by Bruce Wells | Sep 18, 2025 | Petroleum Pioneers
Pico Canyon oilfield brought pipelines, refineries, and Chevron.
Following the 1859 first commercial U.S. oil discovery in Pennsylvania, the earliest petroleum exploration companies were attracted to California’s natural oil seeps. Small but promising discoveries after the Civil War led to the state’s first gusher in 1876 — and the launching of a new California industry.
Pico Canyon, less than 35 miles north of Los Angeles, produced limited amounts of oil as early as 1855, but there was no market for the petroleum found near natural oil seeps. The first California drilling boom arrived a decade later in the northern part of the state with an oilfield also found near seeps.
Humboldt County Oil
Completed in 1865 by the Old Union Matolle Oil Company, the Humboldt County well produced oil near the aptly named Petrolia. The oilfield discovery quickly attracted some of America’s earliest exploration companies.
Detail of a 1908 “Map of Humboldt County Oil Lands” includes post-Civil War commercial oil wells that attracted more drilling to northern California. Map courtesy Humboldt County Map Collection, Cal Poly Humboldt Library Special Collection.
A California historical marker (no. 543) dedicated on November 10, 1955, declared:
California’s First Drilled Oil Wells — California’s first drilled oil wells producing crude to be refined and sold commercially were located on the north fork of the river approximately three miles east of here. The Old Union Mattole Oil Company made its first shipment of oil from here in June 1865 to a San Francisco refinery. Many old wellheads remain today.
Although the “Old Union well” initially yielded about 30 barrels of high-quality oil, production declined to one barrel of oil per day, and the prospect was abandoned, according to K.R. Aalto, a geologist at Humboldt State University.
The Humboldt County well in what became the oilfield “attracted interest and investment among oilmen because of the abundance of oil and gas seeps throughout that region,” Aalto noted in his 2011 article in Oil-Industry History. But the California petroleum industry truly began to the south, at Pico Canyon Oilfield, a few miles west of Newhall.
Pico Canyon Well No. 4
In Pico Canyon of the Santa Susana Mountains, Charles A. Mentry (1847-1900), who had formed a partnership establishing the California Star Oil Works Company, drilled three exploratory wells between 1875 and 1876. All showed promise, and the first West Coast oil gusher arrived with his fourth well. The oilfield discovery would lead to the creation of a major oil company.
The steam boiler and cable tools, including the “walking beam,” of Pico Well No. 4 in 1877. Photo by Carleton Watkins courtesy Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection.
Drilling with a steam-powered cable-tool rig in an area known for its many oil seeps, Mentry discovered the Pico Canyon oilfield north of Los Angeles. California’s first truly commercial oil well, the Pico Well No. 4 gusher of September 26, 1876, prompted more development, including pipeline construction and an oil refinery for producing kerosene.
According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, the well initially produced 25 barrels a day from 370 feet. Mentry improvised many of his cable tools, including making a drill stem out of old railroad car axles he welded together.
“The railroad had not then been completed, there was no road into the canyon, water was almost unattainable, and there were no adequate tools or machinery to be had,” noted the Times article.
Charles Mentry had already successfully drilled 42 wells near Titusville, Pennsylvania, before exploring in the Santa Clara Valley — and launching California’s petroleum industry. Photo courtesy KHTS Radio, Santa Clara.
Mentry persevered, and his success in Pico Canyon led to the founding of “Mentryville,” the onetime drilling boom town that is today the site of Stevenson Ranch.
“Although his life was tragically cut short by illness on October 4, 1900, from typhoid fever, Mentry’s legacy as a pioneer in California’s oil industry endures,” noted KHTS Radio, Santa Clara. “His work in Pico Canyon not only made him a key figure in the region’s development but also set the stage for California’s future as an oil-rich state,” KHTS reported in 2025.
Visit the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society website to learn more Pico Canyon petroleum exploration and production history.
First Refinery
California Star Oil Works deepened the well to 560 feet, increasing daily production by 125 barrels, and constructed its pipeline from Pico Canyon to the newly built refinery in Newhall, just south of Santa Clarita.
By 1880, California’s first commercial refinery processed oil from its first commercial oil well to make kerosene and other products. Photo courtesy the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society.
