Part XI
HISTORY On the Hill
Written by Julie Bendzick-Sin.
This is a reprint 11 of 24 articles first published in the Star Tribune 1990-1991
Digitally Preserved by the Signal Hill Historical Society for future generations
Oil Booms and Infernos
The rapid emergence of the Signal Hill oil field in the 1920's did not occur without calamity. Drilled wells commonly "blew out”, showering nearby structures and landscape with their crude oil and muck. Before these gushers could be capped, small rivers of crude cascaded down the neighboring hillsides. The original derricks were all wood, and highly flammable. By 1930 the Hill was so densely populated with derricks it resembled a forest. Long Beach residents nicknamed the area "Porcupine Hill."
A Signal Hill's first oil fire, and one of its most spectacular, occurred on September l, 1921. Shell Oil’s Nesa No. One well ignited and it’s flames formed a 125-foot roaring torch. The blast could be seen 12 miles away by land and 30 miles out to sea. Shell Oil Company finally succeeded in Smothering the inferno by dumping mud and steamy water into the well front near- by boiler.
July I923 was a particularly hazardous month for the oilmen of Signal Hill. First, two derricks went up in flames like matchsticks when oil leaking front broken pipe lines was ignited by contact with near-by boilers. Next, Long Beach Gasoline Company's manufacturing plant suffered extensive damage from an early morning explosion. And, later that same day, Union Oil Company's Community No. ll well blew out uncontrollably, causing natural gas to spew into the atmosphere for several days.
Signal Hill fire chief Adolph Fiel and his crew of a dozen firemen are credited with having developed fire fighting techniques for combatting oil and natural gas fires in the early 1920's. in their i929 annual report, The City of Signal Hill proudly informed its residents, “although the (fire)men work in two shifts, never the less when fire alarm sounds, the firemen answer the call one hundred percent regardless of shifts. Signal Hill has probably the most difficult fire hazard to face of any city of its size in the state. The crew’s specialization, however, is fighting oil fires and this has resulted in a remarkably low fire loss. Added to this is the assistance given by several of the leading oil companies with their private fire apparatus.”
The Fisher fire of July l5, I924 was one terrible-lire that served as training ground for the Signal Hill Fire department. But, in terms of the loss of human life. the June 2, 1933 explosion of the Richficld Meandor plant, near Lime Avenue and 27th Street, was the most tragic disaster to occur on the Hill.
Bo Cockriel, an oilman who drilled his first Signal Hill well in I929, remembers the Richfield plant blast in 1988 Press; Telegram article:
"The first refinery we lost was kind of an odd situation. In June, three months after the (1933) earthquake, /ARCO’s refinery blew up. Completely disintegrated. Killed every person there. I was one of the first ones there. All the wooden derricks there were on the ground in splinters. All the cars around had their windshields blown out, blew the tires off.
And to this day, I don't think they actually know what happened. l lived on Pine Avenue, in the I500 block, and I thought we'd had an earthquake. I ran out on the porch and drove up there before they had anything blocked off. They called a fire.”
Eight people died in the explosion and fire that followed. Damage was estimated at $250,000 (in I933 dollars.) Nearby residential structures and derricks were heavily damaged or destroyed. Other calamities, many resulting in explosions or fires, occurred throughout the Signal Hill oil field during the 20s and 30s. Some of these mini-disaster locations were: Pacific Avenue and Bixby, the Johnston well, Combs Trust No. Three, the Ryder well, the Lucas Jergins Trust No. One, Shell Church No. One, and Shell Wilbur No. One.
The most recent oil related disaster to claim the lives of oil workers in Signal Hill occurred on May 22, I958, when Hancock Oil Company’s storage tanks caught fire and burned uncontrollably. Two people died in this incident.
In more recent history. such fires have become rare. The wooden derricks have long since given way to safety steel structures and the tall rigs have been replaced by stockier pumpers. Still, just how adequately the existing oil pipelines and storage tanks will withstand a major earthquake remains to be seen.
to be continued...
