by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Tonight it was a pleasure to be at the Chino Hills State Park Discovery Center in Brea to talk about some history of Olinda, which was a ranch and oil field, the latter being where Orange County’s oil history was spawned nearly 130 years ago. Just a short distance to the west, the Brea265 development is taking some of the last large-scale oil fields left in the region and converting them into a diverse mix of housing.
The presentation covered a fair amount of ground with respect to how the Olinda Ranch was established in the regional boom year of 1887 by William H. Bailey, who grew up as the son of missionaries on the Hawaiian island of Mau’i, where the family had a plantation called Olinda (the word was co-opted from a well-known area in the Pernambuco section of Brazil). Bailey acquired his tract from James H. Shanklin, a former California surveyor-general (hmm . . . wonder if his role helped him in any way when it came to acquiring former public land?) who amassed a holding of 5,000 acres lying between former Mexican-era ranchos.
Bailey’s tract included a townsite called Carlton, which was, as so often the case, went bust along with the boom, but a decade later another boom came with the discovery of oil by Edward L. Doheny and his partners in the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad (this and other rail companies were looking to switch fuel sources during the era) on the northern end of the ranch. The first well on what was known as the Santa Fe Lease came in during 1897 and is still in operation on the grounds of the Olinda Oil Museum, which is definitely worth a visit.
Bailey was among a large number of prospectors for black gold as the yields at Olinda were substantial. The biggest company to drill there was Union Oil Company of California, launched in the Ventura County town of Santa Paula, but which later moved its headquarters to Los Angeles as the oil boom expanded dramatically in the first few decades of the 20th century. By the mid-1920s (when Homestead owner Walter P. Temple was also an oil operator, having realized a substantial fortune from an accidental discovery by his nine-year-old son, Thomas, at the family ranch near Montebello), Union owned or leased some 8,200 acres in what was often called the Brea-Olinda Field within the Fullerton oil district.
This post looks at the May 1925 edition of Union Oil Bulletin, a monthly magazine published by the firm for the benefit of its employees, and an article “The Brea-Olinda Field: A Phenomenal Producer Reserve,” written by Francis W. Lake and Robert W. Phelps, petroleum geologists for the firm. Not surprisingly, a good deal of the article is technical with respect to the geologic conditions of the area, but there is more information that is less mind-numbing and, perhaps, more interesting on a general level.
The piece began with the observation that the field was “one of the oldest and most productive areas in California and the authors remarked that,
Extending from Brea Canyon east to the town of Olinda, the productive area is included in a tract about five miles long and one mile wide, lying on the southern flanks of the Puente Hills [near its conjunction with the Chino Hills]. The large asphalt seeps which lie in the field have been known since the early explorers passed through the country and are mentioned in all their reports and diaries [one might add that the indigenous people, though lacking writing, were well aware of the seeps for untold generations prior]. Names of topographic features, such as Brea Canyon [that name was originally assigned to what is now Tonner Canyon], and Carbon Canyon, indicate that the existence of the asphalt deposits has long been known.
Lake and Phelps observed that “in early rimes the asphalt which slowly oozes down the hills was used in roofing the houses in the vicinity and as a fuel,” this being in the Spanish and Mexican eras and into the first decades after the American seizure of California in the late 1840s. They continued that the latter period of the 19th century included farmers and ranchers obtaining asphalt for fuel, while “later pits were dug from which the asphalt was collected and mixed with manure and used as fuel under the boilers in the small industries in the neighboring towns.
The writers remarked that “several shallow wells were drilled from 1880 to 1895 but were not produced with any degree of regularity for several years.” Actually, there were attempts from 1865, including from the Saucal Oil Company (Soquel Canyon is just east of the Discovery Center) and others at the old Brea (or Tonner) Canyon, while for several years in the Eighties, Burdette Chandler, who prospected for oil at Petrolia, near Toronto, Canada before moving to Boyle Heights in Los Angeles, engaged intensively in prospecting in Soquel Canyon in what he called Petrolia.
The geologists then commented that “this first activity was centered around the town of Olinda in the east end of the field,” meaning the Doheny/Santa Fe partnership, soon followed by the likes of Graham and Loftus, Columbia (associated with Union), Puente (which merged with Columbia and others in the first decade of the 1900s), CCMO (Chanslor Canfield Midway Organization—Charles Canfield being a partner of Doheny in opening the Los Angeles Oil Field in the early 1890) and Bailey’s Olinda Oil Company, among many others. They added “a few years later producing wells were completed in Brea Canyon in the west end of the field,” with a major player being Otis A. Birch (later a business partner of Walter P. Temple in Los Angeles).
Lake and Phelps went on to note that,
For some years the development centered around these wells and it was not until later that the intervening territory was sufficiently drilled to prove that the productive area was continuous from Brea Canyon to Olinda. The development has been and continues to be slow and conservative and this fact is probably one of the reasons why the area is so productive and has enjoyed such a long life.
The Puente Hills loom large in this area and were considered “a northwestern extension of the Santa Ana Mountains,” in the Cleveland National Forest ” from which it is now separated by the deep canyon of the Santa Ana River,” meaning Santa Ana Canyon, an area discussed in a recent post here on a notorious 1926 murder. The Union employees remarked that “the productive area lies on the extreme southern slope of the Puente Range and on the outlying foot-hills which are separated from the larger range by Brea and Carbon Canyons.
