by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Concluding our look at the recollections of California oil well driller William E. Youle and his more than sixty years of work in the Golden State, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, it is natural that he would cover some of the more technical aspects of his vocation, some of which has interest with respect to greater Los Angeles and its rise as a major petroleum producing region at the end of the 19th century.
For example, with the tools used in the drilling process, Youle recorded that “the first rig irons in California were made by the Baker Iron Works of Los Angeles,” along with sand reels. Milo Baker’s company, along with the Llewellyn works, which he noted “for a time made a full line of standard tools,” was instrumental not only with the burgeoning oil industry but the construction of increasingly taller commercial buildings. Riveted pipe for surface formation shut-offs were manufactured by the firm of Marcus W. Childs, who previously worked in the tin and iron shop of his brother Ozro, and Fred Holbrook.
By the middle 1880s, Youle noted, heavier tools, including bits and pins, were required for deeper drilling, while it was not until about the dawn of the 20th century that under-reamers were used to improve well casing and prevent cave-ins and other problems, so mudding the well sides was done, followed by using stove pipe liners and steel bells. To “shut off” water in the well, thick mud mixed with manila rope was applied and a plug send to the bottom of the casing to keep mud out of the pipe. The onset, by 1900, of under-reamers greatly improved the process of working with well pipes, though it was added,
In the early development of the California fields there was much trouble with crooked holes, the combined causes being inexperienced drillers and primitive tools, though both were improving right along. We were learning all the time. We used the shoot the crook [straighten the hole] off with dynamite. There were many fishing jobs [to retrieve tools], largely due to poor material.
The cost of drilling is greater in California than in any other known field; this is due to the depth drilled, the large amount of pipe necessary because every string must go to the bottom to protect the difficulties of broken formation.
In discussing how tools were bettered, Youle took the opportunity to promote his own patented casing spears and underreamers, developed in the early 1920s, and for which there was conveniently an advertisement in the publication. With respect to well supplies, Rufus H. Herron, who went on to become a producer of note, opened, in 1895, a Los Angeles branch of Pittsburgh’s Oil Well Supply Company, and the enterprise was credited with helping the growth of the regional industry. Working with the Union Oil Company, Edward Double opened a Los Angeles tool shop and proved to be “the right man in the right place” with more than 1,000 employees as the business expanded.
William Lacy, frequently mentioned by Youle as well as elsewhere in this blog as the partner of William R. Rowland with the Puente Oil Company, which hit it big with wells at the top of the Puente Hills where La Habra Heights meets Rowland Heights, and his son Richard “were the first to equip to build stills, boilers and tanks” and “their business grew by leaps and bounds” with what became the Lacy Manufacturing Company. Also of significance is Youle’s statement that working with geological formations in California was far different than in Pennsylvania, with a good deal of trial and error involved, and he highlighted employers like Demetrius G. Schofield, Lyman Stewart, Wallace Hardison, Charles N. Felton and Lacy “who allowed us drillers to get the best regardless of cost.”
Because of these company owners, it was added, “this encouragement stimulated the men who could improve” and “they went to bat, and the present system now so perfected is largely due to that effort,” while tool making firms “helped us all to re-design our inventions to be able to make them cheaply.” Fundamentally, the difference was that drilling in hard rock in the east through standard rigs was distinguished from California’s softer formations in which rotary drilling was utilized.
Youle commented that “I liked the oil business from my first start,” while avoiding difficulties proved “fascinating.” He added the “drilling is real work,” but those engaged in it had to be “careful men only,” while “good wages should be paid” to attract quality workers because “one careless accident might cost thousands of dollars,” though some “occur with the best of care and such is life in the production end of the business in California.” He then asserted that,
The drillers of the world deserve much credit for their perseverance and ability—making it possible to produce oil at a mile or more deep . . . We were always willing to try some new device that looked good; the drillers were the first to observe any weakness in tools, pipe or machinery for deep work; the manufacturers did improve at the driller’s suggestion. The drillers of today owe much to their older brothers [forerunners], many of whom were resourceful and tried to be modern all the time . . . they become practical geologists; they study the logs of the wells; their experience is particularly valuable in locating a wildcat [in an unproven field] well, because the formation closely resembles some other locality where they had made a success.