Producing kerosene and lubricants, Newhall’s Pioneer Refinery on Pine Street would become the first successful commercial refinery in the West. Giant stills set on brick foundations included two capable of producing 150 barrels a day each. The city of Santa Clarita received California’s first successful refinery as a gift from Chevron in 1997.
The Santa Clarita refinery, today preserved as a tourist attraction, is among the oldest in the world. The major oil company can trace its beginnings to the 1876 Pico Canyon oil well, which has been designated a historic site by the California Office of Historic Preservation.
Chevron Corporation, once the Standard Oil Company of California, in 1900 acquired Pacific Coast Oil Company. Pacific Coast had become majority owner of California Star Oil Works in 1879.
Santa Clarita acquired California’s first refinery as a gift from Chevron in 1997. It is one of the oldest existing oil refinery sites in the world. Photo by Konrad Summers.
Refining Kerosene for Lamps
California’s commercial refineries were among the first in America, where the industry began with small refineries in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, producing kerosene for lamps. The oil came from Titusville area oilfields — and a giant 1871 field discovered at Bradford, about 70 miles to the northeast.
The Bradford oilfield, which became known as America’s “first billion-dollar oilfield,” launched many Pennsylvania refineries, including the still-operating American Refining Group. The field’s first well produced just 10 barrels a day from 1,110 feet.
By 1875. Bradford leases reached as high as $1,000 per acre. A decade later, a sudden decline in the oilfield’s production led to a technological breakthrough. Pioneers in the new science of petroleum geology suggested that water pressure on oil sands could be used to increase oil production — “waterflooding” the geologic formation.
The oldest operating U.S. oil refinery began in 1881 in Bradford, Pennsylvania.
In Neodesha, Kansas, the Norman No. 1 well of 1892 revealed a petroleum-rich geologic region that would extend across Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana. Standard Oil built a refinery in Neodesha in 1897 that refined 500 barrels of oil a day. Standard was the first to process oil from the giant Mid-Continent field (learn more in Kansas Well reveals Mid-Continent).
In 2024, there were 134 operable petroleum refineries in the United States, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). The newest refinery with significant downstream capacity — a facility in Garyville, Louisiana — came online in 1977.
Built in 1897, a Standard Oil refinery in Neodesha, Kansas, refined 500 barrels of oil per day – the first to process oil from the Mid-Continent field. From “Kansas Memory” collection of the Kansas Historical Society.
For an investigation into which California oil well was the first, see this 2011 SearchReSearch blog of Dan Russell.
Learn more California petroleum history in the Signal Hill Oil Boom.
_______________________
Recommended Reading: California State University, Dominguez Hills
(2010); Pico Canyon Chronicles: The Story of California’s Pioneer Oil Field
(1985). Your Amazon purchase benefits the American Oil & Gas Historical Society. As an Amazon Associate, AOGHS earns a commission from qualifying purchases.
_______________________
_______________________
The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please become an AOGHS annual supporter and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2026 Bruce A. Wells.
Citation Information: Article Title: “First California Oil Well.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/petroleum-pioneers/first-california-oil-well. Last Updated: September 17, 2025. Original Published Date: September 9, 2015.
by Bruce Wells | Jun 19, 2025 | Petroleum Pioneers
Cemetery generated royalty checks to next-of-kin when oil was drawn from beneath family plots.
In the summer of 1921, the Signal Hill oil discovery would help make California the source of one-quarter of the world’s entire oil output. Soon known as “Porcupine Hill,” the town’s Long Beach oilfield produced about 260,000 barrels of oil a day by 1923.
The Alamitos No. 1 well, drilled on a remote hilltop south of Los Angeles, erupted a column of “black gold” on June 23, 1921. Natural gas pressure was so great that the oil geyser climbed 114 feet into the air.
After the June 1921 oilfield discovery, Signal Hill had so many derricks that people called it Porcupine Hill. Circa 1935 postcard courtesy Boston Public Library, Digital Commonwealth.
The oilfield discovery well, which produced almost 600 barrels a day, would eventually produce 700,000 barrels of oil. Signal Hill incorporated three years after its Alamitos discovery well made headlines.
In 1923, Signal Hill’s petroleum field produced more than 68 million barrels of oil. The community of Signal Hill later became one of the first U.S. cities to be surrounded by another city, Long Beach.
