The increasing affordability of the automobile and the growth of suburbs contributed to a change in the "company town" concept, in which manufacturers had provided housing for workers on the site of the business. Some local company towns, such as the Simons Brick Company yard in Montebello, as well as the many oil company leases that existed in the region, were affected by the changes in transportation and housing, because workers could live in towns and cities and enjoy the amenities there without having to live at a work site, with the noise, smells and isolation.
This appears to have been the case with the Olinda oil field, as noticeably observed in comparing the 1920 and 1930 federal censuses. The 1920 enumeration, discussed last entry, counted nearly 1,000 persons within the area from Valencia Avenue east (with a few people on the west in those leases that straddled both sides of the road. By 1930, however, the entire area designated as the Olinda precinct within the Fullerton township, had less than half the population.
There were 462 persons listed in Olinda in 1930, most, obviously living within oil leases, thought there were 64 persons who were outside of the oil field, in Carbon Canyon and also to the south along Valencia Avenue and Rose Drive. For the 398 residents of the fields, here is the breakdown by company (CCMO is the Chanslor Canfield Midway Oil Company, successor to the Petroleum Development Company on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad lease):
CCMO: 222
Olinda: 77
West Coast: 56
Shell Oil: 21
General Petroleum: 19
Fullerton Oil: 3
On gender, the percentage of men in the Olinda area was 53% and women 47%. Adults 21 and over amounted to 57% of the population and those under 21, 43%. The white population was still overwhelmingly dominant at almost 97%, with 12 Latinos, from two families named Reyes {and likely related) and the same Japanese family, the Fujimotos, residing on the West Coast lease as they had ten years before, although the head of the family was now a "roustabout," or general laborer, and not a boilermaker as before. Finally, as to home ownership, there was a slight change in home ownership, as 16 of 119 househoulds consisted of families who owned their residence, about 13% of the total. One residence in particular stood out in terms of its value. Most owned residences in the oil fields were small, plain wooden dwellings at low value, but on Rose Drive, citrus rancher Michael Harmon, owned a home worth $60,000, a pretty substantial sum at the time.
The same general run of oil field occupations existed in 1930 as a decade previous, including drillers, rotary helpers, rodmen, several types of engineers, machinists, firemen, watchmen, electricians, and others. A few men held position of authority as superintendents, chief clerks, shop foreman and the like. Also, where there were several Santa Fe Railroad workers in 1920, there was only a field inspector in 1930, residing on the Olinda lease. There seemed, however, to have been more variety of jobs held by members of households in which the male head was an oil field worker, including more work done by women. This seems to be a consequence of the automobile, which allowed oil field residents to find jobs further away from their homes. What is also notable is that, while in 1920, there were a number of men who lived in bunk houses on a few of the leases, there weren't any who did so ten years later.
On the CCMO lease, there was a barber, dentist, dental assistant,, glass factory worker, nursery bookkeeper, boarding house cook, store clerk, bus driver and real estate salesman. At West Coast, one wife of an oil worker worked in a beauty shop and there was also an airplane mechanic and citrus workers. On the Olinda lease, there was a garage mechanic and citrus house packers.
There were also oil field-sited jobs that were not directly tied to the business. Along or near Valencia Avenue, at the CCMO, Fullerton and Shell lease areas were three teachers, presumably at the Olinda School, including Alexander Barnes, a 47-year old from Ohio, Gladys Payton, 31, from Tennessee, and Ethel Overton, 39, born in Illinois. Overton's husband, Job, also 39 and from Indiana, was the bus driver. On Valencia Avenue, there was a gas station, run by 67-year old Iowan Omar Waitz. The CCMO had a company store, whose keeper was George Cullen, a 60-year old Indiana native who was one of the few homeowners in Olinda and he had a manager, 22-year old Clarence Perrin, a native of California. A teacher, perhaps also in Olinda, lived there, too, Mary Lemke, whose husband had a citrus ranch on the lease property. There was a bus driver on the lease, too, Walt Cullen (son of the store keeper), but his occupation specifically said "high school," which probably meant that he drove Olinda teens to the only local high school, Fullerton Union.
