Drilling for Black Gold with “Los Angeles as an Oil Center” in The Land of Sunshine Magazine, October 1894

by Paul R. Spitzzeri

Having examined articles on the late Don Pío Pico, the churches of Los Angeles and its Chinese community, this post poring through the pages of the October 1894 issue of The Land of Sunshine, a magazine that began publication five months prior and following the region’s heavy promotion at the previous year’s World’s Fair at Chicago looks at other content in the edition which reflect its earnest efforts to boost and promote greater Los Angeles.

Another major feature is “Los Angeles as an Oil Center,” the byline of which comprises the initials “R.S.N.” and which began with the observation that “hitherto the great drawback in establishing manufacturing enterprises in Los Angeles has been the high price of fuel,” though it was added that “if the oil developments which have recently been made within the city limits continue,” the Angel City could have rates as low as any American metropolis.

Noting that “the developments of the past few months . . . have assumed the proportions of a veritable boom,” the piece went on that California was already the third largest petroleum producing state in the country following Pennsylvania (where the industry began thirty-five years earlier) and New York.” Moreover, it was predicted that “it may become the first” because of indications of crude along varied sections of the Coast Range.

Additionally, “the principle center of production is in the south” with fields in Los Angeles and Ventura counties “turning out a constantly increasing quantity of oil.” As to the former, it was recorded that “at Puente . . . are extensive oil deposits whose development goes back to 1882,” when William Lacy of Los Angeles and William R. Rowland, former county sheriff and son of John Rowland, co-owner with William Workman, of the massive Rancho La Puente, establishing the successful Puente Oil Company.

It was remarked that “there are over a score [twenty] of wells, and they produce several thousand barrels monthly,” used for fuel and lubrication. Importantly, it was pointed out that “these deposits continue into Orange county,” which was carved from Los Angeles County a half-decade before, “where a couple of wells have been sunk near Fullerton which yield small quantities of oil, utilized for fuel.” This may refer to efforts by Boyle Heights resident Burdette Chandler at Soquel Canyon, east of Fullerton and near which would soon emerge the significant Brea-OIinda oil field.

At the time, however, it was in Ventura County where the heaviest amount of production was taking place, with wells in seven locations east of Ventura were yielding some 1,000 barrels of crude per day and new ones being regularly drilled. Moreover, there were pipelines laid out extensively and a refinery at Santa Paula—this being operated by what was called since 1890 the Union Oil Company, later with headquarters at Los Angeles.

Returning to the Angel City and environs, “R.S.N.” commented that there “several sections” near the growing burg where “the existence of oil wells has been known ever since the early Mexican days because,

In connection with these springs have always been found deposits of asphaltum or brea, which is the residuum left after the volatile portion of the oil had been evaporated. This brea was extensively utilized by the Mexican residents for fuel and for covering the roofs of houses. Thousands of tons of asphaltum were shipped from Los Angeles county to the north in former years, being taken from the [La] Brea ranch, west of the city, which derives its name from the extensive deposits of this material that are found there. Years ago a well was sunk for oil to a depth of 1440 feet on the Brea ranch. Oil was found in abundance, but there was no local market for it at that time.

As the quote observed, the area embraced within what is commonly called the “La Brea Tar Pits” was long known for the significant deposits of brea for the purposes mentioned. The last two sentences are interesting with respect to the depth of the well and the comment about the yield and lack of demand.

Turning to the city limits, then largely embraced by the four-square league (about 17,700 acres) pueblo grant during the Spanish era, though aggressive annexation would very soon rapidly expand Los Angeles’ boundaries, the author wrote that “it has always been known that there were oil springs . . . but old timers took no interest in developing them because, as stated, there was no local market.”

This was not true as longtime county judge William G. Dryden prospected in the west end of town northwest of what is now MacArthur Park in 1857, while another effort was made eight years later near what was later the intersection of Temple and Boylston streets. As to the comment that “later arrivals took it for granted that the deposits were not valuable because nothing had been done with them,” that is also a questionable statement.

Beyond this, what was entirely left out by “R.S.N.” was the fervent activity carried out in the mountains north of Los Angeles and in what is today the southerly limits of Santa Clarita, west of today’s Interstate 5. From 1865, when the Pioneer firm drilled in Pico Canyon, and then during the peak of the region’s first boom during the early to mid 1870s, when others were prospecting, quite a few wells were drilled in what was termed the San Fernando oil field.

Among those chasing “black gold” was F.P.F. Temple, who had involvements in a few projects, principally that of his Los Angeles Petroleum Refining Company, which worked a claim in Towsley Canyon. He also built a modest steam-powered refinery, while apparently producing a decent amount of crude from his wells, though his earnest efforts came to an abrupt, sudden halt when his Temple and Workman bank failed in early 1876.

Later that year, however, the Star Oil Company hit it big and really inaugurated the region and state oil industry, including inspiring others, such as Lyman Stewart and the Hardison brothers to ramp up efforts in Ventura, as mentioned above, while, within a half-dozen years, Lacy and Rowland began their work with the Puente wells and Chandler initiated his project at Petrolia in the aforementioned Soquel Canyon. Why “R.S.N.” passed over the San Fernando field in his article is more than puzzling.

