In light of the importance of oil and gas in California, perhaps the discovery of gold there should be viewed as just a flash in the pan. By 1938, the cumulative value of all the gold found in the state stood at something more than two billion dollars, while the cumulative value of the oil and gas produced was more than double that sum--well over five billion dollars. The story of California oil deserves to be told, and pictures tell it best. The more than three hundred photographs in this book vividly portray the development of California's rich and colorful petroleum industry from the early exploration of the mid-nineteenth century through the boom years of the first four decades of the twentieth. Although Indians and Spanish explorers had known of and used local oil seepages for centuries and the search for commercial production had begun on several fronts in the 1850s, the actual birth date of California's oil industry may be set as 1865, with the first commercial sale of oil refined in the state (by the Stanford brothers) from a well drilled in the state (on the Matthole River in Humboldt County). The fascinating text and the impressive array of photographs here assembled reveal the variety and vigor of the development that ensued: from the "world's smallest producing lease," on Signal Hill, to the derricks sharing Huntington Beach with the bathers, to the millions of mice infesting the Taft oil field in 1926-27; from the mounted patrols keeping livestock out of the Coalinga fields to the blinking light on a fence warning motorists of a well in the middle of a Los Angeles street. First among the states in oil production in eighteen of the first thirty years of the twentieth century, California experienced a boom of immense proportions and extraordinary diversity. These illustrations, along with contemporary descriptions by many of those who worked the fields and a wealth of detail provided by the authors, graphically portray the scenes and characters of California's second great mineral rush. An epilogue takes the boom up to the present, highlighting the shift in production to the offshore leases and the controversy surrounding them.

Paul Sabin offers a study of the oil market in California before World War II, showing how the development of an economy & society very heavily dependent upon oil production & consumption was largely directed by policy decisions regarding property rights, regulatory law & public investment.

The whole story of California1s oilfield and geothermal history is gathered into one volume. Begins in the 1860s, with pioneers mining and refining the asphaltum from tarry seeps. By 1876, the state had its first truly commercial oil well. Soon, many oil fields were being discovered and produced. Companies sought to capture as much oil as possible, as fast as they could. Events grew so chaotic that the petroleum industry itself sought regulation. Thus, on Aug. 9, 1915, the Calif. Dept. of Petroleum and Gas (now, the Div. of Oil and Gas) was formed. This book tells how the petroleum and geothermal industries and the Div. of Oil and Gas have developed together. Dozens of photos.

The history of petroleum in California deserves to be better known, for oil has been as surely the significant California mineral in the 20th century as the more glamorous gold was in its predecessor. In this coal-short state, oil has long fueled our industry, public utilities and transport. It has contributed to our agriculture by powering distillate-driven pumps for irrigation and in numerous other ways. Above all, through its most valuable refined product, gasoline, it has helped make the automobile our massively preferred form of personal transportation, affecting our patterns of population growth and, in recent years, making us acutely conscious of the hazards of air pollution. Spudding In can whet popular interest in oil history. Its handsome format, superb illustrations and easy reading make it fit for a coffee table, but it is by no means lacking in substance. The author, a longtime, respected oil journalist, has drawn heavily on taped interviews with thirty-five prominent oil figures of early in this century systematically gathered since 1963 by the Petroleum Production Pioneers of California and has supplemented this rich source with a variety of printed materials and his own wide knowledge.

Explaining—and solving—the oil curse in the developing world Countries that are rich in petroleum have less democracy, less economic stability, and more frequent civil wars than countries without oil. What explains this oil curse? And can it be fixed? In this groundbreaking analysis, Michael L. Ross looks at how developing nations are shaped by their mineral wealth—and how they can turn oil from a curse into a blessing. Ross traces the oil curse to the upheaval of the 1970s, when oil prices soared and governments across the developing world seized control of their countries' oil industries. Before nationalization, the oil-rich countries looked much like the rest of the world; today, they are 50 percent more likely to be ruled by autocrats—and twice as likely to descend into civil war—than countries without oil. The Oil Curse shows why oil wealth typically creates less economic growth than it should; why it produces jobs for men but not women; and why it creates more problems in poor states than in rich ones. It also warns that the global thirst for petroleum is causing companies to drill in increasingly poor nations, which could further spread the oil curse. This landmark book explains why good geology often leads to bad governance, and how this can be changed.