Newhall Refinery Historic Photos
Photo showing the area where the future refinery would be. Taken on March 17, 1928, by Ralph Arnold. A lot of oil wells, but no evidence of refinery. The road was San Fernando Road at that time.
Photograph No. 2 in letter from Ralph Arnold to J. H. Gilliland, Dated March 19, 1928, Ralph Arnold Papers, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
About the same view taken on February 4, 2018. Highway 14 in the distance, Sierra Highway in the lower right, and Clampitt Road running through the refinery site.
Close-up of Arnold 1928 photo showing 12 oil wells. These wells, and other wells in the area, needed a nearby refinery to process the petroleum.
Photo taken in July of 1930. Caption reads "Construction under way at the Newhall refinery of the William Andrews Refining Co." From the Oil and Gas Journal of July 10, 1930 (Vol. 29, No. 8, p. 151).
Recent photo showing about the same view. There has been many changes to the ground in the refinery area, so duplicating such an old photo is very difficult. Highway 14 is in the distance. View east. (photo taken 11-21-2021)
Photo taken of new refinery in 1931. Many of the same derricks from 1928 photo are still visible. San Fernando Road was re-aligned in 1930 to go straight north after exiting the tunnel, bypassing the road running in front of the refinery. This road was named Clampitt Road after E.A. Clampitt, the owner of many of the wells in the area.
Photo used by permission of the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society
Photo taken on July 31, 2018, showing similar view as previous 1931 photo.
The back of this poor quality photo has a developer date of 12/16/1931. The view is toward the southeast and the road in front of the refinery is Clampitt Road. In 1931, this was the Andrews Refinery (run by the Andrews Refining Co.). In 1933 it became the San Fernando Refinery (San Fernando Refining Co.) and in 1942 it finally became the Newhall Refinery (the Newhall Refining Co.). Most of the features in this photo can be seen on the other 1931 photo above.
Open letter from J.O. Moffett (Van Nuys News 8/20/1934). In 1933, Moffett became the owner of the refinery and the company was the San Fernando Refining Co.
Refined by the San Fernando Refining Co. (Van Nuys News 9/3/1934)
View toward the northeast. Photo from the 1940's
Photo used by permission of the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society
Almost the same view a little more toward the northeast. Photo from the 1940's. These two photos were probably taken at the same time. They were donated to Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society in March 2003 by Rita Rippe. You can see the "tower" geologic feature in the background.
Photo used by permission of the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society
Put them together and you get this
Photos used by permission of the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society
8/12/1944 newspaper photo. Caption: "2,500,000 Gallons of Oil Go To Blazes - Newhall, Calif., Flames and smoke roll hundreds of feet into the night sky as 2,500,000 gallons of crude oil burn at the Newhall Refining Co., which was destroyed by the fire and explosions punctuating the blaze. Cause of the fire was said to have been ignition of naphtha fumes by a bunsen burner in a plant laboratory. Thirty families were evacuated from nearby homes and two men were seriously burned. At right foreground is the plant's cooler house, which collapsed immediately after this picture was taken."
See here for a British Pathe video that shows the fire. It is also available on the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society website (where I downloaded it from).
Another 8/12/1944 newspaper photo. Caption: "Flames and smoke envelope a portion of the Newhall Refining Co., which was destroyed by a fire starting in a plant laboratory when naphtha fumes were ignited by a bunsen burner. Six large tank explosions punctuated the blazing of 2,500,000 gallons of crude oil."
ca 1946 from the Valley Times Collection, Los Angeles Public Library
Newhall Refining Company office in Newhall from the 1940's.
Photos used by permission of the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society
Unknown date, but probably from the 1950's
Photo used by permission of the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society
Unknown date, but probably also from the 1950's
Photo used by permission of the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society
Two stills pasted together from 1955-56 video (Rio Santa Clara, Myna Lou Productions, 1956). See the main Newhall refinery webpage to see a segment of the video.
Used by permission of the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society
Another still from the video showing how complex the refinery setup was.
Photo dated August 17, 1956: This fire was caused after the navy shot a total of 208 rockets at an out-of-control F-6F Hellcat drone airplane. Photo caption says "Raging brush fire is shown minutes before it was halted in Newhall refinery area near Placerita Canyon and Highway 6. County firemen confined blaze to loss of six storage tanks and two oil sumps. Highway was closed for several hours when fire leaped pavement." From the Valley Times Collection of the Los Angeles Public Library.
From the Los Angeles Times of October 7, 1973
From the Newhall Signal of September 18, 1974
Close-up of one of the photos from the above article of September 18, 1974
Photo taken on July 27, 2018, from higher up. I could not match the level of 1974 because of the growth of trees and bushes and of changes in the land due to new building done after 1974.
From the Newhall Signal of March 1, 1978
From Gary Morton comes this image of a San Fernando Refinery Company truck. Gary says that the truck is a late 1930's Sterling J model.
Copyright Note: This image is NOT in the public domain
and is protected by the copyright laws of the United States.
Used by permission of Gary Morton.