Prompted by Insty’s invitation to his open thread:
…let’s take a wander down Memory Lane (right-click to embiggen):
Ah yes, the good old days, when California actually produced things, and made stuff.
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Prompted by Insty’s invitation to his open thread:
…let’s take a wander down Memory Lane (right-click to embiggen):
Ah yes, the good old days, when California actually produced things, and made stuff.
Comments are closed.
I lived in LA from 92-94. Would drive by a number of places with oil well pumps still actively pumping up the good stuff. Don’t know if they are still going – I try to avoid California now.
California still produces plenty of things.
Just nothing useful or beneficial.
What was so different in the engineering or economics of drilling back then that they left the derricks up after the well was completed? Did their workovers require the derricks?
Those photos appear to span the time from at least 1894 (I didn’t even know there *was* an oil industry then) to the late ’30s/early ’40s, judging by the cars. I wonder when all the derricks were finally torn down?
I was last in the LA area in 1969, and while I saw many walking beam pump jacks in the Long Beach area, I didn’t see a single derrick anywhere.
Huntington Beach was one long parade of derricks in the 50’s, as was Long Beach/Signal Hill.
In the 60’s they started tearing them down – probably as “fire hazards”.