Of the 64 persons not enumerated directly on oil lease land, a few of them worked in the fields, but there were a few farmers in Carbon Canyon, such as Ramon Reyes, Edward Gaines, who, as in 1920, ran stock where Olinda Village and the Hollydale Mobile Home Estates are located, and Adolph Friend, a West Virginia native in his early 70s who ran cattle in the Canyon, as well. Down on Valencia Avenue and Rose Drive, there was citrus grower Harmon, another Reyes family, a building contractor, and a moulder for a brass factory.
The 1930 census was taken in April, about seven months after the stock market crash of October 1929 that signaled the beginning of the Great Depression. By 1932, when banks failed en masse, the Depression worsened. The 1940 census is due to be released this year, so there will be an opportunity soon to examine that enumeration and see what further changes came to Olinda.
Showing posts with label Consolidated Olinda Oil Company. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Consolidated Olinda Oil Company. Show all posts
08 January 2012
31 August 2011
Olinda Oil Field History: Origins of Olinda, Part 9
With the end of the nineteenth-century, the hurried activity at the Olinda Oil Field, Orange County's first such center of petroleum prospecting, continued unabated. For Olinda Ranch founder William Hervey Bailey, this meant further manueverings to protect and maximize his interests. As noted previously, Bailey created the Olinda Oil Company and then assisted in the organization of the Richfield Oil Company. But, by late 1899, he engineered the formation of the Consolidated Olinda Oil Company, which appeared to be a front for the powerful Union Oil Company. Still, the legal issues continued.
In the 22 July 1900 issue of the Los Angeles Times, it was noted that "disputed ownership of territory in the Fullerton [really Olinda] field promises to result within a short time in the opening of litigation involving the property of nearly every company in the district." In this instance, this had to do with discrepancies in surveys affecting the boundary of land controlled by two entities: the Fullerton Oil Company and the Fullerton Consolidated Oil Company, the latter controlled by Charles Victor Hall, who was profiled here a while back.
As to Bailey's own consolidated firm, the issue had a short notice that "The Olinda Consolidated is moving a rig to the old Carlton township," indicating an interest in developing its operations further south and perhaps east of its main concentration in the area in and around today's Carbon Canyon Regional Park.
There was other interesting local news. For example, the new Soquel Canyon Oil Company (a stock certificate of which was highlighted in this blog some time back), sunk its first well, but found trouble in drilling, so pulled the rig and started a second one nearby. This company, while working in the area where Soquel and Carbon canyons meet, near Olinda Village and the Hollydale Mobile Home Park, believed it had oil prospects because of successful wells on the same geological "strike" as that of the Columbia and Fullerton companies. By 1902, however, the Soquel Canyon firm went belly-up as its wells turned up dry.
Meanwhile, further east and south, it was announced that "a large corps of surveyors has been at work on Chino ranch land in Telegraph Cañon . . . good oil conditions exist there." Telegraph Canyon is the main east-west canyon that runs along the north portion of Chino Hills State Park and some interesting history there will someday be added to this blog.
A little more than a mohth later, on 31 August 1900, the Times announced further news concerning W. H. Bailey's Olinda activities. Some 4,400 acres of land was purchased by Bailey and partners for yet another oil firm, the Olinda Crude Oil Company. This company's capitalization was much higher than Bailey's earlier endeavors, totaling $2 million, and featured a larger pool of investors. These included prominent Los Angeles businessmen like Abraham Haas, Herman Baruch, H. H. Kerckhoff, M. A. Hamburger, S. H. Mott, F. W. Braun (men involved in wholesale grocery, furniture, and pharmaceutical enterprises) and Times publisher Harry Chandler. Its directors also featured banker Herman W. Hellman, lumberman William H. Perry, Braun, Baruch and, of course, Bailey.
