History of Kern County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Part 17

Author: Morgan, Wallace Melvin, 1868- [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company
Number of Pages: 1682

USA > California > Kern County > History of Kern County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 17

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

The committee of safety, however, was never called upon for active duty. Before the guards were organized the railroad men had established a patrol of their own under the informal but recognized leadership of Parker Barrett (then a conductor, but later one of the owners of the world-famous Lakeview oil gusher), and generally the best of order prevailed among the strikers. Following the meeting at Reich opera house the A. R. U. repre- sentatives called a mass meeting at Athletic park, at the southeast corner of Nineteenth street and Union avenue, where about four hundred people were addressed by three or four speakers and where long resolutions were adopted.

Bakersfield did not go hungry because of the strike, but a large part of it went thirsty or drank warm beverages. Most of the ice used in the city was shipped here from Truckee in those days, and except in the case of E. Downing's candy store the supplies were all small when the tie-up of the railroad began. When the saloons were out of ice they were nearly out of business, for few people would drink warm beer in July. Downing had 3000 pounds of ice when the strike began, and for a time his soda water fountain was the most popular place in Bakersfield. Finally the stock of ice was reduced to 700 pounds, and Downing hung the closed sign on the front of the fountain. "The rest of it is for the sick folks," he explained, and after

123

HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

that anyone who could show that he was sick got ice from Downing for nothing. Nobody else could get it at all.

Coxey's Army Comes and Goes

On June 7, 1894, what was known as the Oakland contingent of Coxey's Industrial Army arrived in Bakersfield on its way to Washington to join in the celebrated protest which ended in the "army" being ordered off the White House grass. For a time the supervisors entertained the army at the Reich opera house and later they were kept in a stockade built back of the jail. Even the latter accommodations were expensive to maintain, however, and the supervisors held a conference with Division Superintendent Burk- halter of the Southern Pacific with the result that a special train consisting in large part of stock cars was ordered, and the whole army was loaded aboard and headed for the south. Chairman Jastro of the supervisors and some of the railroad officials accompanied the army to Mojave, where they were landed in the midst of a blinding sandstorm. The army would have eaten Mojave out of house and home in a day's time, and to leave it there was out of the question. So Jastro and the Southern Pacific men called the leaders into consultation. "What you people want," they put it, "is to get east as quickly as possible. Now the Santa Fe is the shortest and fastest line from this coast (think of the S. P. men saying that) and what you want to do is just to confiscate the first Santa Fe train that comes along and take yourselves east with it."

It looked like a good plan to the army officers, and they proceeded to carry it out. Then a telegram was sent to Los Angeles, and a light engine loaded with United States deputy marshals ran out, headed off the stolen Santa Fe train at Barstow and carried the whole army back to Los Angeles under arrest, for the Santa Fe was in the hands of a receiver at the time and so under government authority.

Twin Towns Incorporate

With all these movements for the progress and improvement of Bakers- field under way the re-incorporation of the town was inevitable. Kern, the lesser of the twin towns, not half so populous as Bakersfield, had been incor- porated. But a large element of the voters in Bakersfield opposed incor- poration, and when, in December, 1896, the question was submitted after a long period of agitation, it was voted down by 268 to 197. In January, 1898, a second election was held, and the proposition won by 387 to 146. The vote by precincts was as follows :

Number 1-For, 121 : against, 30.

Number 2-For, 74; against, 15.

Number 3-For, 43; against, 44.

Number 4-For, 70; against, 39.

Number 5-For, 79; against, 18.

The first officers elected were: Trustees, Paul Galtes, L. P. St. Clair, Sr., H. H. Fish, W. R. Macmurdo, J. Walters; board of education, J. A. Baker, Celsus Brower, O. D. Fish, F. S. Rice, E. P. Davis; assessor, H. F. Condict ; marshal, T. A. Baker ; treasurer, O. O. Mattson ; attorney, S. N. Reed ; clerk, A. T. Lightner.

Bakersfield was incorporated as a city of the fifth class, taking the charter provided by state law for such cities, and the same charter is in effect still, although Bakersfield and Kern have since been consolidated and the com-

124

HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

bined population is far in excess of the number required for a city of the fourth class.

