by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As earlier portions of the post have observed, Montebello, founded to the southeast of Los Angeles city limits as the 19th century came to a close and the 20th dawned, was largely known for its fields of flowers and acres of nurseries, including those operated by Japanese entrepreneurs. The fine fragrance of much of these plants, however, were met by a product far less pleasing to the nose, but certainly welcome to some wallets, during the last half of the 1910s.
In the 1880s, former sheriff William R. Rowland and partner William Lacy opened the Puente oil field near the crown of the hill range within the rancho of that name. After Charles Canfield and Edward Doheny developed the Los Angeles oil field west of downtown in the early Nineties, Doheny followed by inaugurating Orange County’s oil industry with a successful well at Olinda (now part of Brea.) It became clear to keen observers and oil geologists that a pattern was developing including when wells were drilled in the Puente Hills near Whittier.
This involved a belt from Los Angeles to northeastern Orange County and, with the Montebello Hills really part of the same formation as the Puente, the San Gabriel River having gouged the Whittier Narrows to divide the range into two, there were thoughts about whether it and the Repetto Hills a bit to the north and west, were also part of the geologic structure containing pools of oil.
The Montebello Oil Company was formed in 1909 and leases acquired in the area, but the firm ended up doing most of its work in Ventura County, which was entirely logical as that was a proven oil producing area (Union Oil started in Santa Paula and then moved to Los Angeles and it would have a major presence in Montebello.)
It has been said that Milton Kauffman, a Jewish merchant in El Monte, who dabbled in real estate, including the development of Baldwin Park not long after the death of Elias J. “Lucky” Baldwin, whose landholdings included thousands of acres acquired by foreclosure of an 1870s loan to the stricken Temple and Workman bank, was curious about the possibility of oil in the Montebello Hills.
One of Kauffman’s regular customers was Walter P. Temple, whose father, F.P.F., owned much of the hill area within the domain of the Rancho La Merced, but lost the property to Baldwin in that foreclosure just before F.P.F. died in spring 1880. For almost three decades afterward, it appears that the view was that the Montebello Hills were only good for grazing livestock.
With Kauffman’s evident urging, however, Walter decided to sell his family’s 50-acre homestead to the east of the end of the range and approached Baldwin’s estate executor, Hiram A. Unruh about purchasing some of the hill area and adjoining flat lands abutting the Río Hondo (the old San Gabriel River channel.) This was done in fall 1912 and, because Temple didn’t have the cash to buy the 60 acres outright, he worked out a financing deal with Unruh, who may have had no inkling about any possible oil value there.
Whatever the case, Temple and his wife, Laura González, who grew up with Walter in the Misión Vieja (Old Mission, as in being the first site of Mission San Gabriel) community near the hills, moved with their four children to an adobe house built in 1869 by Rafael Basye, a nephew of Juan Matias Sánchez, co-owner of La Merced with the Temples, and formerly occupied by Walter’s sister, Lucinda, and her husband Manuel Zuñiga, another Old Mission native. The hill portion of the tract was grandiosely denoted as “Temple Heights.”
In April 1914, the story goes, Thomas W. Temple II, the eldest child in the family and all of nine years old, was playing with friends in the Montebello Hills after a rainstorm, when they noticed crude bubbling to the surface and smelled natural gas. For a family that had been the wealthiest in greater Los Angeles four decades before, but were living on modest means, the sensational discovery was nothing less than a godsend.
A lease was arranged with Standard Oil Company of California (recently formed when anti-trust laws forced the breakup of the dominant Standard of John D. Rockefeller’s creation), while Baldwin’s daughters and heirs, Clara Baldwin Stocker and Anita Baldwin, rushed to do the same. The 19 November 1916 edition of the Los Angeles Times reported,
The Standard is to start another wildcat [meaning geologically unproven] well in the vicinity of Los Angeles, although in an entirely different direction [than in previous instances, presumably west of town]. A lease has been procured on a portion of the Merced ranch in the Repetto [Montebello] hills . . . The well will be drilled in the near future to test out this territory.
