Elsmere Canyon Historic Photos

Elsmere Canyon looking southwest (photo taken in 1905 by Ralph Arnold).

From U. S. Geological Survey Bulletin 309: The Santa Clara Valley, Puente Hills, and Los Angeles oil districts, Southern California, by George H. Eldridge and Ralph Arnold, 1907 (Plate 7B Left)

Right section of above photo looking more toward the west (Plate 7B Right).

12-24-2006

Both sections pasted together.

Elsmere Canyon from above south tributary looking southeast. Main canyon to left of photo. (Taken 1-23-1928 by Lynne M. Correll).

Photo caption: "In Elsmere Canyon. A small area of Quercus agrifolia in the draw to the extreme right. Chamise, Ceanothus, manzanita in the background."

Images from the Wieslander Vegetation Type Mapping Collection are courtesy of the Marian Koshland Bioscience and Natural Resources Library, University of California, Berkeley, http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/BIOS/vtm/

About the same view almost 80 years later (Taken 2-17-2007)

This is the steep south face of the canyon showing Elsmere 5 (spudded in 1898) in the foreground, Elsmere 9 (spudded in 1899) diagonally above 5 to the left, and Elsmere 6 (spudded in 1898) the smaller derrick behind 9. It does not show Elsmere 18 (spudded in 1900) which would be above Elsmere 9 on the same ridgeline. That means the photo probably was taken in 1898 or 1899. Since I don't see any drilling equipment, maybe the wells have not been spudded yet and are still in the construction stage. The photo was incorrectly labeled as being from Pico Canyon in "Pioneering in Big Business 1882-1911: History of Standard Oil Company (New Jersey)", by R. W. Hidy and M. E. Hidy, 1955, Harper & Brothers, New York.

Here is about the same view in June, 2008

This picture was taken between 1902 and 1904 showing Newhall Creek in the Tunnel Area looking north. It was first published in Production and Use of Petroleum in California, California State Mining Bureau, Bulletin No. 32, 1904, by Paul Prutzman. It later showed up in Petroleum in Southern California, California State Mining Bureau, Bulletin 63, 1913, also by Paul Prutzmen. Unfortunately, the California Geological Survey could not find the photo for me. They had a fire in the 1950's that, along with the water to put out the fire, destroyed a lot of important historical documents. However, they were able to scan the plate from Bulletin 32. The smoke is coming from boiler smokestacks. The boilers were powering at least two of the five oil derricks barely visible in the picture. The left two high areas right of center in the far distance are part of Elsmere Ridge with Elsmere Canyon on the other side. You can barely see a road that runs horizontally beneath them. That road still exists and was built by 1902 (see Eldridge 1902 geologic map on geology page). The road at the bottom of the picture goes up to Beale's Cut.

About the same view on June 23, 2007. The hills where I am standing have been greatly altered by the Newhall Refinery (now defunct - operated from 1930 - December of 1989) so this is about as close as I could get to where the original picture was taken. Highway 14 has also obviously altered the landscape.

There are more historic photos on the Los Angeles Aqueduct page