page_title: Summerland, California
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Summerland, California / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Summerland beach, California, 110 years after the oil field. Español: Playa de Summerland, California, 110 años después de que hubiera un campo petrolífico.
context_page_description: Summerland is a census designated place in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. The population was 1,448 at the 2010 census, down from 1,545 at the 2000 census.
  The town includes a school and a Presbyterian Church. There are many small businesses.
context_section_description: Tar from natural oil seeps in the Summerland area was long used as a sealant, both by the native Chumash peoples and by the Spanish builders of the Mission Santa Barbara, who used it as waterproofing for the roof.
  In 1883, spiritualist and real estate speculator H.L. Williams founded the town of Summerland.  In 1888 he divided his land tract, on a moderately sloping hill facing the ocean, into numerous parcels.  He promoted the tiny lots – 25 x 60 – to fellow Spiritualists, who bought them in quantity and moved to the area.   The spiritual center of the town was a Spiritualist Church, with séance room, demolished when Highway 101 was put through in the 1950s.
  In the 1890s, oil development began in the coastal area of Summerland, at the Summerland Oil Field.  Numerous wooden oil derricks were built on the beach, and on piers stretching into the ocean.  The world's first offshore oil well, drilled into the sea floor, was at this location.  Production at this beach area peaked before 1910, although most of the rigs remained into the 1920s.  Peak production from the onshore portion of the Summerland Field did not  occur until 1930; the last oil was pumped from the nearshore region in 1940.
  In 1957, Standard Oil Co. of California (now Chevron) found the large Summerland Offshore Oil Field, several miles offshore, which was shut down in the 1990s. In January 1969, a blowout at the Dos Cuadras Field, about five miles offshore, caused the Santa Barbara Oil Spill, a formative event for the modern environmental movement.
  In August 2015, Summerland's beach was closed for several days by County of Santa Barbara health officials due to large amounts of oil washed onshore. Local residents suspect the petroleum source is a leaking capped oil well ("the Becker wellhead") in the tidal area below Lookout Park.
caption: The same view in 2009; the piers and oil wells are no longer present, and the beach is a tourist destination.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot SX110 IS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image DateTime": "2009:11:28 12:32:19", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Tag 0x1001": "3456", "Image Tag 0x1002": "2592", "Image ExifOffset": "2278", "Image Padding": "[]", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/1250", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:11:28 12:32:19", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:11:28 12:32:19", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "329/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "6", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3456", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2592", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "3456000/229", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "288000/19", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "4168"}