The Brea-Olinda Oil Field in 1925

An interesting description of the oil belt described as the Brea-Olinda field appeared in the May 1925 issue of Union Oil Bulletin, the magazine of the Union Oil Company of California.  Union, as has been described here before, was founded in Santa Paula in Ventura County in 1890 by Senator Thomas Bard, Lyman Stewart and William L. Hardison by merging several smaller companies together.

In early 1894, Union acquired some 1,200 acres of land from the Stearns Ranch Company and inaugurated their exploration for oil in Orange County, which started at Olinda with Edward L. Doheny, discoverer of the first well in the Los Angeles field, bringing in the still-operating well at the Santa Fe lease in 1897.  Hardison's brother-in-law, William B. Scott, was a founder of the Columbia Oil Company, which had ties to Union as well as having its own property at Olinda and Scott later was one of the "three brothers" (along with former Los Angeles County sheriff and owner of the Puente Oil Company, William R. Rowland, and Los Angeles Times publisher Harry Chandler) who bought much of Tonner Canyon for their "Tres Hermanos Ranch."

Union became such a major player in the Brea-Olinda area that they later established a large facility at the northeast corner of Imperial Highway and Valencia Avenue.  This was razed within the last decade or so and the land is now being developed as the La Floresta subdivision of homes and commercial space.

Before that, the company's property a short distance west at Imperial and Kraemer Avenue was developed into the Union Plaza shopping center.  Now, that active oil drilling is slowly disappearing from the field--in fact, wells are being dismantled and capped consistently these days--the visual reminders of the long history of oil prospecting in Olinda and its vicinity are yielding to residential and commercial development (after, of course, a considerable amount of cleanup and reclamation of the properties.)

In any case, the 1925 article, "The Brea-Olinda Field:  A Phenomenal Producer Reserve," by F. W. Lake and Robert W. Phelps gives an interesting overview of the then-thriving field, not long before that known commonly as the "Fullerton Oil Field," though several miles northeast of that town.  The article described the field as extending five miles long by one wide from Brea Canyon on the west to "the town of Olinda" on the east, though some have objected to referring to Olinda as a "town."

This map, drawn by M.E. Baird from geology work by Robert W. Phelps and F. W. Lake, appeared in an article by Lake and Phelps in the Union Oil Bulletin, May 1925.  Click on the map to see it in an enlarged view in a separate window. 
Courtesy, Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum, City of Industry.

The authors noted that 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."  Presumably this means the Spanish explorers, who arrived in the area as early as 1769, but, of course, the true "explorers" were the native aboriginal Indians who had been here thousands of years before.

Regardless, Lake and Phelps also observed that "names of topographical features, such as Brea Canyon and Carbon Canyon, indicate that the existence of the asphalt deposits has long been known."  Moreover, they continued, "in early times the asphalt which slowly oozes down from the hills was used in roofing the houses in the vicinity and as fuel."  This was, indeed, the case, with the adobe houses of the Spanish, Mexican and early American periods, when the mainly flat roofs were coated in tar to protect the interiors from rain (though hot summers would cause the tar to liquefy and cause some problems with the furniture and furnishings!)  The world-famous La Brea tar pits served the same function.  Fuel was collected by digging the asphalt and, in some cases, "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 authors went on to report that, between 1880 and 1895, some shallow wells were drilled but produced nothing of substantive value until Doheny's strike and that "this first activity was centered around the town of Olinda in the east end of the field."  Later, these wells were attempted further to the west in Brea Canyon and then the intervening areas were explored and prospected.  According to Lake and Phelps, "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."

Much of the article goes into technical detail about the geological forces that created the conditions for oil deposits within the field, specifically that production was mostly found in tar seeps on a monocline, where the layers of subsurface strata are inclined in the same direction and, in the case, of this field the dip is "overturned at the fault to about forty degrees along the southern limits."  Reverse, or thrust, faults are at right angles to the main "Puente fault" running through the district.