With respect to geologists, the professionals emerged in the last half of the 19th century and Youle mentioned Watson A. Goodyear, Augustus S. Cooper, E.A. Stark, Ralph Arnold and William W. Orcutt (who wrote an article for the publication, as well, on California’s oil industry history) and, through their work and that of others, “oil geology has justly become an important factor in [the] sane development” of petroleum prospecting.
An interesting portion of the essay was on “Early ‘Experts’,” in which Youle recalled the presence of “spiritual mediums,” who “once in while . . . made a good guess” when it came to locations of crude, though it was added that “the California formation made it possible to win once in a while.” Some of the experts were “ex-water witches, who used a forked stick,” while others at producing fields had a “magic box with an electric well [which] would strike when the boundaries of a field were entered” and “the bell would toll the number of feet and the capacity of the well,” but these charlatans “had an accomplice who kept them posted” on developments, which gave the aura of some unearthly abilities.
Youle discussed “an electric contrivance” in which “the machine and man were covered with a rubber blanket” and “the machine was supposed to ‘howl’ when passing over an oil field.” He wrote of accompanying one such fraud, whose apparatus “did not say a word until we reached the Hancock ranch,” meaning La Brea. but, of course, while “his machine told him there was a sea of oil there,” it was obvious that “there was oil leaking out of the ground” anyway. In Colusa County in the north, Youle heard of an expert, who turned out to be a road boss from Newhall, and knew enough to talk a good game for the gullible folks.
The writer was sure to distinguish between the first oil well in California which yielded crude shipped to markets, this being the one at Moody Gulch southwest of San Jose, which Youle drilled in 1877, from that which was the earliest producer, drilled by Alex Mentry at Newhall shortly before. He also discussed the pitch on the anticline in formations that led to successful wells at such locations as Newhall and Puente, observing that “these wells were long-lived due to the fact that we were first and before water was let into the field or the gas pressure pulled down.”
While he was sure of deeper deposits “down the pitch of the formation,” Youle remarked that “no one seemed to anticipate the fact that those pitches were a bent-up formation, forming an anticlinal uplift or dome” so that “pitches folded up a little distance from the base of the dome” before they “flattened somewhat and conformed with the valley.” Another significant comment was that “deep wells should only be undertaken by big staple [stable?] companies” and that “shallow well production is ideal for the operator with limited capital.” In 1926, Walter P. Temple, for example, was engaged in deep well drilling at Signal Hill in the Long Beach area, but he wasn’t operating a big firm like Union, Standard, Associated or others, and his financial position was already weakening due to the heavy spending there, as well as in real estate and the building of his La Casa Nueva at the Homestead.
In his commentary about deep well drilling, Youle commented that “we in California had even better rigs and tools than were used in the east,” though there were challenges with hitting “hard streaks” among soft formations. He continued, “I, however, was able to drill the Pico [Canyon], Puente, and Sunset [southwest Kern County] territory into any sand then known, and that a very cheap price per foot” and despite doubts, “we were successful in being able to reach the Pico oil sands—which spelled success for California oil.” In 1887 at Whittier, specifically Turnbull Canyon, two wells found just a small amount of oil before coming up dry, though it as added that, if deeper drilling was conducted in dry hole areas generally, “they might have struck it right as at Whittier, which later proved a good field.” Youle also came up dry at a well site near Glendora.
The 1890s found Youle working on several hundred acres in the Midway and Sunset fields, later two of the most successful in California oil history, though there were depressed prices “which forced a lot of us old-timers to the wall,” so that he left in 1900, “after an experience of ten years of the hardest work I ever did.” But, when later success was enjoyed by others, he ruefully reflected, “I ought to have held on some way until my share of the success would have been a million or two [dollars,” though he added, “I got along fairly well with my contracts and concluded to be satisfied and to this date have no regrets.”