Signal Hill, a residential area before the 1921 discovery of the Long Beach oilfield, became covered in derricks. “Today you can see wonderful commemorative art displays of this era throughout the lush parks and walkways of Signal Hill,” notes a local newspaper.
By the 2000s, more than one billion barrels of oil were pumped from the Long Beach oilfield since the original 1921 strike. “Signal Hill is the scene of feverish activity, of an endless caravan of automobiles coming and going, of hustle and bustle, of a glow of optimism,” reported California Oil World.
Signal Hill circa 1930 — at the corner of 1st Street and Belmont Street. Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Museum of Natural History.
“Derricks are being erected as fast as timber reaches the ground,” the magazine adds. “New companies are coming in overnight. Every available piece of acreage on and about Signal Hill is being signed up.”
Signal Hill helped make California the source of one-quarter of the world’s oil. “Porcupine Hill” and the Long Beach field produced 260,000 barrels of oil a day by 1923.
Within a year, Signal Hill — before and after a residential area — will have 108 wells, producing 14,000 barrels of oil a day. There were so many derricks, people started calling it Porcupine Hill. “Derricks are so close that on Willow Street, Sunnyside Cemetery graves generated royalty checks to next-of-kin when oil was drawn from beneath family plots,” noted one historian.
Derricks were so close to one cemetery that graves “generated royalty checks to next-of-kin when oil was drawn from beneath family plots.” By 1923, production would reach 259,000 barrels per day from nearly 300 wells. Photo is part of a panorama in the Library of Congress.
Dave Summers explained in his 2011 article, “The Oil Beneath California,” that when oilfields around Los Angeles began to develop, “Californian production became a significant player on the national stage.” The OilPrice.com article continued:
By 1923 it was producing some 259,000 barrels per day from some 300 wells, in comparison with Huntington Beach, which was then at 113,000 barrels per day and Santa Fe Springs at 32,000 barrels per day… And, in a foreboding of the future problems of overproduction, this was the first year in a decade that supply exceeded demand.
Shell Oil Geologists
Signal Hill oil potential had drawn wildcatters south of Los Angeles since 1917 but with no success. Two Royal Dutch Shell Oil Company geologists and a driller persevered.
“This was a great exploit and economic risk for the time. Shell Oil Company had just lost $3 million at a failed drilling site in Ventura, five years before,” reported a Long Beach newspaper.
A 1954 photograph of the Alamitos No. 1 well — and the monument dedicated on May 3, 1952, “as a tribute to the petroleum pioneers for their success here…”
Although another “dry hole” would be expensive, Shell geologists Frank Hayes and Alvin Theodore Schwennesen spudded their well in March 1921. Driller O.P. “Happy” Yowells believed oil lay deeper than earlier “dusters” had attempted to reach.
By summer the steam-powered cable tool rig had Yowells close to making oilfield history. On June 23, 1921, at a depth of 3,114 feet, his wildcat well for Shell Oil erupted, revealing a petroleum reserve that extended to nearby Long Beach.
According to the Paleontological Research Institution, Signal Hill became the biggest oil field the already productive Southern California region had ever seen. This made California, “the nation’s number-one producing state, and in 1923, California was the source of one-quarter of the world’s entire output of oil!”
Decades before Signal Hill, another giant southern California oilfield had been discovered in 1892. A struggling prospector drilled into tar seeps he found near present-day Dodger Stadium (see Discovering Los Angeles Oilfields).
Signal Hill Oil Park
Today, Signal Hill’s Discovery Well Park includes a community center to educate the public. Historic photos and descriptions can be found at six viewpoints along the Panorama Promenade. There are producing oil wells throughout the hill — with the historic “Discovery Well, Alamitos Number 1” at the corner of Temple Avenue and East Hill Street.
A monument dedicated on May 3, 1952, serves “as a tribute to the petroleum pioneers for their success here, a success which has, by aiding in the growth and expansion of the petroleum industry, contributed so much to the welfare of mankind.”
Visitors to the area can see “wonderful commemorative art displays of this era throughout the lush parks and walkways of Signal Hill,” reported the Long Beach Beachcomber. Dedicated on September 30, 2006, the statue “Tribute to the Roughnecks” can be found on Skyline Drive.
“Tribute to the Roughnecks” by Cindy Jackson stands atop Signal Hill. Long Beach is in the distance. Signal Hill Petroleum Chairman Jerry Barto and Shell Oil employee Bruce Kerr are depicted in bronze.