The account added that adjacent was a section of La Merced that was owned by William L. Stewart of Union Oil and three associates, including William B. Scott. We noted earlier in this post that Scott, head of Columbia Oil, purchased the Soto-Sánchez Adobe, the first part of which was built nearly 75 years prior when the La Merced grant was made to Casilda Soto de Lobo, and expanded and renovated it. The Times closed by remarking that the group “bought the land for agricultural purposes,” but that, of course, was soon to change.
By the end of the year, drilling on Baldwin #1 was inaugurated and the 26 February 1917 issue of the Whittier News commented that “Montebello Is Waiting for [an] Oil Boom,” observing that “citizens are determined to have an oil well or two, at once, whether the officials of the Standard Oil company are willing or not.” Company officials felt good about the progress of the well in the “City of Flowers,” and expressed optimism about prospects, but the Montebello News was cited as remarking that Standard was preparing to build a pair of 2,000-barrel capacity tanks and to build a pipeline paralleling the Río Hondo to an existing connection heading to the harbor at San Pedro and Wilmington.
Moreover, continued the latter paper, “it is also rumored that they are preparing to drill at once another well at Montebello about a half mile west of its first well,” this being on Temple lease. Further scuttlebutt was that, as some oil was detected during drilling, the Baldwin test well was to have a narrower casing “with the intention of turning the new well into a ‘flowing well.” Finally, geologists were apparently bullish on the idea that, if an incline was present as believed, “this will prove to be a field of considerable width, extending from the Montebello hills a mile or more to the south” and it might even be “practicable to drill for oil in the very center of Montebello.”
A few days later, as March dawned, the Whittier paper reported that,
The Standard Oil Company’s Montebello well, which has been the center of interest for the past few weeks, was brought in yesterday and is producing 500 barrels of high-grade oil . . .
The bringing in of this new well means an extension of the western portion of the local fields and will be a tremendous boost to the little town of Montebello and incidentally to Whittier.
With this success, it was natural that a race would be on to secure leases in the area, while Standard was ready to pursue new wells, including on the Temple lease. The account concluded that, “it is expected that citrus ranchers by the score . . . will find themselves without land after this week [due to leases], and in possession of good-sized bank rolls.”
The 10 March issue of the News informed readers that, as it forecast, the bringing in of Baldwin #1 “has resulted in feverish activity by others” as it was stated that the well produced 600 barrels of crude daily and the product stored temporarily in earthen open reservoirs, until the pipeline connection could be finalized for the completed tanks.
Again quoting its neighbor with the same name, it was reported, “the success of the Standard Oil company . . . has also resulted in other companies coming in, securing leases and making preparations to drill wells, and has filled the minds of many land owners hereabouts with visions of ‘easy money.'”
The Montebello paper, after stating that the pipeline project began the prior week, then observed that,
This week the Standard people are also busy in getting timbers, lumber, machinery, etc., on the ground at a high point on 60 acres of ground leased by them from Walter P. Temple and Milton Kauffman, about a quarter mile east of their first well [Baldwin #1], where they will start as soon as possible [on] well #2.
Other locations included land occupied by the prominent Howard and Smith nursery next to the Anita Baldwin lease, while Clara Stocker was embarking on her own drilling project on her land. The Los Angeles Times of the 12th, under the heading of “New Oil Field Opened At The City’s Gates,” thought it appropriate to claim that “Los Angeles has a new oil field on [the] La Merced ranch of Anita Baldwin at Montebello, four miles east of the city limits on Boyle Heights.”
After discussing how rapidly the wildcat was completed and adding that “the oil is almost perfectly clean” with only a tiny amount of emulsion,” the paper mentioned that Standard had almost 800 acres under lease, while “the rig is being made ready for the drilling of another well, this time on the Temple lease, which immediately adjoins the Baldwin property.” Moreover, the Times noted that the nearest producers were in the Whittier field in the Puente Hills several miles to the east.
