Larger oilfields would be revealed in the early 1890s about 35 miles to the south – in Los Angeles.Įarlier explorers noted evidence of California’s petroleum fields by the large number of oil seeps, both onshore and offshore. These Pico Canyon wells produced limited amounts of crude oil, but there was no market for the oil. The first California oil wells were drilled near oil seeps in the northern part of the state around the time of the Civil War. Signal Hill Petroleum Chairman Jerry Barto and Shell Oil employee Bruce Kerr are depicted in bronze. “Tribute to the Roughnecks” by Cindy Jackson stands atop Signal Hill. The statue dedicated on September 30, 2006, “Tribute to the Roughnecks,” can be found on Skyline Drive. Visitors to the area can see “wonderful commemorative art displays of this era throughout the lush parks and walkways of Signal Hill,” explained the Long Beach Beachcomber. There are producing oil wells throughout the hill – with the historic “Discovery Well, Alamitos Number 1” at the corner of Temple Avenue and East Hill Street.Ī monument dedicated on May 3, 1952, serves “as a tribute to the petroleum pioneers for their success here, a success which has, by aiding in the growth and expansion of the petroleum industry, contributed so much to the welfare of mankind.” Historic photos and descriptions can be found at six viewpoints along the Panorama Promenade. Today, Signal Hill’s Discovery Well Park includes a community center to educate the public. A struggling prospector drilled into tar seeps he found near present-day Dodger Stadium. On June 23, 1921, at a depth of 3,114 feet, his wildcat well for Shell Oil erupted, revealing a petroleum reserve that extended to nearby Long Beach.Īccording to the Paleontological Research Institution, Signal Hill became the biggest oil field the already productive Southern California region had ever seen. This made California, “the nation’s number-one producing state, and in 1923, California was the source of one-quarter of the world’s entire output of oil!”ĭecades before Signal Hill, another giant southern California oilfield had been discovered in 1892. “Happy” Yowells believed oil lay deeper than earlier “dusters” had attempted to reach.īy summer the steam-powered cable tool rig had Yowells close to making oilfield history. 1 well - and the monument dedicated on May 3, 1952, “as a tribute to the petroleum pioneers for their success here…”Īlthough another “dry hole” would be expensive, Shell geologists Frank Hayes and Alvin Theodore Schwennesen spudded their well in March 1921. Shell Oil Company had just lost $3 million at a failed drilling site in Ventura, five years before,” reported a Long Beach newspaper.Ī 1954 photograph of the Alamitos No. “This was a great exploit and economic risk for the time.
Two Royal Dutch Shell Oil Company geologists and a driller persevered. Signal Hill oil potential had drawn wildcatters south of Los Angeles since 1917, but with no success. Above, a detail from a panorama from the Library of Congress collection.ĭave Summers explained in his 2011 article, “The Oil Beneath California,” that when oilfields around Los Angeles began to develop, “Californian production became a significant player on the national stage.” The article continued:īy 1923 it was producing some 259,000 barrels per day from some 300 wells, in comparison with Huntington Beach, which was then at 113,000 barrels per day and Santa Fe Springs at 32,000 barrels per day… And, in a foreboding of the future problems of over production, this was the first year in a decade that supply exceeded demand.
Derricks were so close to one cemetery that graves “generated royalty checks to next-of-kin when oil was drawn from beneath family plots.” By 1923, production would reach 259,000 barrels per day from nearly 300 wells.
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