Some of the new concern's lands were oil producing under lease to the Columbia and Fullerton companies and 10% of the 4,400 acres were under lease and new wells were being drilled on those, while the remaining company-owned land was to be thoroughly investigated for new wells paid for by the Olinda Crude entity. By early January 1901, in fact, the Times reported that its first well struck oil at 740 feet.
This was Bailey's last oil company on the ranch he founded in 1887. His oil-prospecting enterprise seems to have had some success over the years, although it was again reconstituted, using the name Olinda Land Company. State oil reports in 1918 and 1921 noted that the firm had ten, then eleven, wells and was under the leadership of Bailey's son, William, Jr. Meantime, in October 1906, remaining land at the Olinda Ranch was sold by Bailey to Jacob Stern, the highly successful German-born Jewish merchant, born in Saxony in 1859, who came to America in 1884 and went first to New York, then Cleveland, where he spent five years in the clothing business.
Stern arrived at Fullerton in 1889 and opened the Stern and Goodman mercantile house on Spadra Avenue, now Harbor Boulevard, building an impressive business building there. Stern and Goodman had branch stores at Anaheim, Placentia and Olinda and eventually controlled fully 75% of all the hay and grain business in the area. While Goodman attended to the store, Stern branched out into hay and grain dealing and real estate through a Los Angeles office. He emerged as a particularly successful and under-recognized real estate investor, having stakes in Yorba Linda (much of the town was founded on his holdings); Placentia; Whittier; Corona; Pomona; Santa Ana; Sunset Beach (just now absorbed into Huntington Beach); one-half of the famed Rancho Cucamonga, which he leased to Charles Victor Hall of Olinda renown; other lands in Los Angeles, Kern, Imperial, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino and Fresno counties; and, finally, in Mexico, Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas! At one time, he owned some 20,000 acres.
In 1918, Stern and Goodman liquidated their store, while keeping the valuable Fullerton building. Stern also had oil lands in Placentia (the old Richfield townsite) which he leased to General Petroleum Corporation. After living in Fullerton until 1904, Stern moved to a palatial residence on five acres in what was then a rural outpost west of Los Angeles called Hollywood. In fact, his property was at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street! As to his Olinda land, Stern paid $140,000 and planned to subdivide it into fivce, ten and twenty acre tracts.
William Hervey Bailey lived a few years beyond the Stern sale and retained presidency of the Olinda Crude Oil Company until his death at age 64 on New Year's Day 1910 at the Lamanda Park Hospital in Pasadena after a year's battle with pneumonia. In a Times obituary, it was pointed out that "a little more than twenty years ago . . . he bought a large piece of land in the Fullerton district and organized the towns of Olinda and Richfield. At that time it was thought the land was most valuable because of the agricultural possibilities, and it was not for many years thereafter that its true worth was discovered through the striking of oil." Bailey's full-time residence remained in Oakland, but he had a room at the Hotel Melrose in Los Angeles. After he contracted pneumonia, it was decided to bring him back to Pasadena for the warmer winter climate than what was to be found in the Bay Area. Bailey was, however, interred with his parents and brother Edward at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland.
Bailey's son, William, Jr., as noted above, took the reins of the company, which continued to operate some wells as well as receive lease income from other oil firms with producing wells. It doesn't appear that Olinda Land expanded during the son's tenure, but it maintained its operations, with some occasional indications of new success, such as a 1921 well, its twnety-third, "in an undeveloped section of Olinda and Chino Canyon," this latter seeming to mean either Carbon, Soquel or Telegraph canyon. But, in early 1938, Olinda Land Company voted to issue a liquidating dividend on its capital stock based upon "the sale of the company's real holdings in Orange county to the Shell Oil Company for $500,000." Other assets of the firm, basically in marketable securities, were also liquidated and distributed to the company's stockholders. After just over a half-century, the Bailey family's direct involvement at Olinda was concluded. Two years later, in July 1940, William H. Bailey, Jr., manager of the Olinda Land Company for almost three decades, died at age 66 at his West Los Angeles home and was buried at nearby Rosedale Cemetery.