Company G Responds to Duty

On May 8, 1898, Bakersfield proudly dispatched its first company of citi- zen soldiery to the defense of the state. Company G, National Guard, was ordered to San Francisco to do garrison duty at San Francisco during the progress of the Spanish-American war, and although the men left the armory at 5 a. m. they were greeted at the depot by a large body of citizens who gave them a farewell breakfast and presented them with a handsome silk flag on behalf of those who stayed at home. T. W. Lockhart made the speech of presentation. Capt. W. H. Cook made an address in response. The roster of the company was as follows:

Captain, W. H. Cook; second lieutenant, Lucien Beer; first sergeant, B. A. Hayden ; second sergeant, H. C. Lechner ; third sergeant, K. C. Mastel- ler ; fourth sergeant, C. E. Harding ; corporals, H. J. Haley, C. L. Dunn, J. G. Broom, H. F. Stanley, C. R. Blodget, F. J. Downing and William Reddy ; privates, L. C. Moon (musician), A. H. Abram, I. Barnes, John Barnes, W. Barnes, W. Barnhart, E. H. Bartley, J. L. Benoit, F. F. Blackington, H. H. Borem, D. E. Brewer, A. Brundy, A. M. Cammack, E. H. Chandler, A. S. Colton, E. R. Crane, A. S. Crites, G. S. Crites, F. W. Crocker, L. Cun- ningham, J. R. Daly, T. E. Davis, E. Dixon, R. Dinwiddie, R. Durnal, A. R. Elder, D. Fiedler, G. N. Frazier, R. Garner, W. G. Garrison, C. Colby, F. Hamilton, W. C. Hewitt, E. A. Hicks, F. M. Hicks, W. F. Hunt, S. A. Ice, G. H. Ingles, C. W. Kirk, Bert Kunkelman, O. P. Lindgren, E. P. Munsey, F. N. Mills, H. R. Mckenzie, W. Olds, C. H. Ortte, J. H. Paulke, J. Pennington, W. H. Powers, Lynn Roberts, E. J. Ruddy, J. Savage, J. Timson, I. W. Tucker, J. B. Ware, C. W. West, B. F. Whittom, J. C. Ashby, C. W. Bollinger, E. Brodley, A. R. Shurtleff, W. Lakin, C. Man- ley, F. J. Kincaid, J. Manning.

News Notes, 1895 to 1900

August 29, 1895-J. B. Haggin had deeded to W. B. Carr all his right, title and interest in 14,280 acres of swamp land in Kings county.

Letters from farmers and others published in the newspapers suggest general farming as a solution of the troubles of the Rosedale colonists. Es- pecially the farmers are urged to raise hogs.

October 10, 1895-The Kern River Power Company is surveying for its power generating plant on Kern river and for an electric transmission line to Los Angeles.

November 14, 1895-Mooers, Burcham and Singleton win in a suit attack- ing their title to the Yellow Aster mine.

December, 1895-W. S. Tevis settles with homesteaders on the Haggin swamp lands near Buena Vista, giving them a year's rent free and paying them for the improvements on the land.

Same date-Rights of way are being secured for the Valley railroad.

June 11, 1896-The new court house is finished.

July 16, 1896-An unsuccessful attempt is made to crack the vault in the county treasurer's office.

July, 1896-Silas Drouillard finds the St. Elmo mine in the Randsburg district and names it for one of his partners, Elmo Pyle.

September 25, 1896-The contract is let for the Power, Transit & Light Company's substation, and the machinery is ordered from Schenectady.

INTERSECTION OF CHESTER AVENUE AND NINETEENTH STREET. BAKERSFIELD

NEW CONCRETE BRIDGE OVER KERN RIVER AT BAKERSFIELD

125

HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

January 28, 1897-The business of the Bakersfield post office for the past year amounted to $74,000.

December, 1896-The Bakersfield Creamery is established.

April 4, 1897-The electric current is turned on from the power plant in the cañon, and the Kern County Land Company is preparing to use the elec- tricity for pumping water at Stockdale, to run a cold storage plant at Bellevue, and to drive the machinery in its shops in Bakersfield.

May 10, 1897-W. B. Carr is found dead in his room in San Francisco from asphixiation.

August, 1897-The Kern County Land Company is constructing a slaughter house and meat-packing establishment at Bellevue.

April, 1897-The Bakersfield Labor Exchange is organized.

September 23, 1897-The Land Company is laying pipes for a new water system in Bakersfield.

October 28, 1897-S. C. Smith has secured the last deed for the right of way for the San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley railroad.

December, 1897-H. E. Huntington says that the Southern Pacific is willing to build a loop into Bakersfield and build a depot nearer the business section. 148 citizens signed a petition asking W. S. Tevis to use his influence to prevent the proposed loop and depot from being built.

May 12, 1898-Company G of the National Guard goes to San Francisco for duty in the Spanish American war.

