Kern County CA Archives History - Books .....Black Gold Has An Inning 1934
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Book Title: Where Rolls The Kern

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Black Gold Has An Inning.

   THIS chapter mainly has to do with the first commercialization of what for
the past third of a century has been by far the most prolific and most
profitable of all Kern County products and from which it has gained the most
fame—oil—but before commencing the story of the early days of the black gold we
will devote a few paragraphs to some of the outstanding events that transpired
between the Rands-burg discovery—1895—and the beginning of the century [sic]

   The first definite steps toward harnessing the Kern River for the generation
of electric power were taken in 1895. although the project had been previously
seriously considered. A local paper of October, 1895, informs us that "The Kern
River Power Company is surveying for its power generating plant on Kern River
and for an electric transmission line to Los Angeles."

   June 11, 1S96, the new court house was finished so a local news organ informs
us. Reference was quite probably made to improvements and additions for which
provision had been made by a previous bond issue.

   By 1896 there was an element in Bakers-field that felt the city had reached a
point in its career where another attempt at self-government was advisable, and,
after the customary agitation, spell-binding, etc., an election was called for
December of that year—1896— to vote on the proposal to incorporate as a city.
"Believe it or not," the proposal failed to carry, by a vote of 268 to 197.

   However, the proponents of the plan were not easily discouraged, and
continued their agitation until another election was called for January, 1898;
and this time a decisive majority voted for the creation of a city government of
the fifth class, the vote being 387 to 146.

   The following were the first officers: Trustees, Paul Galtes, L. P. St.
Clair, Sr., H. H. Fish, W. R. McMurdo, 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 (son of the founder of the town); Treasurer, O. O.
Mattson; Attorney, S. N. Reed; Clerk, A. T. Lightner.

   January 28, 1897, a local newspaper was elated over the fact that the
business of the Bakersfield Postoffice for the preceding year had amounted to
$74,000.

   May 27, 1898, was a gala day in Bakers-field, a celebration having been
staged to welcome the arrival of the Valley Railroad. There was a big parade
with floats, a Wild West Show, speeches, fireworks; in fact, everything to make
the occasion a memorable one.

   July 14, 1898, the greater portion of the business section of Kern City was
laid waste by a fire that had its origin in the California Theatre building.

   The paving of the chief business streets of Bakersfield was started in the
latter part of 1899. ... It was also announced about this time that the free
delivery of mail was an early prospect.

   In February, 1900, the local press informed us that electric cars would soon
be running between Bakersfield and Kern City.

   The Federal census of 1900 gave Bakersfield a population of 4,836, and
credited the County with 16,480 inhabitants.

   Now, back to the oil story.

   In the minds of some, in fact, it may be said in the minds of a great number,
the year 1899 stands out as the year that witnessed the discovery of oil in Kern
County. This is not true.

   The year 1899 did witness the discovery of what came to be known as the Kern
River Oil Field, but oil had been known to exist in Kern County since Civil War
times, and it had been produced commercially before the Elwood Brothers made
their famed discovery of the Kern River Field. This fact does not necessarily
detract from the interest surrounding the Elwood discovery, the story of which
is a most interesting one Before presenting the Elwood story and an account of
the many stirring events that followed immediately in its wake, we will turn
back to the records of an earlier day to show that at least a few in Kern County
had been "oil-minded" long before this momentous day.

   For instance, we have it on good authority that one, John Hamilton, was
seriously engaged in commercial oil development efforts within the confines of
the County as early as 1872, and he continued these efforts uninterruptedly for
at least twenty years, according to records left by writers of an earlier day.

   Writing in 1891, Myron Angell tells us:

   On the Eastern slope of the Coast Range, adjoining the valley has been
developed large quantities of petroleum of the best quality; the principal
holders and operators of which are the Union Land and Oil Company. This company
was organized at Columbus, Georgia, for the purpose of prospecting and
developing Kern County oil lands. Messrs. John Hamilton, William DeWitt, E. T.
Hunt and M. Singleton are leading members of the company. The locality is known
as the old Buena Vista district. The company have developed several wells of
large flow, which are at present capped to prevent waste of oil, having no
shipping facilities. A railroad is much needed through this portion of the
County, and would cause rapid development of its many valuable resources.

   For the mineral development, much is due due Mr. Hamilton for his energy and
perserverance prospecting for minerals, oil, etc. He has spent twenty years in
the County at this business, and has spent much time and energy prospecting the
locality now being developed by the company.