With this entry, this series of Olinda Oil Field history comes to a close, although there will be much more to add about the field in later entries focusing of different subjects.
In the 22 July 1900 issue of the Los Angeles Times, it was noted that "disputed ownership of territory in the Fullerton [really Olinda] field promises to result within a short time in the opening of litigation involving the property of nearly every company in the district." In this instance, this had to do with discrepancies in surveys affecting the boundary of land controlled by two entities: the Fullerton Oil Company and the Fullerton Consolidated Oil Company, the latter controlled by Charles Victor Hall, who was profiled here a while back.
As to Bailey's own consolidated firm, the issue had a short notice that "The Olinda Consolidated is moving a rig to the old Carlton township," indicating an interest in developing its operations further south and perhaps east of its main concentration in the area in and around today's Carbon Canyon Regional Park.
There was other interesting local news. For example, the new Soquel Canyon Oil Company (a stock certificate of which was highlighted in this blog some time back), sunk its first well, but found trouble in drilling, so pulled the rig and started a second one nearby. This company, while working in the area where Soquel and Carbon canyons meet, near Olinda Village and the Hollydale Mobile Home Park, believed it had oil prospects because of successful wells on the same geological "strike" as that of the Columbia and Fullerton companies. By 1902, however, the Soquel Canyon firm went belly-up as its wells turned up dry.
Meanwhile, further east and south, it was announced that "a large corps of surveyors has been at work on Chino ranch land in Telegraph Cañon . . . good oil conditions exist there." Telegraph Canyon is the main east-west canyon that runs along the north portion of Chino Hills State Park and some interesting history there will someday be added to this blog.
A little more than a mohth later, on 31 August 1900, the Times announced further news concerning W. H. Bailey's Olinda activities. Some 4,400 acres of land was purchased by Bailey and partners for yet another oil firm, the Olinda Crude Oil Company. This company's capitalization was much higher than Bailey's earlier endeavors, totaling $2 million, and featured a larger pool of investors. These included prominent Los Angeles businessmen like Abraham Haas, Herman Baruch, H. H. Kerckhoff, M. A. Hamburger, S. H. Mott, F. W. Braun (men involved in wholesale grocery, furniture, and pharmaceutical enterprises) and Times publisher Harry Chandler. Its directors also featured banker Herman W. Hellman, lumberman William H. Perry, Braun, Baruch and, of course, Bailey.
Some of the new concern's lands were oil producing under lease to the Columbia and Fullerton companies and 10% of the 4,400 acres were under lease and new wells were being drilled on those, while the remaining company-owned land was to be thoroughly investigated for new wells paid for by the Olinda Crude entity. By early January 1901, in fact, the Times reported that its first well struck oil at 740 feet.
This was Bailey's last oil company on the ranch he founded in 1887. His oil-prospecting enterprise seems to have had some success over the years, although it was again reconstituted, using the name Olinda Land Company. State oil reports in 1918 and 1921 noted that the firm had ten, then eleven, wells and was under the leadership of Bailey's son, William, Jr. Meantime, in October 1906, remaining land at the Olinda Ranch was sold by Bailey to Jacob Stern, the highly successful German-born Jewish merchant, born in Saxony in 1859, who came to America in 1884 and went first to New York, then Cleveland, where he spent five years in the clothing business.
Stern arrived at Fullerton in 1889 and opened the Stern and Goodman mercantile house on Spadra Avenue, now Harbor Boulevard, building an impressive business building there. Stern and Goodman had branch stores at Anaheim, Placentia and Olinda and eventually controlled fully 75% of all the hay and grain business in the area. While Goodman attended to the store, Stern branched out into hay and grain dealing and real estate through a Los Angeles office. He emerged as a particularly successful and under-recognized real estate investor, having stakes in Yorba Linda (much of the town was founded on his holdings); Placentia; Whittier; Corona; Pomona; Santa Ana; Sunset Beach (just now absorbed into Huntington Beach); one-half of the famed Rancho Cucamonga, which he leased to Charles Victor Hall of Olinda renown; other lands in Los Angeles, Kern, Imperial, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino and Fresno counties; and, finally, in Mexico, Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas! At one time, he owned some 20,000 acres.