Drilling turned out to be difficult and expensive, requiring heavy tools and rigs, because of "the hardness of the conglomerate strata and the steep angle at which the strata are inclined," as noted above with that forty degree overturning.  In 1925, wells varied from a few hundred to over five thousand feet in depth, very shallow compared to some of today's wells, which, naturally, used highly-advanced technology (now further complicated by such methods as fracking and horizontal drilling.)  The nature of the field and its steep strata inclinations "make it extremely difficult to keep the hole straight," which, in turn, meant that "a number of the wells in the field had to be abandoned before completion because the hole was too crooked and the tools and casing were stuck and lost."

Still, the Brea-Olinda Field proved to be highly productive and lucrative.  The authors observed that "the proven acreage of the field amounts to about fourteen hundred acres of which eight hundred and fifty or sixty per cent are producing."  This is striking (!) because a sidebar at the front of the article  stated that Union owned or leased "approximately 8200 acres" with "the latest acquisition being the Olinda tract of 2795 acres."  In addition, "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 fact made the Brea-Olinda field "a valuable reserve" because on the untapped deeper sands--areas that were reached in subsequent decades as drill bits became improved (Shelley Stoody, discussed here recently relative to his ranch in the Chino Hills portion of Carbon Canyon at what is now the Western Hills golf course, patented a more durable bit that greatly assisted drilling in difficult areas like Olinda) and other elements of drilling at greater depths made more successful.

Lake and Phelps reckoned that total production to the beginning of 1925 at Brea-Olinda totaled 90,000,000 barrels of crude with 360 wells currently drilling on the 850 producing acres and yielding some 377,000 barrels per month.  In addition, another two dozen or so wells were "shut in," or closed, but still producing, to avoid dangerous blowouts, or gushers, of uncontrolled oil or gas.

As for the future, the authors were careful to explain that, while the field was remarkably consistent and still had a great deal of untapped crude because only the first two of four oil sand zones had been explored, estimates were to be very general.  Still, they concluded by observing that "a conservative estimate of the future production recoverable with the present means of production [italics added for emphasis] for the entire field would be about twice the production recovered in the past."  In other words, the estimate was that another 180 million barrels could have been available for future production, if technology was to remain constant, which, of course, it would not be.



The first page of the Lake and Phelps article, which has much technical data on the geological qualities of the field, but also material on its history, production to date, and conservative estimates of future production, which were, indeed, significantly eclipsed as technology allowed for deeper and more efficient drilling and extraction of crude oil and natural gas.

In fact, a 1963 industry report, stated that peak production at Brea-Olinda was in 1953 with the advent of greater drilling and recovery technological advancements and that, by 1957, the total number of barrels extracted from the field totaled 258,000,000 with another 79,000,000 in reserve, figures much higher than the 1925 report.  Additionally, the proven acreage jumped three times to 2,415 acres and the number of producing wells mushroomed to over 630.  In 1957, the total extraction was some 6,900,000 barrels.

The image above is a map included with the 1925 Union Oil Bulletin article and which was made in April from geology analysis by the authors.  The defining geological feature is the Puente Fault, the dark line running from the upper left to the right center.  Brea Canyon Road emerges from the town of Brea at the left and turns into the southern end of Brea Canyon, with substantial activity by Union, Brea Canyon Oil (another Doheny enterprise), Fullerton Oil, Columbia, General Petroleum and Birch Oil Company (A. Otis Birch, namesake of the company and of Birch Street in Brea, with his family having a street and park named for them in Santa Ana, made a fortune on his relatively small property. 

Union was the dominant firm extending eastward from Brea canyon to the southern end of Olinda, with that latter portion being land formerly held by the Olinda Land Company, created by William H. Bailey, the developer of the Olinda Ranch in the late 1880s.

At the north end of Olinda were other major players, including Shell; General Petroleum (which also controlled large, but not heavily producing, lands in lower Tonner Canyon; Fullerton, West Coast, and Chanslor-Canfield Midway Oil (CCMO), which ran its operations on the Santa Fe lease, owned by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway originally.  That is why the spur line of the ATSF comes up from the bottom right of the photo off the main line parallel to Orangethorpe Avenue in Placentia at Atwood and terminated at the CCMO lease to transport oil out by rail.

Also of note, toward the bottom, is the line of the Pacific Electric Railway streetcar, which terminated at Yorba Linda, and the right-of-way of which still exists (and, in Yorba Linda, is now a multi-use trail).  See also "Brea-Olinda Boulevard" which is now Birch Steet, as well as Carbon Canyon Road which then curved sharply as it headed westward and then south to what is now Valencia Avenue.  Unconnected to it then, but now its westward extension is what became Lambert Road, but which was, in 1925, a private oil field road. 

