Pico Springs Area


This is the area originally called Pico Springs. The first Pico Canyon claim was here. The first work done was digging pits and then soaking up the oil. Tunnels were also dug next to the creek bed allowing the oil to run out. The first three wells (Pico 1, Pico 2, Pico 3) were spring-poled in 1875.

Pico 4 was completed in September of 1876 by Charles A. Mentry. Pico 4 was the first Pico Springs well to use a steam engine, but not the first well in the San Fernando Petroleum district to use one. Pico 4 would not be officially plugged and abandoned until 1990. One of the plaques incorrectly gives D. G. Scofield credit, but he did not become a director of the company (by that time it was the California Star Oil Works Company) until September of 1876. On June 19, 1888, Scofield testified in Los Angeles Superior Court Case #6831 of Juan M. Luco vs. Robert S. Baker. He said that "I took no part in the affairs of the company [the California Star Oil Works Company], until some time, as I told you, in the month of September of that year [1876 - when he became a director of CSOW].

In 1876, Sanford Lyon also spring poled a well near these wells.

In 1877, Pico 1 and Pico 2 were deepened using a steam engine. Pico 3 and Lyon's well were not.

It has been claimed that this is the longest continuous run of any commercial oil well in the world. However, the Pico field was shut down (no pumping or drilling done) in May of 1940 (Signal, May 10, 1940 - see below). It would not be resumed until the field re-opened with the spudding of PCO 42 on August 6, 1944.

The Pico wells were renamed as CSOW and renamed again to CSO. When you reach the CSO 4 well site, you see some old jack plant equipment, a steam engine, some pipes at the actual well head, and two markers. The jack plant equipment was brought into Pico Canyon from the Manley Oil Company in Los Angeles. It was never used in Pico. The equipment for the jack plant on CSO Hill (which was located higher up) was salvaged in the early 1970's (see separate webpage for that).

After you pass CSO 4, you reach the location of the long gone machine shop. Around here are also the sites of the other four wells, but their locations are unmarked.


This is from the notes of F.B. Taylor's survey of the Pico Springs area in April of 1878. (From the Solano-Reeve Papers, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.) The red dots (added by me) are the four oil wells there at that time. The lowest red dot is CSO 4. Above that is the Sanford Lyon well, CSO 1, and CSO 3. To the left of CSO 3 is CSO 2. To the right of well 1 is Mentry's house. To the left of well 4 are three structures. They are labeled as engine (no well there), shop, and quarters (or boarding house). There is also a stable somewhere nearby. To the right of and above well 3 is another house. Many oil tanks around this area were also mentioned in the survey.


Here is the equipment at the well site on March 18, 2012.


Closer view of the well head.


Darryl Manzer and his sister Karen at the well. They were residents of the canyon from 1960-66 and their dad Al had had a lot to do with the well becoming a National Historic Landmark. (Picture taken 10-16-2008.)


First Commercial Oil Well
In California

On this site stands CSO-4 (Pico #4) California's
first commercially productive well. It was
spudded in early 1876 under the direction
of Demetrius C. Scofield, later to become
first president of Standard Oil Company
of California, and was completed at a
depth of 300 feet on September 26, 1876, for
an initial flow of 30 barrels of oil a day.

Later, in the same year, the well was deep-
ened to 600 feet, using what was perhaps the
first steam rig employed in oil well drilling
in California. Upon this second completion, it
produced at a rate of 150 barrels a day, and is
still producing after seventy-seven years.

The success of this well prompted formation
of the Pacific Coast Oil Company, a predecessor
of Standard Oil Company of California,
and led to the construction of the state's
first refinery nearby. It was not only
the discovery well of the Newhall Field,
but was, indeed, a powerful stimulus to
the subsequent development of the
California petroleum industry.

Dedicated June 6, 1953
Standard Oil Company of California
Petroleum Production Pioneers, Inc.

State Registered

Note: As I mentioned of the top of this webpage, Charles Mentry, not Scofield, directed the drilling of CSO 4.



Story of 1953 dedication of monument from the Newhall Signal of June 11, 1953.


This photo is from the Standard Oiler Magazine of August 1953. It shows some of the Standard Oil people present during the June 6, 1953, plaque dedication. Note former superintendent Walton Young and Warren Johnson, the man Johnson Park was named for. Magazine in the Sitzman Collection at the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society.


Detailed dedication ceremony story from the July 1953 issue of Petroleum Engineer (Vol. 25, Iss. 7).


Well No. 4
Pico Canyon Oil Field

Has been designated a
registered National
Historic Landmark

Under the provisions of the
Historic Sites Act of August 21, 1935
this site possesses exceptional value
in commemorating or illustrating
the history of the United States

U.S. Department of the Interior
National Park Service

1966


From the Los Angeles Times of June 21, 1967. CSO 4 was not the state's first well.


Story of 1967 dedication of monument from the Newhall Signal of June 23, 1967.


December 1989 letter from Chevron to DOGGR about the abandonment of CSO 4. For a normal well abandonment, the well is capped below the ground surface, but for CSO 4 Chevron got that requirement waived so as to not jeopardize the status of the well as a National Historic Landmark. That's why you can still see the wellhead and some other pipes at the site.


January 1990 letter from the National Park Service to Chevron.



From the Signal of May 10, 1940. Pico oil field shut down.



Also from the Signal of May 10, 1940. Farewell picnic in Pico Canyon.



Pico drilling resumed. From the National Petroleum News of August 9, 1944, V.ol 36 Issue 32.



CSO 106 was spudded on 12/3/1965 and completed 12/16/1965 at a total depth of 1750 feet. For the first 30 days, production averaged 4 barrels per day. It was plugged and abandoned in 1990. On a DOGGR map, the well location is on the opposite side of the creek bed from CSO 4 and this marker, so it's hard to say which side of the creek the well actually was. (photo from 7/30/2013)