In 1918, Stern and Goodman liquidated their store, while keeping the valuable Fullerton building. Stern also had oil lands in Placentia (the old Richfield townsite) which he leased to General Petroleum Corporation. After living in Fullerton until 1904, Stern moved to a palatial residence on five acres in what was then a rural outpost west of Los Angeles called Hollywood. In fact, his property was at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street! As to his Olinda land, Stern paid $140,000 and planned to subdivide it into fivce, ten and twenty acre tracts.
William Hervey Bailey lived a few years beyond the Stern sale and retained presidency of the Olinda Crude Oil Company until his death at age 64 on New Year's Day 1910 at the Lamanda Park Hospital in Pasadena after a year's battle with pneumonia. In a Times obituary, it was pointed out that "a little more than twenty years ago . . . he bought a large piece of land in the Fullerton district and organized the towns of Olinda and Richfield. At that time it was thought the land was most valuable because of the agricultural possibilities, and it was not for many years thereafter that its true worth was discovered through the striking of oil." Bailey's full-time residence remained in Oakland, but he had a room at the Hotel Melrose in Los Angeles. After he contracted pneumonia, it was decided to bring him back to Pasadena for the warmer winter climate than what was to be found in the Bay Area. Bailey was, however, interred with his parents and brother Edward at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland.
Bailey's son, William, Jr., as noted above, took the reins of the company, which continued to operate some wells as well as receive lease income from other oil firms with producing wells. It doesn't appear that Olinda Land expanded during the son's tenure, but it maintained its operations, with some occasional indications of new success, such as a 1921 well, its twnety-third, "in an undeveloped section of Olinda and Chino Canyon," this latter seeming to mean either Carbon, Soquel or Telegraph canyon. But, in early 1938, Olinda Land Company voted to issue a liquidating dividend on its capital stock based upon "the sale of the company's real holdings in Orange county to the Shell Oil Company for $500,000." Other assets of the firm, basically in marketable securities, were also liquidated and distributed to the company's stockholders. After just over a half-century, the Bailey family's direct involvement at Olinda was concluded. Two years later, in July 1940, William H. Bailey, Jr., manager of the Olinda Land Company for almost three decades, died at age 66 at his West Los Angeles home and was buried at nearby Rosedale Cemetery.
With this entry, this series of Olinda Oil Field history comes to a close, although there will be much more to add about the field in later entries focusing of different subjects.
29 August 2011
Olinda Oil Field History: Origins of Olinda, Part 8
As the Olinda oil field grew in importance in the waning years of the 19th-century, Olinda Ranch founder William Hervey Bailey continued to work to improve his position within the field. Having already sold or leased large portions of the ranch he established a decade prior during the fabled Boom of the Eighties, Bailey formed the Olinda Oil Company and the Richfield Oil Company.
In early October 1899, however, he moved to expand his reach, as announced by the Los Angeles Times in an article on the 3rd, which announced that "there seems no longer to be any doubt as to the important position Orange county [sic] is to occupy in the development of oil on this Coast." Referring to important sales of oil land in the area, the paper offered that "yet the general public has but little conception of the real extent to which the development of this industry is destined to go." In truth, the paper had little idea either, given the oil production had not seen the advent, in any major way, of the emerging automobile industry and the Wright brothers and their airplane were still a few years off.
Interestingly, the Times indicated that, while oil was found in Olinda only within the previous few years, "it was believed to be in very small quantities—scarcely enough top justify development." After, however, "several men with capital were attracted to this locality," lands deemed only usable for sheep grazing became highly prized for the petroleum potential.
