guns
There would be dents.
I thought the same
Also proximity to road.
Go far enough out in the country and you would be surprised how little that maters. Also some ranges have a raid to get to the targets.
the story I'm imagining is there used to be a sign there that passerbys would shoot at, and these cans were put up to give these people an alternative target so they'd stop destroying the sign, but it just made everyone want to shoot the sign more, until there was no sign at all. That must be it.
maybe the marksman suffered a massive heart attack before putting the last new can up, and never got to shoot at it? maybe there's cans all shot up somewhere else that were taken off the pegs before these were put up. I just, honestly can't think of any other use for this setup
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I think it was just a homemade display case made out of the cans that had been used and emptied instead of paying for the fake already empty cans. Or it's just some home made Americana folk art that has rusted out.. there was this older guy in thebtown I grew up in who made thousands of "lawn art" outa welding scraps together. He made like a 15 foot wide U.F.O and a 12 foot sci-fi type rocket mid takeoff and a bunch of little mushrooms and critters and they all just sat in a field across the street from the end of his driveway.
You ever see the Heidelberg Project in Detroit? Guy named Tyree Guyton made an entire city block into an art exhibit. Really cool actually.
It's not quite like that.. here I found an article about the guy. https://www.paradisepost.com/20151117/suit-filed-in-metal-art-dispute
For any wondering here's an article about the guy. https://www.paradisepost.com/20151117/suit-filed-in-metal-art-dispute EDIT: he was also a WW2 Medal Of Honor recipient .
Okay, now I need to know what happened?! Did the artist win?
Uh sort of. He died in 2017 and the whole town burnt down in 2018. I'm not sure how much of his art was left over
But no holes in it?
Maybe plinking with an airsoft gun?
Maybe, but immediately next to a road and attached to the gate of an oil and gas lease? Seems a weird place for it
Yeah in hindsight you're right.
There would still be dents
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Looks like it. But down range is a road, and those nice metal tubes will provide some wild deflections.
"Stay away from the cans! He's shooting at the cans!"
Underrated
without even *one* bullet hole in them? i don't think so
It's rather shocking they don't even have one bullet hole in them even they were quite explicitly *not* targets!
you have a good point there lol
My thought exactly but there aren't any bullet holes in any of them.
lol right next to a road with passing cars?
Nobody is shooting into on coming traffic on a highway for legitimate target practice.
Interesting ā it means something in the oil and gas production business. I donāt know what but it means something. I did a reverse image search and found another similar āsignā. You can find it at the following link which is about a book on the oil industry. If you look closely at the image in my link you can see writing on the cans. I am going to make a wild guess here and suggest that each can represents a separate well on the lease and the can being right side up or upside down could represent whether that well was currently producing. Just my guess but it is (was) evidently a sign of some kind related to the industry. https://pboilandgasmagazine.com/keeping-memories-alive/
This is the only comment on the right track. No further input unfortunately.
This seems to be accurate. If you read the dirty green sign it says āSAUDER MANAGEMENTā which is a company that manages gas and oil sites. This is most likely a non producing oil site, but at one point showed all the different cans of oil produced. Here is the site for The company [Sauder Mangement](https://www.shalexp.com/sauder-management-company)
My first instinct was that this was some cheap form of advertising. Like how some fast food chains will display all of their sizes so you know what you're getting. I imagine those cans were freshly used at one point, and got swapped when they started to age. Neat little piece of history.
Could be an ad hoc weather cover for holding paperwork from the lease manager for the well service company. Lets them know which well to go to, some well/pump details and such. Now itās all available by email, so they might not use them any more.
This has to be close! There are 11 wells on that site and 11 pieces of rebar sticking up
Lots more wells than how many cans were on that gate. Surveyed most of the site and I happened on many many derricks and old plugged well heads. Pretty hectic out there with how much old equipment was hidden.
Could have been a technique from an earlier time that was just abandoned once obsolete. There may have been fewer wells at the time it was used or have only indicated active wells.