May 27, 1898-The arrival of the Valley railroad is celebrated in Bakers- field with a parade, floats, wild west show, speeches and fireworks.

July 14, 1898-Fire, starting in the California theater, lays waste the larger part of the business section of Kern city.

November, 1899-The paving of the streets in the business section of the city is in progress.

During October, 1899, 323 oil land locations were recorded in the county. Bakersfield is soon to have free mail delivery.

Levee agitation is active.

W. S. Tevis and others make tender of sites for city parks, but all of them are rejected for one reason or another.

January 12, 1900-The corner stone of the Woman's Club Hall is laid.

January, 1900-Oil land locators begin to have trouble with scrippers.

February, 1900-The electric road between Bakersfield and Kern is soon to be started.

March, 1900-The Southern Pacific has begun the use of oil as fuel in its engines.

March 16, 1900-Solomon Jewett, H. A. Blodget, L. P. St. Clair, C. N. Beal and F. T. Whorff incorporate the Sunset Railroad Company to build a road to the Sunset oil fields where Jewett & Blodget are largely interested in development work.

March 26, 1900 -- Truxtun Beale presents to the city of Bakersfield a deed to the Beale Memorial public library.

126

HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

CHAPTER XIV Development of Oil Fields

Ask the first man you meet on the streets of Bakersfield what gave the town its great boost forward about the year 1900, and he is very likely to answer that it was the discovery of the oil fields. Perhaps he will be more specific and say the discovery of the Kern river oil field. In either case, how- ever, he will be very far from the actual, historic truth as to the date of these discoveries. Titus Fey Cronise's "The Natural Wealth of California," pub- lished in 1868 by Bancroft & Company at San Francisco, states that from Fort Tejon to Kern river, a distance of forty miles and extending out a space of ten miles from the Coast range, the country is covered with salt marshes, brine and petroleum springs. Petroleum and asphalt deposits, the same authority continues, extend from San Emidio cañon to Buena Vista lake (so named by the Spaniards in 1806) the main deposit being eighteen miles southeast of the lake. At that place there was a spring of maltha covering an acre in extent, the center of which was a viscid pool, agitated by gas, and the outer edge of which was hardened into stony asphalt, full of the bones of beasts. Works erected here, Cronise says, produced in 1864 several thousand barrels of good oil, which was shipped to San Francisco. The great cost of transportation prevented the enterprise from being a financial success.

About the same date R. M. Gilbert took a barrel of thick, tarry oil out of an oil spring on the north bank of Kern river at the lower edge of the present Kern river field and hauled it to Solomon Jewett's sheep ranch a few miles up the river to mark the sheep with. On April 23, 1872, J. O. Lovejoy deeded to the Buena Vista Petroleum Company all his right, title and interest in a certificate of purchase dated April 3, 1872, for 640 acres in the northeast quarter and the northeast quarter of the northwest quarter of section nineteen : the west half and the southeast quarter of the northwest quarter, the east half and the northwest quarter of the southwest quarter and the southwest quarter of the southeast quarter of section twenty, and the northeast quarter of sec- tion twenty-nine, all in township thirty, south of range twenty-two. This comprised the heart of the old McKittrick field, where many of the present producing wells are located, and the exact description of the land is given to show that even in those days the oil men had learned to "lay the ruler diagon- ally across the sections from northwest to southeast" when they studied their maps.

This is sufficient to show that thirty or thirty-five years before the first big oil boom in Kern county oil had been discovered in all the great fields of the present day except Midway and Lost Hills. Moreover, six years before the oil boom in 1899, when the Kern river field was uncovered and oil began to be the principal subject of interest in Kern county, the quiet, laborious and not too profitable development of the oil and asphalt industry at McKit- trick and Sunset had reached such a stage that the McKittrick railroad had been built and the Sunset road was projected. The big oil boom was not, ac- cordingly, so much a boom of discovery as a boom due to the ripening of mar- ket conditions and the revival of industrial enterprise and expansion after the financial depression of 1893-4. Similarly all the later booms have depended as

127

HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

much on outside conditions as on the bringing in of wells in new territory. Whenever the market has demanded more oil and the price offered has been tempting the oil industry of Kern county has risen to the emergency, and there is now every reason to believe that future renewals of the same con- ditions will stimulate the industry to renewed activity until the county's oil production reaches several times its present great aggregate.

Early Development at McKittrick

Aside from the unprofitable efforts of the war-time oil prospectors already referred to, the first development of the Kern county oil deposit was in the early '70s when a company of Italians from Mariposa county built a crude refinery at McKittrick, sunk shafts into the beds of asphaltum and dug some shallow wells in search of oil.

