by Paul R. Spitzzeri
After some early oil-related projects in the area around what later became the Olinda oil field in modern Brea at the northeastern corner of Orange County failed to yield much success from 1865 onward, the next major push for petroleum prospecting came in the 1880s. By this time, a great deal had changed in this nascent industry, especially after concerted efforts were made during the peak of the first development boom in greater Los Angeles, specifically the years 1873-1875, in the San Fernando field where Santa Clarita now is.
F.P.F. Temple was among the capitalists expending significant sums in drilling wells in that section and his financial collapse early in 1876 with the closure of the Temple and Workman bank ended his work, but, later that year, the Star Oil Company hit a gusher at Pico Canyon, this in the hills just to the west of today’s Interstate 5, very close by and effective launched California’s oil industry.
Several years later, atop the Puente Hills on a section of the Rancho La Puente that Los Angeles County Sheriff William R. Rowland inherited from his father, John, after the latter’s death in 1873, a series of wells were drilled in partnership with pipe manufacturer William Lacy. The result was the establishment of the Puente oil field and the Puente Oil Company, which became a major success in resulting decades.
Before Lacy, Rowland’s partner was Burdette Chandler (1837-1914), a native of Union, New York, southwest of Syracuse, where his father was a merchant. Chandler went into the same business, but, after America’s oil industry was launched in western Pennsylvania in 1859, he headed there with his wife Albertine and became an operator—this looks to have been done by his deserting from the United States Army that March after nine months in the service. By 1871, he ended up in Ontario, Canada as an oil prospector in a town called Petrolia and then relocated to West Virginia pursuing petroleum pursuits.
In 1877, perhaps hearing of the recent opening of the Star oil well or of the search for the precious fluid generally, Chandler and his wife settled in Los Angeles. An article in a San Luis Obispo paper the next year referred to him as “one of the most successful oil men of the United States,” though it would appear that could only have been stated by Chandler to others.
Nearly thirty years later, he told the Los Angeles Herald claimed credit for being the first to drill a well within Angel City limits and he also told the paper that, “at a sale of the old Temple estate, I bought 1200 acres of land north of Brea Canyon for $800.” This was mentioned in this post as the tracts that Temple and William Workman obtained from Isaias W. Hellman in 1871 as their Hellman, Temple and Company bank was dissolving.
Chandler was only in Los Angeles for a very short time before he became involved in Democratic Party politics and secured election to the City Council, serving three terms between 1880 and 1888, including during the Boom of the Eighties that transformed the region in myriad ways. He became a resident of Boyle Heights, about which the Homestead is hosting an event on 30 March to commemorate its 150th anniversary.
Rowland and Chandler inaugurated their work in the Puente field, the second in the region after San Fernando, in late summer or early fall 1881, when the latter drilled a well and, at just 165 feet, hit oil and pumped out 15 barrels in that amount of minutes before having to stop because he ran out of barrels, though he soon had 100 barrels filled. By the end of January 1882, a second well looked promising and, by fall 1883, the deepest well Chandler was working was pushing 300 feet and he was prepared to reach 1,000, if necessary.
Meanwhile, in spring 1883, Chandler turned further eastward, no doubt believing that an oil belt ran northwest to southeast from Los Angeles through Puente to Soquel Canyon, immediately east of what became the Olinda field. The 11 May edition of the Herald, under the headline of “Better Than Eldorado” announced,
Los Angeles county is slowly but surely coming to the front. The latest unmistakable indication is found in the hills northeast of Anaheim, where the most abundant supply of petroleum has been discovered that was ever before shown on the coast. About twenty years ago some parties saw the great masses of asphaltum in Soquel cañon and branches, seven miles northeast of Anaheim and thought they had found a coal mine. They accordingly commenced sinking shafts for coal but instead of finding that article, they found such a supply of petroleum flowing in upon them that they were drowned out by oil, and abandoned the work in disgust. They wanted coal and would take nothing else, so they abandoned the great springs of oil which were worth tenfold more than a coal mine and quit the country in disgust. When the prospect of discovering coal was first agitated there was a fierce controversy for the possession, and in the heat of the strife one man was killed.