Part XII
HISTORY On the Hill
Written by Julie Bendzick-Sin.
This is a reprint 12 of 24 articles first published in the Star Tribune 1990-1991
Digitally Preserved by the Signal Hill Historical Society for future generations
The Birth of a Water System
ln a mostly arid climate like Southern California's, the availability of water determines a city's survival and growth. This reality was probably foremost in the minds of Signal Hills City Council members when they voted, in 1927, for $250,000 in bonds to erect the City's water reservoir.
By February 1929, the project was within one month of completion. Constructed of reinforced steel and concrete, the water reservoir was built to hold 5 million gallons. The original cost of the project, including new pipelines, was estimated in 1929 to be $215,177.
The reservoir was erected south of Wardlow Road and east of Orange Avenue, on the tract of land that is now known as Water(Reservoir) Park. The structure is 200 feet in diameter, twenty feet deep and sunk 14 feet into the earth. The original roof was a conical wooden structure supported by concrete pillars. Eight miles of water mains were laid in 1929 to transfer water from the reservoir to storage tanks located at Hill Street and Temple Avenue. Four booster pumps were installed inside the reservoir to pump the water to these tanks.
Water to supply the new reservoir was obtained entirely from three city-owned wells, whose daily output was as high as 7,500,000 gallons. Because Signal Hill was situated out- side the Long Beach municipality, Signal Hill residents were charged higher water rates than Long Beach consumers for water acquired from Long Beach. But under its own water system, Signal Hill residents would eventually receive a 9 to 20 percent reduction in their rates. ln l929, City planners hoped to use this 20 percent difference initially to pay for the reservoir and other water system improvements.
By December I929, Signal Hill was showing a $12,000 per month profit in the operation of it’s water system. This was only a few months after three gate valves used to connect the Long Beach and Signal Hill water system had been permanently shut, and Signal Hill had purchased most of the water mains of Long Beach’s system lying within its borders.
The original $250,000 bond voted for in 1927 was planned to cover the cost of producing only l,250,000 gallons of water daily. This amount of water was the estimated consumption in I927. But by 1929, increased oil field drilling activity had increased the daily consumption of water in Signal Hill nearly 400%. ln fact, three oil producers (The Texas Company, Shell Oil & Gas Company and Signal Oil & Gas Company) combined used one third of Signal Hill’s water! Nevertheless, the city found its new water system adequate to meet the needs of all its consumers.
According to John Travers, Superintendent of Public Works for the city, the Signal Hill Water Reservoir is still functioning well. lt was refurbished several years ago and recently cleaned and inspected in 1990. Most of Signal llill water today is pumped from wells No. 7 and No. 8, located in North Long Beach. The remainder of the city's water is procured from the Metropolitan Water District, when cost effective.
Virtually all of the old cast iron water mains purchased from Long Beach have been replaced. The newest water mains installed, like those used in the recent Southeast Water Project, are made of ductile iron and lined with cement, says Travers.
to be continued...
Part XIII
HISTORY On the Hill
Written by Julie Bendzick-Sin.
This is a reprint 13 of 24 articles first published in the Star Tribune 1990-1991
Digitally Preserved by the Signal Hill Historical Society for future generations
Romancing the Hill, Circa 1922
By 1922, less than two years after the discovery of oil in Signal Hill, this area pulsed with the excitement and optimism that the prospect of Big Money brings. , These feeling were so contagious that a number of local reporters simultaneously coined a phrase to describe them: The Romance of Signal Hill.
More notable among this group was Jessie Elwin Nelson, who wrote for local papers before becoming Signal Hill's first mayor. In her enthusiasm for the boom she wrote, "little else counted save the realization of a production well." When a General Petroleum well came in a gusher in 1922, Mrs. Nelson penned the following poem commemorating the event: ("G.P’."refers to General Petroleum.)