The first California oil wells were drilled near oil seeps in the northern part of the state around the time of the Civil War. These Pico Canyon wells produced limited amounts of crude oil, but there was no market for the oil. Larger oilfields would be revealed in the early 1890s about 35 miles to the south.
Earlier explorers noted evidence of California’s petroleum fields by the large number of oil seeps, both onshore and offshore. California’s first commercial oil well in 1876 was drilled in Pica Canyon, well known for its asphalt seeps.
Between 1913 and 1923 Hollywood used the derricks on Signal Hill in movies starring Buster Keaton and Fatty Arbuckle. In 1957, what many consider the world’s first “all jazz” radio station, KNOB (now KLAX), first transmitted from a small studio on top of the historic oil hill.
_______________________
Recommended Reading: Signal Hill, California, Images of America
(2006); Huntington Beach, California, Postcard History Series
(2009); Black Gold in California: The Story of California Petroleum Industry 
(2016). Your Amazon purchase benefits the American Oil & Gas Historical Society. As an Amazon Associate, AOGHS earns a commission from qualifying purchases.
_______________________
The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please become an AOGHS annual supporter and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. © 2025 Bruce A. Wells.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Signal Hill Oil Boom.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/petroleum-pioneers/signal-hill-oil/. Last Updated: June 18, 2025. Original Published Date: April 29, 2013.
by Bruce Wells | Jan 22, 2025 | Petroleum Companies
Rise and fall of a California oil exploration company.
A new “black gold” rush in California took off in 1886 after William Rowland and partner William Lacy completed several producing oil wells at Rancho La Puente. Their company, Rowland & Lacy (later called the Puente Crude Oil Company), helped reveal the Puente oilfield.
The exploration venture — and a more successful one with a similar name, the Puente Oil Company — were among those seeking oil in southern California at the turn of the century. By 1912, many inexperienced companies had drilled more than 100 wells in the Fullerton area southeast of the Los Angeles field. Two expensive “dry holes” were completed by the Puente Crude Oil Company.
Puente Crude Oil Company was one of many small early 20th-century ventures hoping to find oil in southern California’s prolific oilfields at Brea Canyon and Fullerton.
Initially capitalized with $500,000, Puente Crude Oil offered stock to the public at 10 cents a share in 1900, but its two unsuccessful wells in the Puente field’s eastern extension brought the company to a quick financial crisis.
One well was lost to a “crooked hole” and the other found only traces of oil and natural gas as enthusiastic advertisements continued to solicit investment. Some ads referred to the widely known Sunset oilfield, discovered in 1892 in Kern County to the north.
By May 1901 company stock was offered at two cents per share to relieve indebtedness and enable further drilling on the company’s 870 acres in Rodeo Canyon. One year later, San Bernardino newspapers reported the company in trouble.
“This history of misadventure has not been pleasing to the stockholders of the Puente Crude Oil Company,” noted one article. “An auditing committee was appointed for the purpose of examining the books and accounts of the company,” it added.
Further reports in 1902 noted the company had issued no statements, “financial or otherwise,” for a year. Puente Crude Oil Company is absent from records thereafter.
South of Los Angeles, in Orange County, the Brea Museum and Heritage Center tells the story of the Olinda Oil Well No. 1 well of 1898 – one of many important California petroleum discoveries. Visit the Olinda Oil Museum and Trail at 4025 Santa Fe Road in Brea.
Much of Puente Oil’s former oil-producing land would later be managed by the Puente Hills Landfill Native Habitat Preservation Authority. In 2022, the Port of Los Angeles handled more than 220 million metric tons — 20 percent of all incoming cargo for the United States.
The stories of exploration and production (E&P) companies joining U.S. petroleum booms (and avoiding busts) can be found updated in Is my Old Oil Stock worth Anything?
_______________________
Recommended Reading: Los Angeles, California, Images of America
(2001). Your Amazon purchase benefits the American Oil & Gas Historical Society. As an Amazon Associate, AOGHS earns a commission from qualifying purchases.
_______________________
The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please become an AOGHS annual supporter and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2025 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Puente Crude Oil Company.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/old-oil-stocks/puente-crude-oil-company. Last Updated: January 30, 2025. Original Published Date: July 2, 2013.