It was the natural thing that development should begin at this place, for near the present site of the town of McKittrick violent upheavals of the earth in ages past had rent and torn the strata leaving a great body of oil sand exposed. From this oil sand the crude petroleum dozed and flowed gently over the broken edge of the hill, thickening as the sun and air ex- tracted the lighter elements and finally forming great masses of natural as- phalt, pure and clean except for the sand and dust that the winds carried into it. At no other place in the county were the oil sands so largely exposed, and nowhere else were the surface evidences of petroleum so conspicuous and extensive. It was only a matter of quarrying to obtain the asphalt in great quantities, and the early operators sought only enough oil to serve as a flux for the heavier product that Nature had prepared in her own laboratory. At one place the Italians drove a tunnel eighty feet into a mass of asphalt that had flowed over the edge of a little cañon, but at that time there was no railroad in the valley, and it was altogether out of the question to reach a profitable market.

Following the building of the Southern Pacific and the beginning of new enterprises in Kern county with the capital of Livermore & Redington and J. B. Haggin, the Columbian Oil Company was organized by Solomon Jewett, F. R. Fillebrown, Dr. George F. Thornton, J. G. Parke, Alfonse and Jacob Weill and others and a well was started on section 13, 30-21, on what is now known as the Del Monte property. Parke, who was a civil engineer, had some experience in the Pennsylvania oil fields, and was the prime mover in the enterprise of the Columbian. The company drilled to a depth of 800 feet, but by that time the gas pressure had become so strong that the driller's were unable to go deeper with the imperfect machinery then obtainable. The derrick was moved to section 24, and a contract made for a hole 1000 feet deep. The result was a clean, dry hole with neither gas nor oil nor any other valuable product.

Operators Move to Sunset

The Columbian abandoned the field, and in 1890 the derrick was moved to Sunset, where Jewett & Blodget had begun operations. The first activity at Sunset began in 1889, when Solomon Jewett, H. A. Blodget, John Ham- bleton, Judge J. O. Lovejoy, J. H. Woody, William F. Woods and others located 2000 acres of land along the edge of the hills northwest and southeast of Old Sunset, organized the Sunset Oil Company, and started a well on sec-

128

HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

tion 2, 11-24, about half a mile west of where the fine producing wells of the Adeline Extension were subsequently brought in.

This first well was drilled by William DeWitt of Tulare, and was located, as was the case of nearly all the earlier wells, in a bed of brea, just at the point where the oil sands outcropped. DeWitt got a strong flow of sulphur water at 300 feet and abandoned the well. Had he moved his derrick a little farthier to the east he would have developed an oil well at a very shallow depth, but instead he found another bed of brea on section 21, 11-23, about five miles southeast of his first location, and started drilling there. At a depth of 100 feet the drill went into a very heavy oil that rose in the casing and oozed over the top.

Meantime Jewett & Blodget and Charles Bernard of Ventura county se- cured a lease on the Sunset Oil Company's 2000 acres of land, and Bernard, who had gained some experience in the Ventura oil fields, took over the De- Witt outfit and began a new well close to the second hole which was drilled by the latter on section 21. By the time Bernard had gone down 300 feet he had three strings of tools in the well, and decided that it was cheaper to move than to fish them out. He took his derrick to section 13, 11-24, drilled down 300 feet, got a flowing sulphur water well, and sold his interest in the lease to Jewett & Blodget.

Blodget then took charge of the development of the Sunset field, bought the rig of the Columnbian Oil Company at McKittrick, and drilled a number of small wells along the edge of the outcroppings near Old Sunset. None of the wells yielded much oil, but the total output was sufficient to supply the flux for making asphalt, and in 1891 the Jewett & Blodget refinery was established at Old Sunset. The natural asphalt was quarried as at Mc- Kittrick and melted in open kettles with a small amount of crude oil as a flux. Then the hot asphalt was drawn off into wooden boxes, and the settlings of dirt and sand were shovelled out of the kettles ready for another batch. The asphalt was hauled to Bakersfield by teams of sixteen to twenty-four horses and shipped east.