Being geologists, of course, Lake and Phelps delved into details not necessary for us to dig into, with respect to the fascinating realm of diatomaceous shales and cherts and basal conglomerates from the Miocene and Pliocene ages in the Monterey, or Puente, and Fernando series of geological formations. What is worth noting is their identification of four zones of oil production in the Brea-Olinda Field and that these “have an aggregate thickness of about twenty-five hundred feet” while “at present the bottom limits of the productive horizons have not yet been reached, as the deepest wells in favorable parts of the area have been stopped in productive strata and have not penetrated to the bottom of the productive measures.” Advancements in drilling technologies, including hard-alloy bits, would allow for such deeper drilling and tapping pools farther below the surface.
Also of note was the remark that “the major structural feature of the field is the Puente fault,” which is a reverse, or thrust fault, trending a little south of east and north of west along the northern limits of the field.” The authors recorded that “the production occurs on the monocline” on the south of the fault, “where the dip of the strata varies from vertical and overturned at the fault to about forty degrees along the southern limits of production. At the field’s eastern limits, reverse or thrust faults at the Puente fault along right angles often involved deep displacements and this indicated where production ended. We should also note that there is in this region the Puente Hills Fault, identified in 1999, is considered a significant earthquake fault with potential for significant damage.
Lake and Phelps observed that well depths went from a few hundred to over five thousand feet based on the zone and positions on the structures and there were challenges with touch conglomerate strata and their incline angles, as well as transitions from hard to soft strata that forced abandonment of wells because holes were crooked and the casing and tools damaged or lost. This meant that “in the early days drilling in this field was expensive and hazardous and extra heavy tools and rigs had to be used.” When successful, however, wells could yield up to 3,000 barrels daily, with those in deeper sections being more productive, and, in many areas, “production . . . is due mainly to gas pressure,” while in others there was a good deal of “hydrostatic head of the fluid in the zone” that boosted yields. Deeper wells were of higher gravity.
Proven acreage in the field embraced about 1,400 acres of which 60% had producing wells, but the potential of the rest was considered notable given that the field was nearly three decades old and it was added that 90% of all production was in two upper zones, so there were untapped section in lower areas. In all, through 1924, total production in Brea-Olinda was about 90 million barrels, some 106,000 per acre in the 850 producing acres and about 220,000 per well. There were 360 producers with average yields of 367,000 barrels each month or 1,050 each month per well (meaning, 35 daily). Moreover, 25 wells were “shut in,” meaning temporarily taken off production, which would involve 67,000 barrels per month (2,200 per day and averaging 88 barrels per well). For March 1925, as shown at the back of the issue, the Fullerton district had about 357,000 barrels per month with daily production higher from the prior year by about 1,100 barrels daily. The total number of producing wells was 390, with a half-dozen in active drilling mode.
The writers observed that,
One of the most remarkable features of the Brea-Olinda field is the slow rate of decline in production, not only of the smaller wells, but also of the larger ones. This can best be realized by the actual past performance of some of the wells as examples. One well in 1914 was making an average of five hundred barrels per day. Eight years later in 1922 its average daily production was two hundred and forty-five barrels. At this time it was shut in until 1924. When opened up its average daily production was back to three hundred barrels per day, and its subsequent decline has followed the latter portion of its original curve.
By contrast, the Montebello field, in which around 60 acres included the Temple lease, which had a rare run of consistent producers from 1917 until about 1922, was considered a shallow field with a shorter production history than Brea-Olinda. Lake and Phelps commented that “when the statistics and examples of the past production are so impressive it is natural to wonder what a field like this can be estimated to produce in the future.” They added that a prediction was likely to be fairly accurate “because the production is settled and there is a wealth of past history on which to base and project production curves.” Declines were also consistent and did not much vary.
The geologists concluded that,
However it is difficult to estimate the future production of the field as a whole, because there is still so much undrilled territory for the two upper zones and the two lower zones [from which only 10% of production was then occurring] are not hardly touched as yet. Their productive limits are not defined and there is not the past production records on which to base a reliable estimate of the future. However, a conservative estimate of the future production recoverable with the present means of production [an important point given future advances in drilling technology enabling access to deeper pools of crude] for the entire field would be about twice the production recovered in the past.
With peak production in 1953, though, the estimate is that some 430 million barrels have been pumped from the Brea-Olinda Field in its history and that around 20 million is recoverable. In a sidebar, the authors recorded that Union invested in the area in the mid-1890s when production in Ventura was declining and that the latest acquisition from the company involved some 2,800 acres. Additionally, it was mentioned that “a remarkable feature of the field is that the bulk of production up to the present time has come from the upper sands, and that the lower zones with an estimated greater productivity have scarcely been scratched.” This, coupled, with minimal decline “establishes this district as a valuable reserve.”
A century later, as noted at the outset, 265 acres of the field are now being converted into residential uses, reflecting the growing trend of the decommissioning of California oil fields. The intense debate about the future of fossil fuels amid accelerating climate change, as well as our dependence on petroleum for so many aspects of life take on ever-greater urgency. In 1925, though, the concern was how to tap fields for greater production and use for industry, transportation and other aspects because no one really understood the climactic effects then.
We have a goodly number of copies of the Union Oil Bulletin in the Museum’s collection from this period, so we’ll look to share contents from them in future posts under the “Drilling for Black Gold” title.