Newhall Oil District, Santa Clarita, California

Website created and maintained by Stan Walker


This is a 1934 map of the Newhall Oil Field from Walling, R. W., 1934, Report on Newhall Oil Field: California Oil Fields, Summary of Operations of the State Oil and Gas Supervisor: Department of Natural Resources, Division of Oil and Gas, Vol. 20 No. 2. You can see how the Pico Anticline forms, what Walling calls, the Pico Anticline District. Click here for a larger PDF version (1.6MB).


This site originally was only about Elsmere Canyon. Over the years it expanded to include many other subjects, the largest being the Newhall Oil District. Therefore, the first section is now called the Newhall Oil District, which includes the oil history, geology, paleontology, an occasional biography, and other subjects, of all the canyons that make up the oil district. It also includes Placerita Canyon, which became its own oil field in 1949, and the Newhall-Potrero field.

There were other oil fields in Santa Clarita that I did not cover. Examples include Bouquet Canyon (with 10 wells recorded in DOGGR records), Castaic Hills (82 wells), Castaic Junction (84 wells), Del Valle (147 wells), Hasley Canyon (38 wells), Honor Rancho (107 wells), and Saugus (10 wells). Also, many other wildcat wells were drilled in Santa Clarita in areas that never became an oil field.


Oil History and Geology of the Newhall Oil District

The Pico Anticline

Pico Canyon
Wickham Canyon
Dewitt Canyon
Lyon Canyon
Towsley Canyon
Wiley Canyon
Leaming Canyon
Rice Canyon
East Canyon
Tunnel Area
Elsmere Canyon
Whitney Canyon
Newhall Townsite Oil Field

Placerita Canyon
Newhall-Potrero

The Lyon's Station Refinery (1874 - 1877)
The Pioneer Oil Refinery (1877 - 1888)
The Pioneer Pump House
The Newhall Oil Refinery That Never Was - Hart vs. Trumble (1928)
The Newhall Refinery (1930 - 1989)
Did Andres Pico Refine Oil for the San Fernando Mission in the 1850's?
Early Court Cases Pertaining to the Newhall Oil District

Stephen Peckham 1866 Oil Description of the Newhall Oil District
1903 Claim map of the Newhall Oil Field
Oil Museums
Oil Related Websites

Sources for this Website
Copyright Fair Use doctrine


From "California Oil and Gas Fields, Vol II, Southern, Central Coastal, and Offshore California", Division of Oil & Gas, Pub. No. TR 12, Sacramento, Third Edition 1991.


My Other Pages

Lyon's Station
Andrew's Station
Passes & Roads - The Old Road, Beale's Cut, Newhall Tunnel, Newhall Cut
The St. John Subdivision
Movies of Beale's Cut
Tick Canyon and the Sterling Borax Mine
Dry Canyon Dam and Reservoir
Live Oak Manor and the Stone Arch
The Saugus to the Sea Road
The Trabuco Formation in the Santa Monica Mountains



Location of the canyons. Pico, Towsley/Wiley, Rice/East, Elsmere/Whitney, and Placerita have parking areas and are open for public hiking.


Santa Clarita related websites (not affiliated with me):

SCVHistory.com
Santa Clarita Valley History Center
Geology of the Santa Clarita Valley - by Mike Ballard
Placerita Canyon Natural Area
Community Hiking Club - Santa Clarita based
Hike Santa Clarita
Trails of Los Angeles County
Mountains Recreation & Conservation Authority (MRCA)


stanw at earthlink dot net


Copyright © 2024 Stan Walker. All rights reserved.
All photographs, unless otherwise noted, are owned by Stan Walker