The dashed and dotted line running top to bottom through Carbon Canyon Road, as it angled south and which separates the Shell Oil land from the CCMO property in Olinda is the boundary line for the historic Rancho San Juan Cajon de Santa Ana, with the land to the right or east constituting "public land" available for common grazing by the neighboring ranch owners.  The San Juan Cajon de Santa Ana's north boundary turns at the north end of the Shell Oil Company holding and heads west before angling northwest into Brea Canyon and further west to meet the Rancho La Habra.

The Great Brea Oil Tank Fire of 1926

Early in this blog, in July 2009, there was a post (see here) featuring a real photo postcard of a burning open oil tank in Brea, but there wasn't any specific information given.

This post is about a very similar view of the same incident, but, thanks to the wonders of the expanding information universe on the Web, much more is known about what was perhaps the greatest disaster that befell the local industry.

A real photo postcard by Dietrich Studio of Santa Ana showing the massive fire at the Stewart oil tank farm of the Union Oil Company of California, one-half mile west of Brea, which broke out on 8 April 1926.  Click on the image to see a larger view in separate window.  Image courtesy of Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum, City of Industry.

First, the image.  Simply titled "Brea — Oil Tank Fire" and including a stamp from Santa Ana's Dietrich Studios, the view shows a massive plume of black smoke rising from a large open oil tank surrounded by a simple earthen berm.  What was notable through magnification was white rectangular pieces lying along the bottom of the berm and these placed by men who can be discerned there.  Because the card was postally unused, meaning there was no message written on it, information had to be located elsewhere.

Fortunately, there were a few sources found on the Net that appear to identify the scene, which was a horrific one.  Namely, on the morning of 8 April 1926, a lightning strike hit the oil tank farm of the Union Oil Company.  This was west of town toward La Habra and not in or near Olinda, as shown by the following sources.

In the June 2001 issue of the Brea Historical Society's Historical Happenings newsletter, there was an interview by Society members Brian Saul and Kathy Canon with 95-year old Walt Bergman, who moved to the city in 1916.  One of his most unforgettable memories was this incident, namely that "Walt remembers standing, facing west [italics added for emphasis], at the counter of the family's Bergman Garage at the corner of Birch and Brea Blvd . . .  All of a sudden, he saw a 'whole wall' of flame shooting into the air . . . The fire, he said, lasted a week . . . [and] that because of the flames you could read a newspaper on Brea Blvd. in the middle of the night . . .  Even at 2 a.m., Brea was full of sightseers."  Note Mr. Bergman's recollection of facing west from the intersection of Birch St. and Brea Blvd.

And, on this interesting site (click here) called "Brea: Old and New," there is a cool aerial view of what was called the Stewart tank farm (Lyman Stewart being the longtime president of Union), a 1/2 mile west of downtown Brea.

The 9 April 1926 issue of the Prescott [Arizona] Evening Courier had a lengthy article about what was headlined "Brea Oil Fire is Fought by 3000 Workers, 2,500,000 Gallons Lost in Conflagration."  The paper reported on three burning reservoirs at the tank farm, involving what was actually 2.5 million barrels (not gallons--there are 42 gallons per barrel, so we're talking over 100 million gallons!) of crude.  Still, it was stated that the massive crew fighting the fire "claimed a victory in part, for it was indicated that they would be able to save three other huge reservoirs of oil and a number of surface tanks from the blaze."

The extent of the damage was revealed by the fact that "the most spectacular event in the progress of the blaze came late last night when the third tank was ignited as the other two boiled over.  The tan of over 1,000,000 barrels capacity exploded as it caught fire."  In addition, a small refinery and gasoline and oil distillate tanks were engulfed when the overflowing boiling oil jumped the earthen dikes and hit these sites, which "exploded in spectacular fashion, throwing their blazing contents in all directions for many yards."

Concerning the mysterious rectangular items at the bottom of the photo, the Evening Courier noted that the tank farm was "protected by the stiff breeze and dykes of sheet iron and earth [italics added]."  In other words, the above photo appears to show men laying the sheets of iron for prevention of further exposure of other portions of the farm to spreading flammable material.