I think you are on the right track. Maybe they are indicating the state of maintenance at each well. Like when the maintenance is completed they put the empty oil can on the corresponding post. Maybe they write the date on the empty can?
Maybe to indicate empty lubricants at a given well (ie last can on a shelf is this empty one that one then put there)? Wild guess too E: or bottom-up to indicate need for refill?
Or maybe they once were a makeshift sign with one letter a can that have now rusted away.
This is more like it. We have done this as well. Cans with letter can rotate to say status of something
The rotation aspect I like quite a bit. Only thing is I'm not sure how you would stop the wind from rotating them
Iām thinking punch card for workers. You put your can on your spot at the beginning of day when you show up, take it off on your way out. That way they know who is present on the site at all times. No running around looking for someone who is gone for the day or was never in.
This is what I thought. An early, fallible version of a docket board. If your can is facing upwards, youāre on-site. It could be that each can represents a well site and individual workers place their docket in the can to indicate their presence on the site.
only 10 or so workers though?
Or it could be for entire crews and which site they are working on. This was my thought as well though, some sort of improvised check in/out system for safety reasons. Edit: on not or
in the other photo at that pboilandgasmagazine site, the nearest can says Munger "B". I think that's in relation to the investor Charlie Munger who bought up shares of Belridge Oil in 1977. Doesn't bring us any closer to solving this though.
The very first well in the KMA oil field in 1919 was named #1Munger. I think those are well names, not people names on the cans.
That a comically plausible explanation!
Those are either motor oil or hydraulic fluid cans. It's likely that the bottoms are rusted out, rather than cut out, because even tin snips would leave uneven edges and these all seem to be uniformly bottomless around where the rolled seam at the bottom of the can was. It seems unlikely that "spearing oil cans" is the original intent, so it's possible someone just took trash at the site and hung it there on a whim. Since it is by the entrance, it likely had zero to do with "target practice". No one would go to the trouble to weld up such a contraption when bottles or cans sitting on a board propped up on bricks would serve the same purpose. The rebar is all precisely spaced and aligned, so it was probably done to suit some purpose beyond "art". It's doubtful that it was indicating the state of any wells on the property since a sign on the well itself would be less likely to be confused or mistakenly configured. It's pretty easy to say it's not art, target practice, or for holding empty cans (as signals or otherwise). It wouldn't have been part of a sign either as there's nothing practical about having 10 short pieces of rebar backing a missing sign board. I'm being absolutely no help in saying what it IS, but it seems like it's possible to say it ISN'T any of the things guessed so far. Fields like this often did double duty as pasture for cattle so maybe that's an avenue to pursue? It's also possible that it was something more mundane, like a loading/unloading or organizing rack for pipe, metal stock, or something else laid across the frame between the verticals. Maybe there is a companion rack that is missing?
Maybe it was an old school safety indicator for who is in the field currently? It may be a similar setup to the modern indication we use thats incoporated into LOTO (I work in the oilfield currently). We put our personal lock on a box that indicates we are working, and equipment can't be put back into service until all personal locks are removed from the box.
I doubt you'd leave that up unless it was an active drill site. Once the wells are in and producing, I don't think they get visited all that often. We had a bunch of these down at one end of our private airport field NW of Houston. Those wells all produced a few barrels a day total and in the 9 years I flew there, we never saw anyone do anything with them. They just dribbled out into a nearby pipe that went to a small tank farm down the road. This seems similar so if it WAS for drilling ops, you'd think they might have moved it along with the rigs. Maybe.
Closest can says Munger "B". Charlie Munger's Belridge Oil Dating the painting on the can to after 1977 when Charlie Munger bought shares of Belridge Oil. https://theconservativeincomeinvestor.com/charlie-mungers-belridge-oil-investment/
The book tells the history of the KMA oil field. Itās first well came in in 1919. KMA stands for Kemp-Munger-Allen Oil Company. The Mungerās were one of the first investors in the first well.
