What is amazing is they are still cricket pumps down there pumping away today
Oooh, the horror of it!!!!
Drilling rigs on our beloved beach!!!...The Horror!!!
Back before the West Coast became the Left Coast!
Jack Nicholson’s character in ‘The Two Jakes’ said that oil wells outnumbered palm trees in LA.
It was still prettier back then!
I always remember the scene near the end of “Beverly Hills Cop 2” that featured oil wells nearby.
Some of the first memories of going to the beach was the getting tar on your feet. Happened most every time back then.
There were still rigs in 1979 on Huntington, Long, and Venice Beach.
There are still working wells, camouflaged, but there.
Might be fun to see if Freepers can find pics of them.
I was a roughneck in California oil fields in the 60’s. I was a 17-19 year old Okie. I didn’t work Huntington, but our company did drill some wells there. (Interestingly, in Huntington Beach, there are formations that are so hot, they will boil the mud that is used to drill the hole.) Californians thought that anyone who worked in the oil fields was from outer space.
Lived on Brookhurst and Atlanta. Went to Edison HS. In the 70s it was a dream place to grow up.
I remember reading somewhere many years ago that on the 7th of December 1941, California was the number one oil exporting COUNTRY in the world.
Within thirty years that’d all changed.
I had heard about the Kern Cty oil fields, but I didn’t know it was right down on the beaches. wow.
Up here in NorCal, we have oil in San Mateo County just south of San Fran. There's "Oil Creek" near Butano State Park by Pescadero. We even have our own seeps in the back woods. Oil and gas were recovered until the 80s when low prices shut the wells down. Not much chance of getting tar on your feet unless you go looking for it, though.
Looks like California alone is Saudi Arabia.