Interestingly, it was also observed that "a new method of firefighting was given a trial when 20 artificial wind machines were rushed to the tank farm to keep the draft away from the remainder of the storage."  This novel experiment, however, proved unnecessary, because "the wind that held steady through the night proved more satisfactory, however, than its mechanical aids."

In the Miami [Florida] News of 10 April, progress on dealing with the conflagration was reported as the fire "seems to have been isolated, thus preventing it from increasing the destruction."  Burning oil from the three affected reservoirs  were heading toward a fourth, containing three-quarters of a million barrels of crude, but "with dykes erected around the fourth reservoir and around a nearby pump station, those fighting the fire expressed a belief that the fire would not spread further."

In reporting on the destruction wreaked by the tragedy, the News observed that "the Brea fire . . . caused, if it spreads no further, a loss of about $3,000,000.  Three reservoirs, a small oil refinery, 70 acres of walnut and orange trees, three expensive ranch homes, and several houses on tank farm property were consumed by the flames."

The Milwaukee Sentinel, also of 10 April reported that "three miles of galvanized iron barricades diverted the blazing oil into a pool where it will burn itself out without endangering the town."

Locally, at least one journalistic enterprise found a way, somehow, to make light (pardon the pun) from the disaster.  The Jaysee Torch, the student newspaper of the "Fullerton District Junior College," now Fullerton Junior College, had an editorial titled "Optimism."  In this piece, it was stated that

Last week the famous Brea oil fire burned up two million dollars worth of gummy asphalt.  It is an ill wind that blows no one any good.  In this case it was the flaming youth who profited from the disastrous conflagration.  Sheiks from all the colleges south of San Luis Obispo stepped the beloved to the hillsides adjoining the blaze and proceeded to enter upon the gentle art of caressing.  'Twas indeed a rare sight to behold, when all was illuminated by a sudden burst of flame, the hillsides adorned for miles about with the world's largest collection of petting parties.  The flame ascended neavenward through billows of black smoke like a pale moonbeam shimmering through the rafters of a deceased horse [house?!]; and while the earth was sprinkled with the star duest of romance — he slipped a kiss to her waiting lips.

          Blessings on thee, Union Oil,
          With thy tanks of blazing oil.

Regardless of the quality of the prose (and the poesy), it might help to know that "sheiks" were the hip young dudes of the day and that the "gentle art of caressing" and "petting parties" involved sheiks and shebas (these being the female paramours) going to at least second base in a flivver (car) parked on "Lovers' Lane."  In this case, the orange glow of flame seemed to be a metaphor for the heated passions of the young collegiates enjoying the relaxing social mores of the Jazz Age during the Roaring Twenties.  Wasn't that the "bee's knees" or the "cat's meow"?

Notably, a similar event occurred on a Union tank farm in San Luis Obispo on the morning of the 7th, the day before the Brea event, but the damage there was double, about $7,000,000, of the latter and involved about 8 million barrels of crude.  The insurance payout of some $9,000,000 was the single largest in California since the great San Francisco earthquake and fire of twenty years before.

Of interest, as well, is the fact that more than eighty years later, there are still environmental risks involved.  In San Luis Obispo's tank farm at the southern edge of town, oil was still bubbling to the surface in hot weather and Chevron, owner of the site, was proposing a cleanup preliminary to development of light industrial parks in the vicinity of the tank farm.  Chevron was actually using large nets, propane-powered noise guns and reflective tape (as used in vineyards) to scare away birds and other wildlife from the seepage of the old oil.

The real photo postcard above was obtained courtesy of the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum, City of Industry.

Olinda Oil Field History: The Origins of Olinda, Part 1

Back in the earliest days of this blog, a reference was made to the beginnings of the Olinda oil field (see here) regarding its founding by a W. H. Bailey in 1891. This post offers a correction and a good deal more (interesting?) information about the origins of the community.

Early in 1888, when the Los Angeles region was deep in the throes of a massive land boom known as the "Boom of the Eighties" and real estate speculation was in a frenzy, an advertisement appeared in the Los Angeles Times that was typical in its florid, overheated language praising "The Olinda Ranch" and its "fertile farms" and "beautiful villa sites."

