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| This detail from a 1921 panoramic photograph published in a state report on the oil industry is taken from atop an oil derrick looking west. The road is Durfee Avenue as it merges into San Gabriel Boulevard. The newly-built bridge crossing the Rio Hondo (water is clearly seen in the river at the upper right) is near the Basye Adobe, headquarters at the time for Standard Oil Company's Montebello field operations. The Montebello Hills are in the distance. Click on the photo for a larger view in a new window. |
In terms of demographics and the use of the land by its residents, especially, the Old Mission community changed relatively little from its earliest settlement before 1836 until well into the 20th century. Matters accelerated, however, in the 1910s, specifically with the discovery of oil in the Montebello Hills. A Whittier newspaper from 1915 attributed the local find to road crews driving bridge piles, presumably for San Gabriel Boulevard's new span across the Rio Hondo, and forcing a seepage of crude to the surface.
Another version is that 9-year old Thomas W. Temple II, whose grandfather, F. P. F. Temple owned much of the land in and around Misión Vieja from the early 1850s, and whose father, Walter Temple, purchased in 1912 about 60 acres on and just below the very northeastern corner of the Montebello Hills, made a discovery in April 1914. According to this account, young Thomas was playing in the hills after a rain and saw a pool of water bubbling and turning black, while a strong rotten egg-like smell emanated from the pool. Knowing that there was oil there, the boy ran down the hill and crossed Lincoln Boulevard to the Temple family home, formerly the adobe store and saloon built by Rafael Basye and Jesús Andrade in 1869, to tell his father. Walter Temple returned with a match and, riskily, struck it over the pool and flame shot out. For those who remember the old television sitcom, The Beverly Hillbillies, this incredible tale might sound a little familiar!
In 1915, the Temples arranged a lease with Standard Oil Company of California (now Chevron), while the daughters of Elias J. "Lucky" Baldwin, who took most of the area land about 1880 from F. P. F. Temple and Juan Matías Sánchez when Temple failed to repay a loan that Sánchez used his land as security for, arranged their own lease with Standard on hundreds of acres of the hills.
By 1916, a test well was drilled on the Baldwin portion and came in successfully. The Temple lease was then drilled on and the first well came in there in late June 1917 with a gusher. The bonanza was on! Within a few years, leases were signed with area farmers and landowners by several companies and the Montebello oil field, centered on the hills and in the vicinity of Old Mission, was born.
Consequently, the 1920 federal censuses reflected an already-transformed community. When enumerator Isaac F. Baker came through in late January and early February, many of the longtime families or older members of them were deceased or had moved away. For example, Walter Temple, born in the neighborhood in 1869, used the proceeds from his immense stroke of luck and moved in 1917 to Monterey Park and then, later that year, to Alhambra.
One "old timer" who remained in Old Mission was Pedro Alvitre, son of Anastacio Alvitre and Eleuteria Verdugo, who lived long lives in the community and died during the 1910s. Pedro assumed ownership of his father's share in the Rancho Potrero Chico, living in a section at the northwestern portion of the rancho, west of today's Rosemead Boulevard and east of the Rio Hondo. His four sons, a daughter, and a nephew, Tony Bermudez, also resided with him on the farm, though there were attempts at finding oil on their land, as was the case with any property in the area.
The next family was that of the Salgados, whose head, Victoriano, a 50-year old native of Mexico, was listed as a farm laborer, perhaps assisting on the Alvitre farm. Victoriano lived with his California born wife, Nasario and their four sons and two daughters.
Interestingly, the next household was that of Elizabeth Barry, who owned the middle of three sections of the western portion of the Potrero Chico ranch, and she listed her occupatiuon as "farm, oil wells." Indeed, there were successful wells drilled on the Barry lease in the late 1910s. Elizabeth, who was a Bermudez, before her marriage to Irish native George Barry (who died in the 1890s), was 70 years old in 1920 and lived with two unmarried daughters. The adjacent household was that of her son, James, a 50-year old widower, who was shown as an "oil field laborer" and was living with three sons and a daughter, with the eldest son, age 15, working as a farm laborer.
Notably, the third landowner of the sections between the Barrys and Alvitres was Timoteo Repetto. He and his wife Maria were counted, but on two sheets earlier than that of his neighbors. Perhaps Baker visited the home out of order for some reason. He also indicated that the Repettos were renters, which was clearly not the case. Previous censuses and the 1930 count showed Timoteo as an owner of his own farm.
Another early family that still had some members residing at Misión Vieja in 1920 was the Manzanares clan. Specifically, there were the brothers Pedro and Inocente, whose brother Victor had been in the area in 1910, but moved to Monterey Park by the end of the decade. The two remaining in Old Mission were 51 and 48, respectively, and both single, working as farm laborers.
Next to them were step-siblings and the last of the long-standing families to still be in the neighborhood in 1920. These were brother and sister, Antonio and Dominga Duarte. They were the children of Maria Siriaca Valenzuela, whose father was one of the original grantees of Rancho Potrero Chico, and Francisco Duarte. After their father died, Siriaca married Cristobal Manzanares, the father of the Pedro and Inocente noted above. Antonio, like his step brothers, was also a farm laborer.
There were, however, many new residents of the general Old Mission community, most of whom were associated with the new and burgeoning oil industry. For example, after Walter Temple left the neighborhood in 1917, the old Basye Adobe became the headquarters of the Standard Oil Company for the Montebello oil field. Several dozen single men were listed on two sheets of the census as residents of "Boarding House Standard Oil Co." The great majority of the workers were in their 20s, which was natural given the rigorous physical (and dangerous) work involved in much of the oil industry. While a number of the employees housed at the boarding house were native Californians, most were from the Midwest, with a few from eastern or southern states. Five were from other countries, including England, Austria Denmark, Norway and Russia. Occupations included rotary drillers, tool dressers, derrick men, pumpers, gaugers, rig builders and roustabouts. These latter were general laborers, doing whatever work they were ordered to by the foreman, while tool dressers prepared the tools to be used in the drilling and operation of the well. Gaugers typically oversee the flow of crude in pipelines and into tanks. There were two other employees to point out from the Standard boarding house: cook Katherine DeMaine, who was listed as born "on sea American vessel", and baker Rose Kalics, an ethnic Bohemian from Vienna, Austria. These two were clearly essential to the maintenance of the workers trudging to and from the field every day!
Other oil workers in the general Misión Vieja community lived with families in separate housing often rented from the company or the lease owner. While some of these men could be workers like those listed above, they also included the supervisors or foremen, such as Standard's drill foreman Romane Richardson, a native of Pennsylvania (the birthplace of the American oil industry) and machinist foreman August Segelhorst, both of whom had families with children, or Columbia Oil company's lease foreman William M. Talbot, a New York native of Scottish parents, who lived with his wife, two daughters and two "wards," these latter being two sisters who might have been orphans taken in by Talbot and his wife.
In any case, the onset of the oil industry at Old Mission from about 1917 dramatically changed the community, a process that would continue through the next decade and beyond, though later developments were more about another use of the land, as will be seen in later posts.
Contribution by Paul R. Spitzzeri, Assistant Director, Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum, City of Industry.
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