The Roxana Petroleum Company Wood River (Illinois) facility began refining crude oil — processing more than two million barrels of oil from Oklahoma oilfields in its first year of operation. Roxana Petroleum was the 1912 creation of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group, which also founded the American Gasoline Company in Seattle to distribute the fuel on the West Coast. (more…)
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.
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.
In Pico Canyon of the Santa Susana Mountains, Charles Mentry of the California Star Oil Works Company drilled three wells in 1875 and 1876 that showed promise. The first West Coast oil gusher arrived with his fourth well and helped establish 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.
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, 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.
Charles Mentry is remembered by a small town a short distance from the 1876 Pico Canyon discovery well, Mentryville. Visit the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society website to learn more history about Pico Canyon oil production. About 35 miles south of Pico Canyon, a gold prospector discovered the massive Los Angeles field in 1892.
Learn more in Discovering Los Angeles Oilfields.
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 well 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).
As of January 1, 2022, there were 130 operable petroleum refineries in the United States, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), down from 141 refineries in 2017.
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.
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Recommended Reading: California State University, Dominguez Hills
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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 © 2024 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
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 18, 2024. Original Published Date: September 9, 2015.
Henry Doherty organized the Cities Services Company as a public utility holding company in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Doherty bought producing properties in Kansas and Oklahoma as he acquired distributing companies and linked them to natural gas fields.
In 1915, a Cities Service subsidiary discovered the 34-square-mile El Dorado oilfield. In 1928, another subsidiary completed the discovery well of the Oklahoma City oilfield.
Cities Service Company subsidiaries discovered major Mid-Continent oilfields.
Federal court mandates in 1940 resulted in Cities Service’s divestiture of its public utilities, and in 1959 the remaining companies were reformed as Cities Service Oil Company, which changed its marketing brand to Citgo in 1964.
After being acquired by Occidental Petroleum in 1982, Citgo was acquired by the Venezuela state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) in 1990.
Learn more in Cities Service Company.
A third oil boom arrived in Eastland County, Texas, when the Hog Creek Oil Company exploratory well at Desdemona blew in at 2,000 barrels of oil a day — thrilling the venture’s investors. Production from the new oilfield, which joined prolific fields at Breckenridge (1916) and “Roaring Ranger” (1917), would peak at more than 7.3 million barrels of oil in 1919.
“By 1919 the Desdemona field was probably the second largest in the oil belt, and the Hog Creek Oil Company’s stockholders were able to sell their $100 shares for $10,250 each,” noted Edwin Cox in his 1950 History of Eastland County, Texas.
Thanks to its oil leases, Eastland County’s Merriman Baptist Church would be declared the richest congregation in America.
BP discovered an oilfield 250 miles southeast of Houston in the Gulf of Mexico — and set a world depth record by drilling 30,923 feet into seabed from a platform floating more than 4,130 feet above.
The Tiber Prospect field — in 2009 estimated to contain more than three billion barrels of oil — was drilled by the Deepwater Horizon, which later was moved to a new site and destroyed in the deadly explosion and oil spill of April 2010. Learn about other ultra-deep wells in Anadarko Basin in Depth.
Early drilling technology advanced when William Morris, a driller in West Virginia, patented a “Rock Drill Jar.” It was an innovation he had been experimenting with while drilling brine wells.
“The mechanical success of cable-tool drilling has greatly depended on a device called jars, invented by a spring pole driller,” according to historian Samuel Pees, who in 2004 noted Morris began using the technology as early as the 1830s.
Drill jar technology improved efficiency for drilling brine wells — and later, oil wells.
For more advanced cable tools, Morris patented a “manner of uniting augers to sinkers for boring,” with the upper link of the jars helping the lower link to strike the underlying auger stem on the upstroke. This upward blow could dislodge the bit if it was stuck in the rock formation. Cable-tool drillers would soon improve upon Morris’ patented jars.
Learn more in Making Hole — Drilling Technology.
The Chicago Gas Light & Coke Company delivered its first commercial gas processed from coal. “The gas pipes were filled, and the humming noise made by the escaping gas at the tops of the lamp-posts indicated that everything was all right,” reported the Gem of the Prairie newspaper. “Shortly afterward the fire was applied and brilliant torches flamed on both sides of Lake Street as far as the eye could see and wherever the posts were set.”
By 1855, almost 80 miles of pipeline would be installed for about 2,000 manufactured gas consumers in Chicago. The first U.S. public street lamp fueled by manufactured gas illuminated Baltimore, Maryland, in 1817 (see Illuminating Gaslight).
Modern gasoline pump design began with inventor Sylvanus F. (Freelove) Bowser, who sold his first pump to a grocery store owner in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Designed to safely dispense kerosene as well as “burning fluid, and the light combustible products of petroleum,” Bowser’s pump included a container holding 42 gallons. The pump used marble valves, a wooden plunger, and a simple, upright faucet.