Youle added that the opportunities for drillers to take their own leases or acquire oil territory, even on government land, were problematic, partially because, hired by large firms, “men in my capacity are employed to protect the company’s interests—the majority of us do not violate our trust,” but also, again, because “deep California wells are, without doubt, for then who are able to finance them.” Some, though, like Doheny and Canfield had very little capital when they struck it rich, while the likes of Hardison and Stewart were hardly rich when they entered the game. Still, he observed that,
It has taken millions of dollars to prove these rough sagebrush lands to be worth thousands of dollars per acre. The men who did it deserve the success they have made. Many California industries could not have been started were it not for cheap fuel oil. There are thousands of men other than oil workers employed manufacturing high grade tools and machinery used for developing purposes, and tanks and refineries employ many men, thousands of automobiles and trucks are used. In fact, oil is the biggest industry we have had and has put Southern California on the map.
The early pioneers proved the territory, success followed after transportation and a market was solved. It all to time, the slowness was so discouraging that many, like myself, were forced to let go. I sold at a sacrifice; the price received was very low but it was enough for me to pay my urgent bills and enable me to get more tools and machinery and enter the contracting business again. My big chance was three or four years too early.
Youle also commented on the failure of development projects, many of which were also those geologically unproven wildcats, though others were often driven by smooth-talking promoters selling stock as their main racket. These latter, especially, he held, “hurt the oil industry—their system won’t do” and he advised any investor to “investigate as you would in purchasing a home, place your investment with a reliable company, then you get a ‘run’ for your money.” A successful enterprise, of course, meant enough land to make the investment worthwhile, good geological research, expert drilling and more.
As he wrapped up his essay, Youle opined that “in 1870 we were up-to-date with all improvements required for the drilling of shallow eastern fields” and he felt that the standard rigs used then were fundamentally using the same approach he would undertake in 1926. Again, California required heavier equipment and machinery to get to oil sands much deeper than in Pennsylvania. He continued that, “California has made wonderful strides in improvement” and “leads the world in the methods she has applied in the drilling of deep wells” so that “the success . . . has been truly wonderful.” Moreover, “an old-timer that is, or tries to be, up-to-date will profit by his junk piles in the past and adopt the new and good” so that “such has been my life in drilling oil wells.”
When Youle brought in the first Puente well in 1885, railroads used coal for fuel, but this was problematic in the west, far removed from those sources, so “tests were made by the railroads and other fuel plants to test the value of this new oil for fuel” and “the results were very successful.” Along with Union, the Puente firm “soon satisfied the railroad companies of their ability to furnish them all [the oil] they required” to shift fuel sources so that “California was first to introduce a new and cheap fuel oil” and “the oil fuel supply is one of the great industries of the world.” Those capitalists he mentioned earlier again were lionized and deserved “the whole credit of putting California on the map for oil,” though relatively little was said by Youle about the legions of workers, laboring often under very dangerous and trying conditions, in those endeavors.
When it came to the reason for composing the essay, however, Youle claimed he was the first driller to undertake such an assessment of the industry’s history and did so after unsatisfactory encounters with reporters and editors. He asserted that he spent a year preparing by systematically mining his archive so that he could present his view of California oil prior to 20th century and, particularly, the period from 1876 to 1885 as “it was then that California oil history was first made, by men financially strong enough to bring forth success if it was there.” Those “early pioneers” working at such places as Newhall and Moody Gulch “deserve notice in California history of their efforts to overcome discouraging difficulties met in this new California field.”
Remarking that the early oil industry was generally unknown because operators kept low profiles and that the Golden State was more interested in precious metals mining so that “the press was slow to help promote [the] California oil industry,” Youle ended with,
I think my article will help history to fill the gap between 1876 and 1892 [when Canfield and Doheny inaugurated the Los Angeles field]. I have given credit where credit is due. My effort is to have it as correct as possible, and, as stated, after reading and checking over several times, I feel I have a review of old time ways that will be interesting to anyone who reads the article.
Given the involvement in the regional oil industry by F.P.F. Temple in the 1870s and his son, Walter, about a half-century later, as well as California’s current conditions a century after Youle’s article, this mining of the pages of the Petroleum Reporter warrants a further exploration in coming days, so check back for that.