The notice went on to claim that "this land is some of the most fertile in the Santa Ana Valley," which was a little strange because Santa Ana is a good deal south, although the reference could have been to the old Rancho Cajon de Santa Ana, which was historically near the tract. Moreover, it claimed that the property was "highly improved and now producing a great variety of fine fruits, grains, alfalfa, etc."

By improvements, this presumably meant the most important of all, a reliable water supply and the piece went on to claim that there was an "ample supply of water for irrigation and domestic use." Yet, it went on to note that "Hotel and Water Works in course of construction [italics added.]"

In addition, there was mention of "a $50,000 plant to develop the immense deposits of Asphaltum and Oil on the north line of this ranch," a direct reference to the fact that asphaltum was so common in the area that the name of a ranch, "Cañon de la Brea," embracing Brea Canyon, was a reference to the tar that residents in the area during the Spanish and Mexican eras used to coat their house roofs (the tar pits on Rancho La Brea, now part of the La Brea Tar Pits at the George Page Museum, were the source for Los Angeles residences.) It also followed by three years the discovery of oil nearby in what is now Rowland Heights on the north side of the Puente Hills within the portion of Rancho La Puente owned by former sheriff William R. Rowland.

Moreover, the ad stated that "the Anaheim, Olinda & Pomona R.R., now building, gives direct communication with Los Angeles and the sea." This project was evidently projected to go through Brea Canyon to connect the established towns of Anaheim and Pomona.

An advertisement filled with hyperbole and rampant over-enthusiastic observations
about the newly-subdivided Olinda Ranch, Los Angeles Times, 24 January 1888.

The parcel was said to contain a "fine view of sea and mountains and the neighboring towns of Santa Ana, Anaheim, Orange and Long Beach [the latter was hardly neighboring, though]."

Most importantly, however, was the fact that "the finest portion of this ranch" was "surrounding the Rousing Town of Carlton." This townsite, "situated in the midst of the ranch" was said to be "rapidly taking its place as an important town, and is preparing for electric lights, newspaper, bank and business buildings." Not only that, but its unnamed "principal boulevard is to be paved throughout with asphaltum, making a handsome drive through the town and ranch."

Carlton was located at what is now the area east of Rose Drive and north of Imperial Highway. Even today, 123 years later, some of its streets survive, including the east-west thoroughfares of Wabash Avenue, Chestnut Street, Chicago Avenue, Walnut Street, Brooklyn Avenue, Pacific Avenue (though east of Valley View or the old First Street and, therefore, outside the actual Carlton boundary), and Los Angeles Street (while Orange Street is now Marda Avenue and Richfield Avenue is today's Bastanchury Road.) Of the numbered north-south lanes, First is now Valley View Avenue, Fifth is now Prospect, Seventh is today's Rose Drive and Eighth and Ninth seem lost to history. But Second through Fourth and a sliver of Sixth streets are all still around. At the southeast end of the old townsite, there is even a small little lane called Carlton Place. Most of the site is now situated within the City of Yorba Linda, although some of the western portion is in Placentia, where pieces of Brooklyn and Chicago avenues extend west of Rose Drive and flank Golden Avenue, which might be the western extension of Walnut Street.

To top off the hyperboles, the ad claimed that "three-fourths ofthe town of Carlton was sold in 30 days, and prices have advanced 400 per cent. This acreage will rise in the same proportion, though its opening prices were promoted at a mere "$100 per acre upward" in lots of one to twenty acres.

The piece concluded by offering daily excursions to "fertile Olinda" with trains leaving at 9:30 a.m. and returning at 3:15 p.m. (presumably offering a free lunch in the bargain.) Interested parties were requested to inquire at the Los Angeles office of the company with its agents, Maurice Clark and George W. Parsons.

For a time, this ad and slight variations of it appeared in the Times, but the problem was that the real estate boom was filled with myriad other examples of Olindas and Carltons and the speculation was so rampant that the inevitable bust came by the end of the year.

Still, despite the failure of the real estate market and the collapse of Carlton and the Olinda Ranch subdivision, its owner, W.H. Bailey pressed on. Next, more on him.