After it was found that no coal was there, the folly of killing a man for coal that did not exist, was painfully evident and in remorse the coal seekers left the country.
As the first part of this post discussed, this reference to what took place almost two decades before involved the establishment of the “Soucal Oil Company” early in 1865 by a few dozen stockholders, including very prominent figures in Los Angeles, though the murder of Paul R. Hunt by Lyman A. Smith was said to have happened at the Cañada de la Brea (modern Tonner Canyon) a short distance to the north of Soquel Canyon.
The Herald, likely accepting accounts secreted by hazy memories of 20 years prior, referred to coal as the primary goal of the firm—and an 1877 map of southern California shows many coal claims in the Soquel and Carbon (hence, the name) canyon areas—but it was asphaltum, or tar (brea in Spanish), that was sought for conversion into oil. Whether petroleum was found and ignored as not paramount for the firm’s purposes is an interesting question and, by “quit the country” and “left the country,” this presumably meant the ending of mining in that section, not leaving greater Los Angeles.
The article continued that “the land was government property and has been patented recently by Messrs. B. Chandler, J.G. Bowers [Bower] and other Los Angeles parties” who were gathering drilling materiel to drill “into this rich and remarkable deposit.” It added that Soquel Canyon was “on a direct line with the great oil belt that passes through Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties, and is the richest exhibit of any portion of the belt.” Later years would certainly show a vast amount of oil in these three counties and at levels likely no one in 1883 could have grasped.
The paper added that the location was “400 feet above the railway,” this apparently meaning at that elevation above sea level from the Southern Pacific line at Anaheim and that “the asphaltum furnishes a vast supply of fuel for running engines while boring and pumping wells, or for shipment to other markets.” The price was said to be $4.25 per barrel of crude, but even at half that price, it would prove profitable to extract it because of its value for lubricating oil. It went on,
This new discovery is destined to be of great value to Los Angeles. In truth, “there are millions in it.” It can be used for burning lime and brick kilns, making gas, running steam engines and smelters and is much cheaper than wood or coal. The especial value of this great reservoir of oil lies in the fact that it can be found from the surface down to an indefinite depth. The oilbearing sand rock extends from the surface as far down as any wells have been sunk in that part of the country . . . In fact, the supply appears to be exhaustless.
Noting that there were already three wells at the Puente field and all producing oil consistently, the Herald remarked “here is a field for capitalists to invest their money most profitably” because “Los Angeles is a great oil market and has a vast supply that only needs experienced men to develop.”
Chandler, it was commented, was just such a figure. The paper exhorted readers that “if to his great energy and experience increased capital could be applied the result would be fabulous in profit.” Strangely, it was stated that after searching through Canada, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, “we are free to state that we have never seen so rich surface showings of petroleum, as in the Soquel Cañon and the adjoining Puente hills,” but this sounds like a remark from Chandler, not the paper.
In any case, the Herald‘s promotion piece concluded,
Capitalists will find it to their advantage to invest in sinking wells in this rich and rewarding field. Los Angeles county is the banner county for [natural] resources, and this new and opulent field of Soquel Cañon only adds another block to her pyramid of wealth.
A week later, under the heading of “More Oil Development,” the paper provided an update on “the new Soquel Cañon oil district” which “is now to be opened up actively.” Chandler and Bower sent drilling equipment and lumber to build structures and the former “will take the field in-person today” carrying tools and “commissary stores” so that “the work will move on with energy and speed.”
Continuing with the theme that Soquel Canyon was “destined to be an important factor in the trade of Los Angeles, which will be the great oil depot of the Pacific Coast,” the Herald predicted that, “in the swift coming future Los Angeles will be as much noted for oil as it now is for oranges.” Moreover, it forecast that the Angel City “will be the center of supply for the railways and manufactories of all the interior country west of the Rio Grande,” a grand statement for sure.