This led to the news that "today four deeds were filed here transferring over eight thousand acres of oil land to the Consolidated Olinda Oil Company, the aggregate consideration being $340,000." The paper went on to state that "this land was formerly owned by W. S. Bailey, Jr.," though they certainly meant William H. Bailey, Sr., not his 26-year old son. The next sentence has a little syntax and grammar problem: "The Olinda Oil Company, the Richfield Oil Company, and the Olinda Ranch Company, the Consolidated Olinda Oil Company, has secured control of the oil interests of the other companies above mentioned." What this seems to mean is that the new consolidated firm absorbed all the interest in the former Olinda Ranch of the ranch company, as well as those of the Olinda and Richfield entities. The article closed by noting that "this company will make extensive developments in the oil district in this county during the next few months."
Just two days later, though, the Times reported "that the big oil deal a few days ago, by which the Consolidated Olinda Oil Company became the owner of more than 8000 acres of oil-bearing land in this county, and for which they paid $340,000, was made in the interest of the Union Oil Company." In addition, a Union Oil representative appeared before the Board of Supervisors in Santa Ana "to present a petition for permission to pay an oil pipe line from the oil wells back of Fullerton along certain county roads to the Alamitos beet-sugar factory." Moreover, it was observed that Union first proposed securing a right-of-way to Newport Beach, but "that the use of the wharf at Newport could not be procured." Further, the company intended to build the line from Los Alamitos (near where the San Gabriel River empties into the Pacific at the border of Seal Beach and Long Beach [and, therefore, at the junction of Orange and Los Angeles counties]) and over to the harbor at San Pedro, recently the subject of massive federal appropriations for creating a man-made port facility that led to the modern day Port of Los Angeles.
The following day, on 6 October, the Times noted that the Consolidated Olinda Oil Company filed its articles of incorporation at Santa Ana and that $500,000 of stock was to be issued, divided into 50,000 shares at a par value of $10 each. At the time, though, only $1,220 was subscribed among those stockholders who constituted the Board of Directors. These were William Hervey Bailey and T. V. Bakewell of Oakland, Ralph Jones and a Mr. Donzel of San Francisco and Bailey's brother-in-law, Warren Olney, Jr., also of Oakland. Notably, Bailey held $1,000 of the initial subscription amount, while Olney and Donzel took $100 and Bakewell and Jones but one share of $10 apiece.
A little sidenote of interest: Olney was married to Bailey's sister. His namesake father was from frontier Iowa and was a teacher (one of his students was the legendary Texas judge, Wyatt Earp) before serving in the Union Army in Missouri during the Civil War. Warren, Sr. earned a law degree from the University of Michigan and then migrated to San Francisco in 1868. Although a sucessful attorney and mayor of Oakland from 1903 to 1905, the senior Olney is perhaps best known as a founder with John Muir of the Sierra Club and wrote its first charter, as well as serving as vice-president. As to Olney, Jr., he also had a distinguished legal career as an attorney and served on the California Supreme Court from 1919 to 1921. The younger Olney's son, Warren III, continued the family tradition of law and was Assistant Attorney General under President Eisenhower in the 1950s and oversaw the criminal division of the Department of Justice. More well-known than them all, though, is Warren Olney IV, a longtime news reporter, anchorman, and radio personality in Los Angeles.
Back to Olinda. Readers of posts on Tonner Canyon will recall that the Union Oil Company, founded in Santa Paula by Pennsylvania veterans of the oil industry like Lyman Stewart, Thomas Bard and Wallace Hardison, will recall that Hardison's sister married William Benjamin Scott, one of the "three brothers" of Tres Hermanos Ranch in upper Tonner Canyon in Diamond Bar/Chino Hills, and founder of the Columbia Oil Company, which had a significant presence in Olinda. William Hervey Bailey's Consolidated Olinda Oil Company as a front of sorts for Union was further expounded upon by the Times in an editorial on 8 October 1899, when it referred to the recent deal with Consolidated as a transfer "from the Olinda Oil Company to the Union Oil Company." Because, "the latter is known to have very heavy capital," it was fully expected that Union was going to get its product from the field via pipelines to ports for transfer. This presaged a great boom for Olinda and, indeed, this was the case.