The Whittier News of 5 April (it worth pointing out that the next day America entered the First World War, so oil production was obviously crucial for the war effort) briefly recorded that “the Standard Oil Co. has commenced drilling on the Temple Lease and are down 200 feet,” while adding that Baldwin wells 2 and 3 were underway as “the Standard is going right ahead with the Baldwin property and will have more good wells in a few months.” About two-and-a-half months later, the paper informed its readers that,
Success in a large measure continues to follow the Standard Oil Co. in its operations at Montebello. Temple lease No. 1 has been completed and is making considerable better than 600 barrels of high quality oil daily. The Temple property adjoins the Baldwin lease and the initial well seems to prove that the property is equally as valuable.
It was more than ironic that it was some four decades after the collapse of the Temple and Workman bank and that F.P.F. owned, with Sánchez, land that had what looked to be considerable quantities of crude under it, while the elder Temple spent large sums and time prospecting for petroleum miles away in what is now the Santa Clarita area, making some progress before his financial empire collapsed. Almost miraculously, his son became the beneficiary of a tremendous stroke of fortune, though only after buying his lease property from the Baldwin estate.
Two days later, the Times briefly commented that “Temple lease No. 1 . . . has been brought in and is making more than 300 barrels of high quality oil daily,” it seems, not surprisingly with new wells, that production tapered off to half of that initial yield.” Within a month, the Temples threw a celebratory “bull head” supper and dance behind their house and the Alhambra News reported that around 1,000 persons attended.
The Times of 23 August reported that Baldwin #2 came in at a starting yield of 800 barrels a day and this result “practically completes the proving up of 1000 acres of oil territory in the Montebello hills. Frederick H. Hillman, Standard production chief who signed the Temple lease in 1915, came down from headquarters at San Francisco and the paper added, “the successful proving up of the Montebello hills, or as they are usually known, the ‘Merced Hills,’ by the Standard is regarded as a great achievement for the organization.”
It was remarked that “time and again these hills had been surveyed by experts and time and again oil companies had turned from them as too doubtful.” Standard had eight wells in process and it was stated that, while the Temple lease was 50 acres (some sources said 60), the Baldwin daughters possessed 800.
The 25 September issue of the Los Angeles Express had an update, though with a twist that was somewhat a common occurrence in the industry, as it informed readers that,
The Standard Oil Company has just struck a rich well on the Temple lease well No. 2, according to word received today. The well is located near the other holdings of the company in Montebello. A few hours after the oil was struck the well caught fire and the entire derrick was burned to the ground and other property in the vicinity was greatly endangered. The quick work of 40 men stopped the fire in two hours. At present the well is shooting a geyser flow of crude oil five feet high.
Developments in the field were such that the Whittier News of 12 October opined that “perhaps the greatest activity anywhere in the state of California in the oil development work is now at the new Montebello field.” There were 5,000 acres in the area under lease by 11 firms, while adjoining lands were also involved in the excitement of speculation. The paper also commented that “the comparative shallow depth of the wells and the big production that the Standard has secured on the Baldwin and Temple properties has made the Montebello field a very attractive one.”
Six days later, the News reiterated that “the most active little oil field in the state today is at Montebello” with 25 wells drilling with prospects said to be favorable and, of course, companies “anxious to get the cream of the production.” Union Oil had its first five wells underway at what was called the “Rancho La Merced” portion of the field to the south and near the Soto-Sánchez Adobe, while Standard had a dozen going, with two in production, on the Baldwin lease. The account concluded,
On the Temple property the Standard Oil Company has two wells drilling. No. 2 is [at] 2070 feet and No. 3 is 1400 feet deep. Drilling on both wells is going nicely.
We’ll continue to further drill deeply into this look at early Montebello history and specifically carry on with more of the rapid rise of the oil field, so join us for part six tomorrow.