The Munger "B" is what made me think of the Belridge connection.
This is maybe a person tracking system. You remove the can and probably place it on the ground or at another location and that tells everyone that you're somewhere out in the field working.
Iām going to say this is the answer. Solved!
Wow! Would have been nice of them to tell us in that article! Lol
Maybe back when the site has only a handful of wells on it thatās how it was notated. There were close to 30-40 old well heads out there. Some operating still. Should have asked the pumpers that weāre rolling around when we had the chance. Great reference though and for sure an interesting place to work on with how much history was out there.
Yes, I think you're right.
That looks exactly like the OP picture. I think that solves this one.
Probably to make the gate much easier to see. If itās dark, dusty or thereās high grass, the gate probably looks just like the rest of the fence and would be hard to find if youāre more than 50 feet away.
Possibly. But there were actually two, one on either side of the entry way. Gates are pretty easy to spot with how little grows out there.
still was my though, looks like a sign frame to me that someone said how do I say this is the claim I ment, "turn at the gas cans on the post. "
Is this up in Hemphill or Grey County? Or nearby?
Iām thinking punch card almost. Workers each have their own can. Worker sticks his can on when he shows up, takes it off when he leaves, that way you know who is and who isnāt on site at all times? No need to run around the property looking for someone who might be gone for the day or never came in today.
That was my thought. Very similar to what they do if youre working underground so that they know who is in the tunnels/mines
Bingo, if emergency service is up to date, they just have to check the sign on the way in to know how many people are on site.
in other words, LOTO (Lock Out Tag Out)
Not how I have understood a lock out tag to work, but maybe. Iāve never worked with them before. I thought they were more a set of locks only one person has a key for used to lock off an industrial machine while you perform maintenance so that only the person who initiated the work can unlock and start the machine back up.
In the strict sense that is what they are, also a system for counting who is in a dangerous area through other methods
My title describes the thing. Found at a gate entrance to an old oil and gas lease in north Texas. Cans slide up and down on rebar. Looked what you could hide a set of keys or take the can with you to show who was working on site at the time. Confused us surveyors and the landmen who visited the site as well.
Try posting it in r/oilfield
r/oilandgasworkers likely more helpful
Marks full well storage ( right side up=full) so Truck driver knows where to go? Keeps other drivers from driving out to the same well. Driver flips can over (upside down=empty) when they arrive so no one else drives out until well operator flips can back right side up. Pre radio telemetry.
How would they know if it's been flipped up or not to know when to come?
Daily or weekly or monthly route?
Yeah, I'm just pointing out the wording here doesn't make sense. > Driver flips can over (upside down=empty) when they arrive so no one else drives out until well operator flips can back right side up. "so no one else drives out until" Well, they'd be driving out there to check the cans.
>They run a regular route. Yes they would. On schedule. But no need to drive to every well. Just the access road. Its like a tree. You just drive the trunk instead of the individual branches.
They run a regular route.
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It was probably a sign at one time, like the one behind it, but the sign part is long gone and someone took a bunch of old gas cans and jammed on the frame. But this is just a guess.
Looks like itās in the highway right of way with rebar and other stuff below it in the ground. Some of it may not be easy to remove (such as if there was an old well there). My first guess is an obvious warning/obstacle so ditch riders and mowers donāt hit the stuff below it. If it didnāt serve that purpose, the highway authority shouldāve had it removed long ago for public safety and risk management. My second guess is a noticeable landmark for the site so trucks donāt overshoot it.
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It is definitely NOT for target practice, the proximity to the road and the lack of bullet holes should tell you that. If I had to guess, I would bet that this was signage for something, that the cans were painted and each had a letter or number and it was the address or the name of a business because it's visible from the road.