The writer then observed that, earlier in 1894, a well was drilled near Second Street Park, also known as Lake Shore Park, established under a decade before as residential development took place near its location about where Glendale Boulevard meets 1st and 2nd streets but which was soon obliterated by oil drilling operations.

It is another curiosity of this article that “R.S.N.” entire left out the opening of the Los Angeles Oil Field by Charles Canfield and Edward Doheny, when the two somewhat-impoverished mineral prospectors invested a small sum on a claim and rudimentary equipment and hit it big in November 1892 with a well just north of Second Street/Lake Shore Park. Five years later, Doheny, in partnership with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, inaugurated the Orange County oil industry with a successful well at Olinda in Brea.

This important omission aside, the article then noted that “there is a forest of oil derricks standing over 80 or more oil wells, and there is not a dry hole in the entire number, although some wells yield more than others.” The depths were shallow, ranging from under 200 to more than 1,100 feet and the average about in the middle and yields from the aggregate amounted to some 500 barrels daily or about an average of ten per well, while the better producers were upward of twenty to about double that.

As for what the crude fetched on the market, it was reported that “this oil sells at about $1.25 per barrel and the market is an extensive one and rapidly extending,” while for the production of steam it was stated that three-and-a-half barrels was analogous to a ton of soft coal. The result was that “this brings coal down to less than $5 per ton, to say nothing of the savings of expense of handling the oil” when compared to the same for the former. Given the sale price of oil, “the owner of the well will net over $1 per barrel.”

The 80 wells were crammed into a relatively small section of town, “most of them being found on a tract that does not exceed twenty acres in extent and, because “that section of the city has all been subdivided into residence lots” it was observed that “sometimes four or five wells will be found on a single lot.” An example was provided of an unnamed lot owner who sunk a well which generated enough proceeds so that he had those five wells “and he now has income from the sale of from twenty to thirty barrels of oil per day.”

The geological structure of the field was not yet well-known, though state officials would, by the end of the decade, publish reports that, in succeeding years, became more sophisticated, in-depth and important in the furtherance of the oil industry. “R.S.N.” remarked that “the extent of the oil deposit is as yet a matter of conjecture,” though it was felt that “it covers a large portion of the territory within the city limits, and that it is a portion of the belt which extends from the oil fields of Ventura county and Newhall on the northwest to those of Puente on the east.”

Outside of the Los Angeles Oil Field, it was added that “there are excellent indications north and east, where wells are being bored,” though these sections did not prove to be petroleum heavy” and one alleged indicator of possible crude sources was that the area “is underlaid with sandstone—that peculiar formation of sandstone which is found in all oil producing countries.”

To date, prospecting for petroleum was conducted by single proprietors or small partnerships and firms, but “companies are now being formed to lease land and operate on a more extensive scale” and it was supposed that the day was not far away when there would be an oil exchange of some sort established in the city.

Concluding that “it is difficult to over-estimate the value of the industry to Los Angeles should it develop as now appears probable,” the article added that “the price of oil for fuel has already fallen almost one-half, and there has been a considerable reduction in the price of coal.” If oil was the same price as coal at $2.50 a ton it was felt that “there would no longer be any trouble about manufacturing.”

Moreover, “we may expect to get gas at about 50 cents a thousand [cubic feet], which could be piped into houses and used for fuel” and uses of natural gas for domestic and industrial purposes, though only mentioned in this brief snippet, was another important indicator of what the petroleum industry would become. This was hinted at in the final sentence: “should the output increase beyond the home demand, a pipe line to the coast [for export] would be an easy matter.”

This early examination of the oil industry in Los Angles and outlying areas, lacking as it is in some details as pointed out above, is a notable and interesting one. Within half a decade, there would be an incredible change in the conditions of petroleum prospecting, including with the advent of the Fullerton (Brea-Olinda) field along with the city field and the exploration in other areas of the state.

The first two decades of the 20th century saw a massive explosion in development, including, in 1916-1917, the inauguration of the Montebello field, with Walter P. Temple being an accidental beneficiary of a number of gushers on his property at the Whittier Narrows. With the Roaring Twenties, such powerhouse fields as Huntington Beach, Long Beach, Santa Fe Springs, Signal Hill and others, not to mention the incredible yields of the lower San Joaquin Valley, meant that oil was a primary driver of the regional economy, allowing for much more residential growth, but also industrial expansion.

A century later, amid an aggressively accelerating climate change and with a new warning just this past couple of days that a catastrophic condition will ensue if greenhouse gas emissions are not drastically reduced by 2035, looking back at the enthusiasm and expectations that the nascent industry provoked in greater Los Angeles is particularly noteworthy. Fossil fuels have powered an industrial economy that has transformed our world, but at costs with which we have have not yet come close to fully calculating or mitigating.