Loading Oil At Ora, CA

Photo from the Facebook Antique Images group from the Collection of Michael J. Semas.

He comments:

“Loading Oil at The Crump Oil Station, Ora, California. Image taken 1908-1909 by Walter J. Nichols of Coalinga. Ora was a train stop just east of Coalinga where oil cars would be filled up with crude oil. These oil cars would then be shipped to refineries, such as the Hanford Gas & Power Company. This is one of my favorite "occupational" postcard images because it shows how casual the danger of crude oil was taken. Crude oil is highly flammable and just seeing this man standing next to a spigot of flowing oil with no eye protection or safety equipment of any kind is mind-blowing. The best part is the oily board that was laid down between the loading platform and the rail car which he used to cross over to the oil tank to close it off. OSHA would have a heart attack!”

Bob Chaparro

Hemet, CA

That's a fabulous picture, and I fully agree with Bob's comments about today's perceptions of safe working conditions versus the standard practices over 100 years ago.  The one site-specific observation I have regarding Coalinga crude oil is that it generally is almost tar, and has to be heated to pump. 

This is true for many of the San Joaquin Valley oilfields from Coalinga down to Taft, Maricopa and Bakersfield.  The oil was often lighter and flowed easily from some reservoirs when they were first discovered, but the "light ends" as they are known in the trade rapidly declined with the initial production, leaving behind heavy oil which was certainly flammable, but not as explosive as the first production.  Given the estimated date of the photo is circa 1908, they may be loading more flammable, lower viscosity oil.  But it didn't take long for the shallow (1,000 to 2,500-feet deep) San Joaquin oilfields to become essentially tar sands that needed secondary recovery methods like steam injection to maintain production.  Steam injection heated up the oil so it could flow into the wells, but once the oil was produced, it often had to be heated a second time to load and unload it.

Chuck Soule

My family moved to Taft in 1956.  We lived on a Southern California Gas lease out in the oilfields.  I spent many hours playing around the old wooden derricks.  Lose tin that covered them would be used to make forts.  Great, but isolated, place for a 4th grader.  We had wells and their creaky wheels just outside our back yard.  Often I would ride my bike to a Standard Oil lease nearby to visit a friend.  We were the last families to live in the 16 houses on the lease when they were sold and moved in 1960.  I don't recall steam injection being used during my four years there, but I know it was in later years. 

SP and ATSF jointly operated a branch from Bakersfield to Taft and on to Maricopa.  I believe they alternated years.

We moved to Bakersfield.  While in college studying chemical engineering, I worked at a lab determining the amount of oil in core samples.

When I went back 50 years later, no sign of any oil production.  There was one old wooden derrick in the Taft museum.

Photo and content just brought up memories.

Gary Ray

Azle, TX