History of Oil Development in Elsmere Area

The Elsmere area comprises about 60 acres in, and just south of, Elsmere Canyon. It is part of the Newhall oil field, which also includes Pico Canyon, DeWitt Canyon, Towsley Canyon, Wiley Canyon, Rice Canyon, East Canyon, the Tunnel area (an area east and north of the old Newhall auto tunnel), Whitney Canyon, and Placerita Canyon. Placerita Canyon is now considered a field of its own and is still producing oil. The other areas, including Elsmere Canyon, have been abandoned. Oil was apparently found in the Pico formation, the Towsley formation, and the Eocene formation (see the Geology webpage). Oil seeps are still found in these formations today.

Information for wells drilled before 1915 is very scant and often times non-existant. Well owners and drillers basically did what they wanted to and had to report to nobody. However, on August 9, 1915, a law setting up the first state-wide agency - the Department of Petroleum and Gas - was passed unanimously by the state legislature. Unfortunately for us, most of the wells in the Elsmere area were drilled before 1915, so information on these wells is incomplete. In 1961, the Department of Petroleum and Gas was re-named the Division of Oil and Gas (DOG). In 1992 the name was changed to the Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR).

Pacific Coast Oil Company was incorporated in 1879 and became majority owner of the California Star Oil Works, which included the Newhall Refinery and oil properties in Pico Canyon (location of California's first comercial oil well - Pico No. 4 - drilled in 1876). The first work in the Elsmere area was done by Pacific Coast in 1889 with the drilling of Elsmere 1. Elsmere 1 through 4 were drilled between 1889 and 1891. Elsmere 5 thru Elsmere 20 were drilled between 1898 and 1900. What happened between 1891 and 1898 that caused PCO not to drill any wells? There was a depression called the Panic of 1893. The economy didn't start getting better until 1896.

On February 17, 1899, Pacific Coast Oil Company received a patent from the federal government for much of Elsmere Canyon. They now owned the canyon outright.

In December of 1900, Pacific Coast Oil was acquired by John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company (New Jersey), but was allowed to retain its name. By that time Pacific Coast had laid about 30 miles of 2-inch pipe from Elsmere Canyon to the refinery at Andrew's Junction near the Southern Pacific Railroad station in Railroad Canyon. On July 23, 1906, after a company reorganization, PCO's name was changed to Standard Oil (California). In May of 1911, Standard Oil of New Jersey lost a long-running antitrust suit and was ordered by the Supreme Court to break-up. In December of 1911, Standard Oil of California became a separate company. In 1977 Standard became the Chevron Oil Company. In 2001, they became ChevronTexaco. In 2005, they dropped the Texaco and became Chevron again.

The highest recorded initial production in the Elsmere field was from Elsmere 2, which produced a daily average of 57 barrels (1 barrel = 42 gallons) of oil during the first four days. However, within the first 60 days, production dropped down to about 8 bpd and by 1894 down to 6 bpd. It was still producing 1-4 bpd of oil in 1929 when the well was shut in. It produced for 38 years making it the longest running of the 24 Elsmere wells.

By 1903, only 11 Elsmere wells were still producing. By 1929, only 9 were still producing. On April 20, 1929, the wells in Elsmere Canyon were "shut in" meaning they weren't abandoned, but they were taken off production. The 9 remaining wells were producing a daily average of 2.3 barrels per day, not enough to justify continued production. Between 1891 and 1929 the Elsmere area had produced an estimated 285,000 barrels of oil (Walling, 1934).

Alpine Oil Company drilled wells 1 through 3 in 1900 and 1901 along the west line of Section 12 as offsets to the Elsmere property of Pacific Coast Oil Company.

Santa Ana Oil Company drilled wells 1 through 3 between 1901 and 1903 along the east line of the SE 1/4 of Section 12. Eldridge and Arnold (USGS Bull. 309, 1907) reported the wells high up the north point of Elsmere Ridge.