The 1916 Bowser gas pump included a “clock face” dial to measure pumped gas. Photo courtesy Smithsonian Institution.
Thanks to the pump’s success at Jake Gumper’s grocery store, Bowser formed the S.F. Bowser Company and patented his invention in 1887. Within a decade — as the automobile’s popularity grew — Bowser’s company has added new pump designs. By 1905, the S.F. Bowser “Self-Measuring Gasoline Storage Pump” became known to motorists as a “filling station.”
The Bowser gas pump included a hand-levered suction pump and a hose attachment for dispensing gas. As other pump manufacturers arrived, Fort Wayne became known as the “Gas Pump Capital of the World.”
Learn more in First Gas Pump and Service Station.
An electric well-logging tool was first applied at Pechelbronn, France, after brothers Conrad and Marcel Schlumberger modified their surface system to operate vertically in a well.
Conrad Schlumberger, using very basic equipment, in 1912 recorded the first map of equipotential curves near Caen, France.
Conrad Schlumberger had conceived the idea of using electrical measurements to map subsurface rock formations as early as 1912. After developing an electrical four-probe surface approach for mineral exploration, the brothers created the electric downhole well log.
Conrad and Marcel Schlumberger tested their electronic logging tool in 1927, one year after founding the world’s first well-logging company. Photo and image courtesy Schlumberger Ltd.
Lowering their new tool into a well, they recorded a single lateral-resistivity curve at fixed points in the well’s borehole and graphically plotted the results against depth — creating a well log of geologic formations. Changes in subsurface resistance readings showed variations and possible oil and natural gas-producing areas.
The brothers’ technological breakthrough would lead to Schlumberger becoming the world’s first well-logging oilfield service company.
Union Producing Company completed its Woodruff No. 1, the first commercial oil well in Mississippi. Drilled at Tinsley, southwest of Yazoo City, the well produced 235 barrels of oil a day from a depth of 4,560 feet in a sandstone later named the Woodruff Sand. Fieldwork by geologist Frederic Mellen led to the Tinsley oilfield discovery.
Fred Mellen was elected president of the Mississippi Geological Survey in 1946.
While working on a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project, Mellen earlier found indications of a salt dome structure similar to the giant Spindletop field of 1901 in Texas. The 28-year-old geologist urged more seismographic testing, and Houston-based Union Producing Company leased about 2,500 acres at Perry Creek.
Mellen’s original WPA project had been a clay and minerals survey, “to locate a suitable clay to mold cereal bowls and other utensils for an underprivileged children’s nursery.” Instead, he launched Mississippi’s oil industry.
Learn more in First Mississippi Oil Wells.
After drilling 20 dry holes, the Tyndall-Wyoming Oil Company completed the No. 1 Hogg well 50 miles south of Houston. Within four months, a second well was producing about 600 barrels a day. The discoveries ended a succession of dry holes dating back to 1901 — when former Texas Governor James “Big Jim” Hogg paid $30,000 for the lease. He also helped launch the Texas Company (Texaco).
Gov. Hogg died 11 years before the Tyndall-Wyoming Oil Company wells found oil in the giant West Columbia oilfield. Fortunately for his family, he stipulated in his will that the mineral rights should not be sold for at least 15 years after his death.
Learn more in Governor Hogg’s Texas Oil Wells.
Maj. Frederick Russell Burnham discovered oil in Dominguez Hills, an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County, California. His well produced about 1,200 barrels of oil a day from a depth of about 4,000 feet. Maj. Burnham, a decorated soldier in both the U.S. and British armies, was once known as “King of the Scouts.”
The Burnham Exploration Company and partner Union Oil Company of California opened the Dominguez Hills oilfield, “a two-square-mile, two-mile deep stack of eight producing zones.”
Maj. Frederick R. Burnham in his British Army uniform, 1901.
The region was named for a Spanish soldier who in 1784 received a land grant for grazing cattle. “But family fortunes truly took off with discovery of oil in the 1920s, first in the Torrance area and then, most resoundingly, on Dominguez Hill itself,” explained a California State University historian in 2007.
By 1933, Maj. Burnham’s petroleum exploration venture and Union Oil had paid more than $10 million to stockholders.
Learn more California history in First California Oil Wells and Discovering Los Angeles Oilfields.
The modern concept of horizontal drilling may have begun with 19th-century patents by John Smalley Campbell of London. After receiving a British patent for his “useful improvements in flexible driving shafts or cables” in 1889, Campbell received a U.S. patent (no. 459,152) for his drilling method.
While Campbell described the patent as ideal for dental engines, “the patent also carefully covered use of his flexible shafts at much larger and heavier physical scales,” reported oil historian Stephen Testa in a 2015 article for Pacific Petroleum Geology. “The modern concept of non-straight line, relatively short-radius drilling dates back at least to September 8, 1891.”
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Recommended Reading: The fire in the rock: A history of the oil and gas industry in Kansas, 1855-1976
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please become an annual AOGHS supporter today. Help us maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2024 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