Yet, it is interesting to note that, on 13 October 1899, the Times reported that Consolidated Olinda filed a lawsuit against Columbia Oil, William Benjamin Scott, Wallace Hardison and others to take possession of 320 acres of land which it claimed it owned and which was said to be oil-bearing, as well as seeking $500 in damages. The outcome of that case has not been found by this blogger.
Meantime, in early November, the Southern California Railway petitioned Orange County's Board of Supervisors for a right-of-way across public roads because "it is the intention of the railroad to construct a branch from the Santa Ana Cañon to the location of the company's oil wells [the Santa Fe lease] in the vicinity of Olinda." This spur line will be the subject of a future post and reflected another example of important infrastructure to get crude oil from Olinda to shipping points. While Union Oil was looking at a lengthy pipeline system to San Pedro Harbor, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe via the Southern California Railway was relying on a shorter, simpler transport by rail.
Another sidenote in the same 8 November 1899 Times column from above: Burdette Chandler, a principal in the Puente Oil Company operating a few miles west and north of Olinda in modern Rowland Heights, also owned some oil lands in the vicinity of the junction of Tonner and Brea canyons and just consummated a deal to sell 200 acres to the new Brea Cañon Oil Company.
As 1900 dawned, the action was increasing with greater force and speed. More to come next entry.
In early October 1899, however, he moved to expand his reach, as announced by the Los Angeles Times in an article on the 3rd, which announced that "there seems no longer to be any doubt as to the important position Orange county [sic] is to occupy in the development of oil on this Coast." Referring to important sales of oil land in the area, the paper offered that "yet the general public has but little conception of the real extent to which the development of this industry is destined to go." In truth, the paper had little idea either, given the oil production had not seen the advent, in any major way, of the emerging automobile industry and the Wright brothers and their airplane were still a few years off.
Interestingly, the Times indicated that, while oil was found in Olinda only within the previous few years, "it was believed to be in very small quantities—scarcely enough top justify development." After, however, "several men with capital were attracted to this locality," lands deemed only usable for sheep grazing became highly prized for the petroleum potential.
This led to the news that "today four deeds were filed here transferring over eight thousand acres of oil land to the Consolidated Olinda Oil Company, the aggregate consideration being $340,000." The paper went on to state that "this land was formerly owned by W. S. Bailey, Jr.," though they certainly meant William H. Bailey, Sr., not his 26-year old son. The next sentence has a little syntax and grammar problem: "The Olinda Oil Company, the Richfield Oil Company, and the Olinda Ranch Company, the Consolidated Olinda Oil Company, has secured control of the oil interests of the other companies above mentioned." What this seems to mean is that the new consolidated firm absorbed all the interest in the former Olinda Ranch of the ranch company, as well as those of the Olinda and Richfield entities. The article closed by noting that "this company will make extensive developments in the oil district in this county during the next few months."
Just two days later, though, the Times reported "that the big oil deal a few days ago, by which the Consolidated Olinda Oil Company became the owner of more than 8000 acres of oil-bearing land in this county, and for which they paid $340,000, was made in the interest of the Union Oil Company." In addition, a Union Oil representative appeared before the Board of Supervisors in Santa Ana "to present a petition for permission to pay an oil pipe line from the oil wells back of Fullerton along certain county roads to the Alamitos beet-sugar factory." Moreover, it was observed that Union first proposed securing a right-of-way to Newport Beach, but "that the use of the wharf at Newport could not be procured." Further, the company intended to build the line from Los Alamitos (near where the San Gabriel River empties into the Pacific at the border of Seal Beach and Long Beach [and, therefore, at the junction of Orange and Los Angeles counties]) and over to the harbor at San Pedro, recently the subject of massive federal appropriations for creating a man-made port facility that led to the modern day Port of Los Angeles.
