Los Angeles herald., 1909-11-30

II
cred to their homes the two hum
n dred Los Angeles business men
who spent three days in the oil fields
of the San Joaquin valley yesterday
morning-the excursion is over, but the
memory of it will long linger with those
who participated in the jaunt, and 1t is
quite certain that lasting good Will
come from it. For one thing, men got
to know each other better, cementlng
bonds of friendship that will endure
for life; for another, there was brought
to the visitors a realization of the
enormous wealth which lies hidden in
the sands that we're piled up along that
ancient beach line by the old ocean
centuries before the present generation
was born. For miles upon miles the
trail led through avenues ana lanes oil
tall derricks, each standing sentlnel
over a steady stream of sticky, black,
wealth producing petroleum. From the
old field of Sunset. north by west to
Coalinga, more than seyenty-hve miles,
the ancient beach line is traced out by
the teeth of shark, the Yertebrae of ma
rine animals long since passed back to
the earth from which they came, the
shells of CLANS and oysters of such size
as the giants of ancient times must
have found, and everywhere the
ubiquitous derrick, the miles of pipe
line, the big storage tanks and the
ever running stream of black, sticky
oil.
Not the lest enjoyable and instructive
feature of the trip was the social gath
erings, at which, artfully guided int
the unusual avenue of oTatOry by clever
men like c. A. Canfield Tom O DonnslL
Tim Spellacy, L. 2. st. Clair G. J. and
w. ]. Berry and hosts of others who
81
who fought not alone the forces of ma
ture in their determined effort to get
the oil, but adverse business conditions
in their efforts to convert it into money,
told a little of their experiences Not
man who listened envied them the
wealth with which they have been re-
warded, and not a one but who ad-
mired the manhood and the indomitable
spirit which made their success possi-
BILE.
The commercial side. too profited
greatly, and there will be no dcarth of
Los Angeles capital to help develop the
rich fields of Kern and Fresno coun-
ties. Los Angeles promised to take the
front seat at the banquet of dividends
in future, as it has taken the first place
in the business of furnishing supplies
to the operators in those fields, a bust
ness amounting to several million dol
lars annually
The Sierra Madre club, generous i'm its
efforts to make Los Angeles what il
should be, the greatest mining and oil
center of the world, found itself appre-
ciated, and added to its roster many
names of distinguished citizens of the
petroleum belt. A general invitation
was extended to every one I'm the oil
business to make the club his home
when in this city The mem bers of the
1n
BILE, extending the privilege Of the club
to the visitors and refusing pay for
meat or drink.
Riches of Kern River
The Kern river field, which is prac-
tically daddy of 'em ALL" in so far
as heavy production to date is con-
cerned, is conceded by oil men the world
over to contain the greatest pool of
petroleum known to the world. In ex-
tent it is five miles long by three miles
in width. and in the eleven years
which have elapsed since farmer Jud
Ellwood dug the first we'll by hand
on the break within a few feet of the
Kern river $4,000, 600 barrels of oil.
worth half as many dollars, have been
produced OF this magnificent under
ground bed Of oil-containing sands 300
feet thick each acre will produce from
250,000 to 100000 barrels, according to
the estimates Of experts who know the
exact contents of a cubic foot Of soil
The greatest single producer has been
the Peerless, which has pumped from
115 acres of its territory enough pc
troleum to cover the entire quarter
section owned by the company with
oil to a depth of seven feet. With a
longtime contract to sell its product
at % cents. about one-third the price
now paid to the Independents, this
company has paid dividends of $4,000
to the acre, besides paying for and
financing the Coalinga Peerless and
the Fulton in Sunset.
The old EllwOod well, still producing
and known as "Discovery" well, along
with much valuable territory in the
east end, is now owned by the Petro-
leum Development company, which is
the fuel provider and oil end Of the
Santa Fe railway system. The Santa
Fe was quickly followed by the South
ern Pacific, which operates its vast
fields in Kern river under the name of
the Kern Trading and Oil company.
Next came Garfield, Green and Whit
tier, the Reed Crude OH company San
Joaquin VALLEY and others, which Mr..
Garfield and associates afterWard syn
dicated into the Associated Oil COM
panY. now dominated by the Southern
Pacific.
Two great pipe lines lead from the
Kern fields to San Francisco bay, one
owned by the Standard and the other
by the Associated, with pumping sta
tions every fourteen miles to keep the
sticky mess moving, and the PrOduc-
ers' Transportation company is build
ing a third line to Port Hartford.
On Twenty-Five Hill
One of the most interesting fields of
Kern county is the Moron or Midway