Prutzman (1913) reports that there were also two other wells drilled in 1900 east of all the Elsmere wells. They were drilled by the California Oil Company and the Graves Oil Company. Eldridge and Arnold (1907) also show the California Oil Company well in the same location as Prutzman. However, Walling (1934) only shows the Graves site but reports it as a California Oil Company well. Both wells were located on east trending ridges above the first main fork in Elsmere Canyon. The California Oil Company well was about 1200 feet deep and barren. The Graves or California Oil well was about 1500 feet deep and also barren. I have found both sites, so there were two wells.

W. L. Watts (Oil and Gas Yielding Formations of California, 1900) reports that in 1900 the Good Luck Oil Company had a short-lived well with traces of oil at 675 feet on a hillside above the Elsmere wells (in the S.E. Corner of Sec. 7) but its location is too vague to pinpoint.

In 1907 (from DOG records and Walling, 1934), E. A. and D. L. Clampitt (see the Clampitt webpage) acquired the properties of Alpine and Santa Ana Oil Companies. They changed the well numbers of Alpine 1, 2, and 3 to Clampitt 5, 6, and 7, and the numbers of the three Santa Ana wells to Clampitt 8, 9, and 10. They re-worked those six wells and were somewhat successfull. They also drilled Clampitt 11, 12, and 13 between 1916 and 1920. In 1943, the wells were leased to Stough & Hutchingson. In 1944, they were leased to the York Oil Company. By 1946, the wells were back in Clampitt hands (Sewell and Jones) and renamed Sewell and Jones 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13. The last owners of these wells was the partnership of Leah C. Sewell & Barbara C. Jones, E. A. Clampitt's daughters (and heirs since he died in 1919).

Republic Petroleum Company, Ltd., wells Fink 3 and Fink 4 were drilled as offsets to the north line of the E. A. & D. L. Clampitt property during 1920 and 1921. These were on the low ridge between Elsmere and Whitney Canyon just above (west of) today's road into Elsmere Canyon.

Walling (1934) reports that by the end of 1934, only 7 wells of E.A. & D.L. Clampitt were still active, producing an average of 2.1 barrels of oil per day. According to Ford (in his unpublished 1940 UCLA M.A. thesis), in 1940, 7 wells were operating on jacks. Oakeshott (1958, California Division of Mines, Bulletin 172) reported 6 wells still operating in 1942 yielding about 2 barrels per day each. Winterer and Durham (1962, U.S.G.S. Professional Paper 334-H) reported that in 1949, 6 wells were still pumping. Apparently the Sewell & Jones (the last owners) shut down their last wells in 1950 since there was no oil production reported from them after 1949.

On 3/27/1953, Mike Barkett spudded a well on the north side of Elsmere Canyon on the same low ridge line that the Fink wells were drilled some 30 years before. It was plugged and abandoned on 8/25/1957.

Elsmere 23 was spudded by Standard on 12/12/1953 and abandoned on 1/8/1954. It was a "deeper pool" well. This is a well drilled with the intent of finding a new productive zone beneath an old productive zone. Maybe with the Mike Barkett well nearby they believed there was still some oil in the area, but that was evidently not the case. Elsmere 24 was spudded on 4/30/1959 by Standard and abandoned on 8/15/1959. It was drilled as an "outpost" exploratory well. An outpost well is located on a producing structure but beyond the proven limits, with the intent to extend an old producing zone or discover a new pool. Elsmere 24 was not really in Elsmere Canyon, but on the high mesa south of it with a view of the San Fernando Valley.

By 1975, Standard Oil was given a lease by Sewell and Jones on a substantial portion of their property. Margaret Bath 1 was spudded on 11/21/1979 and abandoned on 11/7/1985 with no production. It was located on a large pad above (and east of) the Alpine wells on possibly the land leased from Sewell and Jones. There is a power line pole at the southwest edge of this pad (which was illegally cut down in 2008). The well most certainly used electrical power. And also, Los Pinetos Road ends at the pad, which made for easy access to the well.

The best year for Elsmere Canyon was 1954 when production was 992 barrels of oil.

Table of the wells drilled in the Elsmere area