The Coolidge examiner., 1937-09-30
A Valley Road Through Rough Earth Formations.
Once Dreaded American Desert Hos
Now Become the Playground Of Man

experimentally. at Indio, in the Goa
chella valley.
Today huge industry has grown
up and the groves there resemble
those about Baghdad or BaSra, in
Iraq.
Much of the desert basin above
the Salton sea, with its duck clubs
and speedboat races, is still emp
ty; here and there are date and
other gardens of astounding fertih-
ty. Men must have felt the heat
the day they gave such local place
names as Mecca" Arabia, ="
Thermal" and ''Biskra."
Planes from Los Angeles for
Phoenix, Tucson and FL Paso fly
down this long, hot valley, entering
from the north through. San Cor
gonio pass. Grotesque tumbleweed.
rolling over deserts in hard winds.
looks like brown bears at full gallop.
Not far from San Gorgonio pass,
you may visit the site of one of
many construction camps on the
Colorado river aqueduct project
with its miles of tunnels A worker
there once found q petrified egg
about the size of a coconut
Across the valley men dig the
great hole that will carry water un-
der the San Jacinto mountains. Like
the Indians before them. local
whites say that sometimes this
mountain 'growls." Biologists say
it is a young" mountain; that if
there are growls. they may be earth
tones from subterranean movements
along earthquake faults.
Earthquakes Now and Then.
Earthquakes occur here when one
block of earth crust slips past an
other along an earth fracture Sew
eral such faults extend from the
Mojave desert to ofshore islands.
One such slip caused the Long
Beach earthquake of March 10, 1888.
Mud and hot water squirted from
cracks that opened in the ground.
Many people say they saw a wav-
ing motion pass across the fields
which set trees, houses, and water
tanks to swaying, while up from
the rocking earth came deep
toned, roaring sound.
If giant could seize the edge of
this region, as you might grab the
lid Of steamer trunk. and thus lift
the top off southern California, you
would see below ii one of Natures
busiest workshops. Down here, in
the dark, things go on which affect
all that live up above in the sun
shine
Far into the earth, miles and
miles deep and many leagues long,
run the faults or fractures that fig
ure in the quakes; but more i'm
portant to man on top of the ground
are the vast underground basins
that hold water for his wells and
other great natural tanks, from
which for decades he has pumped
that oil which, more than anything
else, has put this region on a solid
economic basis.
Since exciting early days, when
pioneers bored and found oil in COM
mercial quantities within the city
limits of Los Angeles, its flow has
increased, and southern California
has become a financial and geo.
graphic center of Titan industry.
Oil Attracted Many Thousands.
AS with the land boons, so in the
days of oil excitement there came
hordes of oil executives, techni-
clans, drillers, rotary helpers, der
rick men, tool-dressers, teamsters
and truckmen, roustabouts, pipe lin
ers, tank builders, refinery workers.
and stock statesmen, adding their
thousands to an already heterogen-
eous population in and around Los
Angeles, the fields of Kern county,
and the Kettlemen hills. One well
in Kettlemen hills was bored in 1888
to a depth of 1884 feet, new rec
ord.
Odd, indeed, to visitors is the
sight of oil derricks set out in the
ocean, down the coast from Santa
Barbara, which pump oil from be-
low the sea. At the Rincon field
a we'll has been bored which is more
than half a mile from the mainland.
The discovery that holes already
very deep could be drilled even
deeper and actually DETECTED to
reach new sections of oil pools has
given Huntington Beach a new
boom.
From an airplane you look down
on tank farms" where oil is
stored; clusters of white metal
tanks appear like giant frosted
cakes; roofs of still larger reser-
voirs, built like ponds, are protected
by lightning rods. These, the roar
ing refneries, the long pipe lines.
trains of oil cars, and tank steamers
loading at the ports, are the out
ward and visible signs of this trade
now operating under the oil conser-