The paper reminded readers that what was needed was capital investment that would mean “the result will be rich and rewarding” and compared Los Angeles to Cleveland, which derived much of its business from the oil industry nearby. The difference, however, was that the Angel City “has the ocean before it with the cities and nations of the Orient for customers, and a sky devoid of thunderbolts that have burned 20,000,000 gallons of this fluid in the city of Cleveland,” though this wasn’t entirely true as a prior post on this blog noted. The article ended that $100,000 in capital would lead to an enterprise “that would greatly enrich the city and country [county].”
Ramping up its rabid promotion, the Herald sent out a representative to tour what was called for the first time “Petrolia,” the same name of the Canadian town where Chandler once lived and worked. It was commented, for the edition of the 23rd, that “this remarkable region is at the extreme eastern end, so far as known” of a geological break in the sandstone formations between the San Gabriel and Santa Ana rivers “that rests within the great oil basins within the earth.”
When the formations were ruptured “and titled northward, the gas from the oil lakes beneath the surface of the earth forces up the oil through the crevices to the surface where it runs down the mountain and solidifies into asphaltum in vast quantities.” This process was said to have occurred over many thousands of years and, as with the La Brea tar pits, west of Los Angeles, it was reported that the remains of sheep and the buzzards which went in to enjoy the carcasses were found trapped “along the base of a low ride of mountains,” this being the Chino Hills.
Notably, the paper added that Rowland was among the investors at Petrolia, while Chandler and Bower invested six weeks investigating drilling locations “along the north side of this break of rocks” and it was found that the best spots were “in a most beautiful spot between HERALD and Brea Cañon.” This area “is most favorably situated for the oil and Mr. Chandler expects to show oil in ten days or sooner,” while it was claimed that “as the whole mountain range seems to rest on oil sand rock it will be almost impossible to sink a well without striking oil.”
The account continued that “there can be no doubt but that vast quantities of oil will be obtained” and delivered by a pipeline to Anaheim and its Southern Pacific depot and that “in a few short months we predict that a forest of derricks will stand like sentries on the Santa Ana mountains,” really the Chino Hills separated from that range by the canyon through which the Santa Ana River runs, “whose rocks will pour out rivers of oil.”
Obviously, the owners of the paper were convinced by what was happening at Petrolia to invest in acquiring adjacent property in the expectation of vast riches to come and it added, “in the HERALD Cañon, which is next east of Chandler’s present location, it is supposed will be a favored spot to sink more wells. Perhaps this was what was and is now known as Telegraph Canyon and it is interesting to note that the article mentioned that in it was a cliff with a perpendicular face in which swallows nested.
Four days later, the Herald reported on “News From Petrolia” thanks to the fact that Chandler, “Mayor of Petrolia,” came to Los Angeles and also “sent in a load of oil, and is steadily going on ahead in his developments.” Apparently, an Angel City residence was just finished, while, “his patriarchal tent in which he lived like Abraham, is reserved for visitors to Petrolia, who go there for the fine climate, fine scenery, and abundance of game that is all around,” not to mention the view from Chandler’s “airy eyrie” with views of a number of towns down to the Pacific.”
After a reverie about the panorama, the ocean and the “land of Beulah” that was Petrolia’s environs, the paper noted that Chandler and Bower were sinking a second well. Adding that the former just purchased a fine horse, as well as recording that Chandler’s wells with Rowland at Puente were generating $20 daily in revenue, the piece ended that, “the Mayor of Petrolia will return to-day to the scene of his triumphs, and we trust will achieve a just success in all of his endeavors.”
In its 8 June edition, the Herald continued its boosting by briefly reporting that
It looks very much as if the Soquel oil region will shortly attract attention as a petroleum producer. Mr. Burdett[e] Chandler is energetically sinking a well there, and the oil stratas were reached at a depth of only twenty feet. There are millions of tons of brea—itself a very valuable substance—in the Soquel.
Moreover, it was claimed that “the oil measures of Los Angeles county cover a much greater area than has been popularly supposed” and that indications which in Pennsylvania were only located hundreds of feet down were such that “in the Soquel is found on the surface and the oil fairly exudes from it.”
We’ll take a break here and return tomorrow with part four, carrying the Petrolia story forward, so be sure to check back in then!