The Los Angeles Oil Boom Through Maps
Los Angeles is world famous for its sunny beaches and Hollywood glamour, but did you know that the California metropolis has a long history as a booming oil city? At both large and small scales, maps help tell the stories of this often forgotten part of the Los Angeles’s past and present. The first commercially successful oil well in California, humbly known as “Well No. 4,” tapped the Pico Canyon Oilfield near the town of Newhall (now part of present-day Santa Clarita) in 1876. From this northern Los Angeles County locale, drilling operations would ripple across the region. The 1900 map below, drawn by engineers A.L. George and N.B. Blunt and published Stoll & Thayer, illustrates the scale of oil drilling in the region, including the Newhall, Puente Hills, and Ventura County Oil Fields. Among the oil districts shown in George and Blunt’s map, “District 1” stands out, as it falls right in the middle of the urbanizing city limits of Los Angeles. After prospector Edward Doheny struck oil
Los Angeles is world famous for its sunny beaches and Hollywood glamour, but did you know that the California metropolis has a long history as a booming oil city? At both large and small scales, maps help tell the stories of this often forgotten part of the Los Angeles’s past and present. The first commercially successful oil well in California, humbly known as “Well No. 4,” tapped the Pico Canyon Oilfield near the town of Newhall (now part of present-day Santa Clarita) in 1876. From this northern Los Angeles County locale, drilling operations would ripple across the region. The 1900 map below
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