   As a matter of fact the County's first gusher came in in December, 1887. A
Bakersfield newspaper of December 26,1887, says:

   Superintendent J. S. Hamilton, drilling on land owned by the Union Oil and
Land Company, reports a strike at 720 feet on Section 19-30-32. The drill went
through the oil sandstone into a bed of gravel, and gas forced oil, sand and
gravel the size of walnuts thirty or forty feet in the air. The well flowed for
some little time, and the gas was so suffocating that the workmen were driven
back from the well. The Sunset Oil Company is daily expecting machinery from the
East when it will begin drilling. Hirschfield Brothers and R. T. Norris will
soon begin prospecting for oil eight or nine miles from Bakersfield in the
direction of Kern River Canyon at a point where gas is detected coming from the
ground.

   Another gusher, though only a five-barrel one, was brought in in January,
1889, according to a news item published January 24, of that year, which says:
"J. S. Hamilton, Superintendent of the Sunset Oil Company (Jewett & Blodgett)
has brought in on Section 16-12-23, at a depth of 110 feet, an oil well that
flows five barrels a day."

   An item published April 2, 1891, informs us that "John Barker has developed a
gas well on his ranch between Bakersfield and the Kern Canyon, and has piped it
to his house for cooking and lighting."

   Another item, published in August, 1892, informs us that construction trains
were working on both ends of the McKittrick branch railroad. This is quite
likely the railroad for which Myron Angell was yearning when he wrote of the
County's oil prospects the year previous—1891.

   None of the foregoing is published with the slightest intention of robbing
the Elwood Brothers of any of the credit that is justly theirs for the discovery
of the Kern River Field; but solely for the purpose of presenting an accurate,
though not likely complete, record of early oil development efforts.

   Regardless of the facts here presented, the fact remains that the discovery
made by the Elwoods in May, 1899, proved to be the match that lighted the fires
of excitement that turned the eyes of the oil-minded of the entire nation toward
Kern County, and precipitated a rush that caused many a mining rush to pale into
insignificance in comparison, with Bakersfield enjoying the full benefits of
both its good and its bad effects, the former well offsetting the latter, quite
fortunately.

Although the automobile had not yet become a factor of importance in the
consumption of oil, other uses were being found for it. The Southern Pacific had
commenced using it as fuel in its locomotives, and it was becoming to be used as
fuel in stationary engines. In fact, quite a market was coming to exist for it,
and this fact unquestionably added to the great glamor that surrounded the
Elwood discovery.

   Nevertheless, the story of the discovery of the Elwood well will always be an
important one in the annals of Kern County, and it is here given as written by
Jonathan Elwood and published in the California Oil World, August 24, 1911:

   James Elwood and I, Jonathan Elwood, alone and without assistance of anyone,
discovered oil on the North bank of the Kern River, seven miles northeast of
Bakersfield, on the 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 in the bluff as if making a tunnel,
three or four feet and set our auger on solid formation, and in three hours we
were in oil 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 oil sand. We were then obliged to get time 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 some 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.

   Incidentally, one of the Elwood Brothers had previously made a small
investment in an oil development enterprise somewhere in the vicinity of
McKittrick, and the other brother was a Bakersfield wood dealer.

   Some idea of the genuine excitement that followed their discovery can be
gleaned from the fact that during the month of October, 1899—the discovery
year—323 oil land locations were recorded in Kern County.

   The long and short of it is that Bakersfield became the center of the West's
first oil boom, and a boom it was in all that the word implies. Wells were
drilled by all and sundry it seemed, and these wells gave forth their black
wealth to such an extent that within a few years it ceased to be wealth. In
other words, the market became glutted, storage facilities were totally
inadequate, the price dropped to next to nothing, and the large companies took
advantage of the situation, and for a time the future appeared blacker than the
product.

   However, that Kern County spirit that seems to be equal to any emergency, no
matter how serious it may be, took hold of the situation. This led to the
formation of pipe-line and marketing associations, and the wresting of the
threatened control of the industry from the hands of giant operators, and the
re-establishment of it as a highly profitable business which was destined to add
untold millions to the wealth of the County, and to many of its individual
citizens. The story of the successful battle to save the industry in its
earliest and darkest days is an interesting one, but too lengthy and intricate
to have historical interest except to those fully familiar with the great
industry and its many ramifications; and to these the story is too well known to
justify any attempt at its inclusion within the scope of this volume.

   An excellent idea of the magnitude of the industry can be gained from a
review of the production figures for the County for the early years of its
existence. Here they are: 1902, 9,705,703 barrels; 1903, 18,000,000 barrels;
1904, 19,600,000 barrels; 1905, 14,487,967 barrels; 1907, 15,600,000 barrels;
1908, 17,800,000 barrels; 1910, 39,958,000 barrels.

   It will be noted that the 1910 figures took a tremendous jump over those of
any previous years. This is accounted for by the bringing in of the famous
Midway Field, and the development of the famous Kern County West Side, which
will be dealt with in more detail in a later chapter.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

Where Rolls the Kern

A History of Kern County, California
By Herbert G. Comfort

MOORPARK, CALIFORNIA:
The ENTERPRISE Press
1934

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