The following day, on 6 October, the Times noted that the Consolidated Olinda Oil Company filed its articles of incorporation at Santa Ana and that $500,000 of stock was to be issued, divided into 50,000 shares at a par value of $10 each. At the time, though, only $1,220 was subscribed among those stockholders who constituted the Board of Directors. These were William Hervey Bailey and T. V. Bakewell of Oakland, Ralph Jones and a Mr. Donzel of San Francisco and Bailey's brother-in-law, Warren Olney, Jr., also of Oakland. Notably, Bailey held $1,000 of the initial subscription amount, while Olney and Donzel took $100 and Bakewell and Jones but one share of $10 apiece.
A little sidenote of interest: Olney was married to Bailey's sister. His namesake father was from frontier Iowa and was a teacher (one of his students was the legendary Texas judge, Wyatt Earp) before serving in the Union Army in Missouri during the Civil War. Warren, Sr. earned a law degree from the University of Michigan and then migrated to San Francisco in 1868. Although a sucessful attorney and mayor of Oakland from 1903 to 1905, the senior Olney is perhaps best known as a founder with John Muir of the Sierra Club and wrote its first charter, as well as serving as vice-president. As to Olney, Jr., he also had a distinguished legal career as an attorney and served on the California Supreme Court from 1919 to 1921. The younger Olney's son, Warren III, continued the family tradition of law and was Assistant Attorney General under President Eisenhower in the 1950s and oversaw the criminal division of the Department of Justice. More well-known than them all, though, is Warren Olney IV, a longtime news reporter, anchorman, and radio personality in Los Angeles.
Back to Olinda. Readers of posts on Tonner Canyon will recall that the Union Oil Company, founded in Santa Paula by Pennsylvania veterans of the oil industry like Lyman Stewart, Thomas Bard and Wallace Hardison, will recall that Hardison's sister married William Benjamin Scott, one of the "three brothers" of Tres Hermanos Ranch in upper Tonner Canyon in Diamond Bar/Chino Hills, and founder of the Columbia Oil Company, which had a significant presence in Olinda. William Hervey Bailey's Consolidated Olinda Oil Company as a front of sorts for Union was further expounded upon by the Times in an editorial on 8 October 1899, when it referred to the recent deal with Consolidated as a transfer "from the Olinda Oil Company to the Union Oil Company." Because, "the latter is known to have very heavy capital," it was fully expected that Union was going to get its product from the field via pipelines to ports for transfer. This presaged a great boom for Olinda and, indeed, this was the case.
Yet, it is interesting to note that, on 13 October 1899, the Times reported that Consolidated Olinda filed a lawsuit against Columbia Oil, William Benjamin Scott, Wallace Hardison and others to take possession of 320 acres of land which it claimed it owned and which was said to be oil-bearing, as well as seeking $500 in damages. The outcome of that case has not been found by this blogger.
Meantime, in early November, the Southern California Railway petitioned Orange County's Board of Supervisors for a right-of-way across public roads because "it is the intention of the railroad to construct a branch from the Santa Ana Cañon to the location of the company's oil wells [the Santa Fe lease] in the vicinity of Olinda." This spur line will be the subject of a future post and reflected another example of important infrastructure to get crude oil from Olinda to shipping points. While Union Oil was looking at a lengthy pipeline system to San Pedro Harbor, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe via the Southern California Railway was relying on a shorter, simpler transport by rail.
Another sidenote in the same 8 November 1899 Times column from above: Burdette Chandler, a principal in the Puente Oil Company operating a few miles west and north of Olinda in modern Rowland Heights, also owned some oil lands in the vicinity of the junction of Tonner and Brea canyons and just consummated a deal to sell 200 acres to the new Brea Cañon Oil Company.
As 1900 dawned, the action was increasing with greater force and speed. More to come next entry.
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