Gasser to the right of them,
Gasser to the left of them,
Gasser in front of them
Roared and thundered.
Belching up rock and shale,
Covering the ground like hail,
Wrecking derrick and bail,
While he town wondered.
Soon a wild gusher rose
Up from its deep repose,
Spouting and shooting oil
High in the air.
Thousands of barrels fell
With a black Smirch and smell,
Spreading a dark blanket
Over half of the hill.
Homes were made desolate,
Left to their blackened fate;
While people fled.
Oil to right of them,
Oil to left of them
Oil front and back of them.
What's this they said?
"What e'er the loss of it,
What e'er the cost of it,
The G.P. has proven the west side of the hill.”
(This well was the first gusher west of Cherry Ave)
Another reporter to idealize Signal Hill's oil boom was M.A. Morrison, whose article "The Romance of Signal Hill" was a cover story for The Long Beach Press Magazine_on December 31,1922. Here is an example of Morrison’s gushing prose: "Two years ago it merely was a ‘hill.’ Today it is the great oil field of California one of the greatest in the United States! Twenty-four months ago, one hundred Japanese toiled upon those hillsides. Today, more than 5000 men eat, sleep, live. that they may"drive steel bits deep into the earth of that same hill and draw from it the blackened blood of prehistoric crustaceans . . . And that same fluid - that greasy, hot, viscid liquid which comes roaring forth from the reservoirs of Mother Nature those hundreds of streams of it which are giving wealth to the world -- they reach out and encompass the globe!”
Not to be outdone by a rival Long Beach paper, the Long Beach Telegram printed an article "Romance of Signal Hill is a Magic Tale of Wonder Oil Field," also on December 3l, but one year later. The tone of this article was nothing short of raving:
The story of Signal llill is one of thrills and romance. Nowhere is oildom has the driller been confronted with so many anomalous situations as ran the gamut of Signal Hill development. An oil field to which the roughnecks-as and laborers machines from comfortable homes in the residential districts of a modern city; an oil field with boulevards criss crossing it in all directions; an oil field with efficient fire protection afforded by a metropolitan fire fighting department; with water and sewer facilities that rival the systems of many larger cities, Signal llill indeed is unique in the annals of oil history."
To be continued…
Part XIV
HISTORY On the Hill
Written by Julie Bendzick-Sin.
This is a reprint 1 of 24 articles first published in the Star Tribune 1990-1991
Digitally Preserved by the Signal Hill Historical Society for future generations
Sinking in the 1930’s
The 1930's presented Signal Hill’s property owners with a unique kind of depression to deal with, in addition to the economic downturn that was ravaging America. By late October, 1931, alarmed reports were coming out of Signal l-lill that numerous portions of its oil field had settled by as much as 18 inches, since the initial discovery of oil in 1921. The sinking of Signal Hill's surface was the result of 500 million barrels of oil, several billion cubic feet of gas and vast quantities of water and mud having been removed from beneath die Hill.
Signal Hill property owners feared the worst: that million of dollars worth of derricks, collection tanks and pumping stations would be swallowed up and buried beneath collapsing terrain. Oil producers on the Hill moved quickly to quell and panic by calling upon their engineers to assess the damages and determine the future of the oil field. These engineers assured investors that Signal Hill would survive any future settlement because it was “the most strongly reinforced mountain in the world." The reasoning behind this optimistic verdict?
Beneath Signal Hill lies, according to a November l, 1931 New York Times report, "thousands of miles of upright pipe, sunk to levels as-deep as 9,000 feet, while hundreds of additional miles of pipe are laid in a tangle of oil and gas mains parallel to the surface.”
To be continued…
Part XV
HISTORY On the Hill
Written by Julie Bendzick-Sin.
This is a reprint 15 of 24 articles first published in the Star Tribune 1990-1991
Digitally Preserved by the Signal Hill Historical Society for future generations
Missing Article