McKittrick Railroad Built

The expense of this method of transportation was so great that Jewett & Blodget through H. F. Williams and A. N. Towne began negotiations with the Southern Pacific for a railroad to Sunset and one to McKittrick, where Jewett & Blodget were operating also to some extent. The result was an agreement in 1892 by which the railroad undertook to build a road to Mc- Kittrick within two years, and another to Sunset within five years, Jewett & Blodget to secure the right of way and guarantee sufficient business to pay the operating expenses. As a part of the agreement, also, the Standard As- phalt Company was organized with Jewett & Blodget and the railroad com- pany as equal partners. Later the agreement as to the building of the roads was amended by the Southern Pacific beginning the construction of the Mc- Kittrick branch at once and the Sunset branch construction being postponed indefinitely. The McKittrick road was completed in 1893, just in time for the financial panic to offset by reduced demand for asphalt the advantage of better transportation facilities. The operations of the Standard Asphalt Company did not pay, and the partnership between Jewett & Blodget and the railroad was dissolved, Jewett & Blodget going back to Sunset and the railroad taking the McKittrick end of the business.

129

HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

Jewett & Blodget kept plodding away in the Sunset field, bringing in small, shallow wells near the outcroppings, and in 1895 they had a production that justified them putting in stills for the manufacture of asphalt. These operations comprised the whole of the oil business in Kern county until 1898, when Mc Whorter, Doheny and others of the advance guard of the first rush of oil men began to explore the west side. In 1899 the oil excitement had spread from the south and from Coalinga. There was much talk of the Mc- Kittrick field and many visitors and prospectors were arriving there from all parts of the state.

One of the men who invested in McKittrick was Judson F. Elwood of Fresno, who bought a few shares in one of the early companies and went to see what the property looked like. On his way home he stopped to visit his brother, James Munroe Elwood, who was keeping a small wood yard in Bakersfield. Judson told his brother about his Mckittrick oil venture, and remarked that the country north of Kern river looked much as it did at McKittrick. James Elwood's interest was further excited by overhearing two men discussing the story of the oil spring from which Gilbert took the tar to mark Jewett's sheep in the '60s. He made inquiries of Thomas A. Means, who owned land along the north side of the river, and Means told him that the Kern County Land Company, in excavating for a ditch years before, had uncovered oil sand and that gas had been seen bubbling up in the waters of the river. The exposed oil sand had long been recovered, however, and the gas was seen no more. Means for a long time past had been seeking to in- terest someone in the oil prospects on the north side of the river, and had shown E. L. Doheny and W. S. Tevis over the land without result. Accord- ingly he was only too glad to give James Elwood a favorable lease, and Elwood wrote to his father. Jonathan Elwood, who was living in Fresno county and who was an old prospector, to come and help him find the Kern river oil.

Discovery of the Kern River Field

In a letter to the California Oil World published August 24, 1911, Jon- athan Elwood tells the story of the discovery in these words :

"James Munroe Elwood and I, Jonathan Elwood, alone and without the assistance of anyone, discovered oil on the north bank of Kern river, seven miles northeast of Bakersfield on Thomas A. Means' farm. This was in May, 1899. We made the discovery with a hand auger. under the edge of a cliff, close to the river. Our auger consisted of a piece of thin steel about four inches wide and twisted so as to bore a hole about three inches in diameter.

"We had a short piece of one-half inch iron rod, making the bit and rod together four feet long. A screw was cut on the end of this rod to receive a one-half inch gas pipe which we had cut in four and eight-foot lengths, so we could bore one and the other alternately and never have our auger handle more than four feet above the ground. We bored a number of holes fifteen or twenty feet deep and every time would bore into water sand that we could not keep on our auger.

"We concluded that the bank must have slid down and that we were boring where the river had once been. We then went where the bank was worn off by the river perpendicularly thirty feet. We dug back into the bluff as if making a tunnel three or four feet, and set our auger on solid formation

130

HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

and in three hours we were in oil sand at a depth of only thirteen feet. We had enough auger stem with us to go on to a depth of twenty-five feet and it was looking well.

"We then went up onto the bluff and commenced a shaft, and at the depth of forty-three feet we again struck the oil sand. We were then obliged to get timber and curb as we went down, as the oil sand was too soft to stand up. We were obliged to put in an air blast to furnish fresh air to the man below on account of the strong odor of gas. At a depth of seventy-five feet there was so much oil and gas that we concluded we had better get a steam rig. We got this and went down 343 feet.

"By this time men were coming there from all over the state, locating government land and quarreling over first rights, jumping some that we had located, three or four claims deep. The shaft furnished us with oil to run our own steam rig also rigs for several of the locators. The first oil taken away was when I took four whiskey barrels of it to Kern city and shipped it to Millwood for skid grease, getting $1 a barrel net."

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Kern County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Part 17

Author: Morgan, Wallace Melvin, 1868- [from old catalog] Publication date: 1914 Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company Number of Pages: 1682

Author: Morgan, Wallace Melvin, 1868- [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company
Number of Pages: 1682