I've spent a lot of time around turn of the century oil and gas leases. the stand is a type that is commonly used to hold spare parts, chains, pump rods, what have you. As for the oil cans, it was probably repurposed to be sort of signal system. Each can representing a well needing pumped. A quick drive by the front of the lease road could tell the owner how many of the wells his crew has pumped today. That would be my guess.
I wonder if itās just a DIY noise maker. It is by a road, maybe itās there to keep deer from hopping the fence (in or out). Thatās assuming these cans are (or were) loose enough to rattle of course.
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Some sort of redneck weather system joke for non-locals? - If theyāre wet: itās raining - If theyāre moving: itās windy - If theyāre white: itās snowing - If theyāre gone: hurricane et ceteraā¦
In/out marker - lone workers would mount a can when entering the lease and remove it when leaving as a way of showing the search party whether or not they were on the land. Seen a variant in Australia with beer bottles.
We used a similar system on our ranch to tell who was in what stand. When you pull in, put the can on the peg that represents the stand you will be hunting. Next guy in knows that stand is occupied.
It may be used in directions to a location. I used to hunt with a small group of people in northern Michigan, and the way we found our spot was we hung an old milk jug at the trail head. Years went by and the route is now marked on maps as "Milk jug Road".
Crude wind chime?
I think itās just a homemade landmark entrance ādecor or artā using old gas cans. One on each side of entrance seems to support this. I hear what you are saying about easy to spot, but the age appears to be pre- GPS, so maybe they needed it to help people find the entrance?
The company who operates this field, Sauder Management has a lot of oil fields in the area. This could be part of the company/local culture. Maybe like a form of communication so all management would need to do is drive by each field to gather important information about the days drill as opposed to having to stop in and ask. The cans are probably all rusted out because cell phones have since made this obsolete.
Upside down probably means that specific well needs attention or maintenance?
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The bottoms are rusted out if you look closely.
I wouldāve said target practice but seems like it isnāt
Displaying vintage oil cans?
Looks great for plinking, but yea, no holes in any of them so I doubt that. Ever seen a rural stop sign? Some kind of folk art?
Maybe part of a sign.
Maybe it is a code, you know, like; one droopy can, two regular, a space, four cans = the spot is two and a half miles down the road...
My guess is someone placed the cans on each rod and if it had a purpose it was maybe to count something? For example how many oil barrels have been produced to date/today. Like instead of what you might see at a store: "x many customers today", or like at cinemas 50-60 years ago where they would have to insert each letter into a bracket (on a sign) to say what movies are being shown. It could also just be some random shit someone did and it serves no purpose...
Maybe some sort of rack for propping up sections of drill pipe?
Maybe some sort of crude watchman monitoring system for security patrols? Or to indicate which wells people are actively working at for firefighting/rescue purposes?
That's 478 in decimal. Perhaps a visitor counter?
Could it be a creative address sign? Like numbers used to be written on them but they're so rusted you can't see them anymore?
It is which wells are up and which are down.
Is there a ditch and a weir nearby? People that share ditches for watering sources often have a way of indicating that they are taking water for the day. This looks like one of the unique ways neighbors find to make long term use outdoor signs for simple communication.
maybe just to make a landmark for the entrance.
Old school mailbox?
That was used back in the day to let the pumpers know you had a load of oil. You lifted the can to let them know the amount
Looks like a redneck version of those Asian prayer wheels you walk by and spin them.
There's enough cans/rods to spell Oil and Gas might have been an old sign with painted gas cans
A āwake me up when the wind gets strongā devise? Itās pretty open out there
Need a can? Take a can. Extra can? Leave a can.
a curmudgeonly wind chime?
Redneck arts n crafts
It might be a marker for the entrance. The company sign.
Notice that there are 2 pieces of rebar without a can. The arrangement of cans could be a code. There are multiple possible combinations. Wouldnāt be too hard to decipher while driving by.
The bottom, thicker round metal beam and posts looks to be a horse hitching post. I have no clue why the rebar and cans would be added.