Photos: Dark beauty in the oil fields of old Southern California
From Santa Barbara to Huntington Beach, towering derricks defined the views
It’s no secret that California has long been a major player in the business of crude oil extraction. Every 24 hours, the Golden State produces over half a million barrels of crude, most of which is sourced in landlocked regions like Kern County and the San Joaquin Valley. But it wasn’t alway that way. Less than a century ago, scenic Southern California accounted for a full 20 percent of global output.
The Long Beach field, first tapped in 1921, was among the most productive sources of the time. In particular, the Signal Hill area of Long Beach became home to hundreds of wooden drilling derricks owned by independent speculators, many of whom had bought property when the neighborhood was subdivided for residential development. With its structures sticking up like giant quills, the neighborhood earned the nickname, “Porcupine Hill.” When Shell Oil drillers provoked a gusher on the corner of East Hill St. and Temple Ave. on June 25, 1921, black gold spewed 100 feet in the air.
Just south, in Huntington Beach, and in Santa Barbara to the north, legions of derricks lined the coast, vying for space with sunbathers and lifeguard stands. Today, these violent protrusions are at odds with the Southland’s idyllic, fun-in-the-sun image, but at the time L.A. was still in its infancy, and the metastasizing cityscape was preoccupied with growth, not beauty. In the years immediately proceeding the coastal oil boom, between 1916 and 1920, car ownership had tripled and and the price of crude had jumped from $0.64 per barrel to $3.07.
In Signal Hill and the rest of Long Beach, the explosion of oil drills quickly drained the source, and by the 1980s most had ceased operation. Those that remain are predominantly operated by small and medium size independent owners and are often randomly embedded throughout the region. Today oil pumps lurk behind fast food restaurants, in residential cul-de-sacs, and disguised as skyscrapers on a handful of manmade islands off of Long Beach.
