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Oil
Company stated that the “Southern Belridge Field is entirely drilled up” and the “future production is estimated to be about 1,800,000 barrels”. The Belridge Oil Field's second life began in the 1930's when more powerful steel derricks and rotary drilling rigs were able to reach deeper into the field, and then again in the 1960's when steam injections allowed for the production of heavy oil.
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the United States. Land sold for as high as $ 5,000 an acre, which 15 months prior was purchased for $ 2.50 per acre. Many people thought I was making a mistake for not cashing in on my holdings, but I felt that money so easily made would likely go as quickly. My better judgement was to hang on to the land, and in doing so I am satisfied I made no mistake."
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a lamb, a heifer, geese, or hens. Money was a very scarce article in those days, especially after the Civil War was declared, less than a year after we came here. Twenty to thirty dollars a month were good wages for a man. Seventy-five cents to a dollar a week was a girl's wage. Buckwheat and cedar shingles were legal tender in those days."
321:, who boldly redecorated the Spanish-style mansion, painting the property’s classical statues, visible from the street, in flesh tones – genitalia and all. The garish painted statues turned the mansion into a tourist attraction until it was heavily damaged in a 1980 fire and torn down five years later.
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Describing the atmosphere of the Kern River strike, Whittier wrote "To those who have never experienced the excitement of an oil boom, it is hard to describe. Every room in every hotel and lodging house was taken and even tents were set up to take care of the overflow of people who came from all over
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Ruth Keech
Whittier wrote about the economic challenges of life in Caribou, Maine in the 1860's, "Wages for a day's work at sewing were twenty-five cents to sew from 8am till bedtime, board included. Sewing machines were unknown at that time. I often took my pay then in something to put on the farm -
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More than 25,000 wells have been drilled in the structure, giving
Belridge the closest well spacing of any field in the world, with vertical and horizontal wells as close as 11.5m. Through the use of new technology and ideas, over 700 new wells have been drilled and completed each year since 2005 in
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Using a wooden derrick and steam powered cable tool drilling, the
Belridge Oil Company Well No. 101 was begun on March 11, 1911. The driller’s log showed that the well penetrated 238m of clay, tar sand, oil sand, and shale. Production was decent, but after only eight years of development, Belridge
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Perhaps the most significant undertaking in Max
Whittier’s career was the formation of the Belridge Oil Company in 1911. The Belridge Oil Field was discovered by a friend of Whittier’s, who had come across an oil seep while traveling on horseback between Coalinga and Bakersfield. After visiting the
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As well as holding interests in those companies, Whittier was a large stockholder and director of Rodeo Land and Water
Company which held 3,100 acres in the areas of which would become Beverly Hills, as well as the Amalgamated Oil Company, Titicaca Oil Company, and the Inca Oil Company as well as
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By 1901, the Green & Whittier properties were producing several thousand barrels of oil a day. Such success however, did not guarantee a profitable market for independent producers like Green & Whittier. As production soared in the Kern River Oil field, prices paid by purchasing companies
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To control their own distribution and compete with the
Standard Oil Company, in 1906 the Associated Oil Company purchased a pipeline from Kern County to the coast at Monterey, and in 1907 constructed a 282 mile pipeline from the Kern River Oil Field to Port Costa, a small town on the eastern San
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In 1890, 23 years old and the owner of a new suit of clothes and $ 25 left for traveling expenses, Max
Whittier took the railroad west to Santa Paula, California where he got a job as a farm hand in the area's lemon orchards. In 1891, Whittier secured a job as a roughneck with the newly formed
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Belridge Oil
Company retained control of operations until 1979 when Shell Oil purchased the company along with most of the production rights on the South Belridge Field for $ 3.65 billion. At the time, the sale of Belridge Oil Company was the largest corporate acquisition in U.S. history.
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In the mid-19th century, the state of Maine was eager to encourage settlement of its northernmost county - Aroostook. State land in
Aroostook county was made available for $ 1.25 an acre, fifty cents in cash and the rest to be paid out in labor as the settlers were required to build new
213:, Whittier decided to gamble his entire life savings of $ 13,000 and bought up parcels of land along the Kern River. It was a gamble that certainly paid off. The Green & Whittier leases at Kern River proved to be among the most productive oil lands yet found in California.
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Peak daily production for the 24 km long by 5 km wide Belridge Oil Field was 186,000 barrels in 1986, and in 1995 the South Belridge field reached one billion barrels of cumulative oil production, the sixth field in California to do so and the 15th field in the nation.
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Removed from the congestion of the Los Angeles Oil Field, was a region to the north offering its own potential for oil, Kern County. In the spring of 1899, oil was discovered at a depth of 70 feet along the banks of the Kern River. Sensing the
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Francisco Bay. In 1910, Southern Pacific Railroads acquired a majority interest in the Associated Oil Company. In 1926, the Associated Oil Company and Tidewater Petroleum merged to become Tidewater Associated Oil Company.
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Press reference library: notables of the Southwest, being the portraits and biographies of progressive men of the Southwest, who have helped in the development and history making of this wonderful country, 1912, p.
245:, and Burton Green was elected to serve as its treasurer. By 1904 the Associated Oil Company was the largest crude oil producer in California, producing 4,000,000 barrels a year or 14% of total California output.
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Mericos Hector Whittier was born on March 11, 1867, to Charles G. Whittier and Ruth Keech, potato farmers in rural Aroostook County, Maine. During the Civil War, Charles G. Whittier had served in the
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several more interests in Oklahoma. He also acquired large areas of land in the Lost Hills districts helping organize the Belridge Oil Company, which held 31,000 acres in that district.
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in 1892, O'Donnell & Whittier Drilling Contractors moved south and offered their wildcatting drilling services to property owners who hoped to strike it rich in their own backyards.
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property, Whittier assembled a group of four other investors, including longtime partner Burton Green, and the group purchased the 33,000 acre property for $ 1,000,000.
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107:(1867–1925) was a pioneer in the early California oil industry and was instrumental in the development of 3 of California's billion barrel oil fields:
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Charles and Ruth Whittier were early immigrants to Aroostook, and they built a simple, one room log cabin in which they raised their seven children.
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In an attempt to maintain competitiveness, the owners of the five largest Kern River oil producers combined their holdings in 1901 and formed the
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and formed the Hardly Able Oil Company. Their one shallow well struck no oil, and as Whittier commented, left the two partners "badly bent".
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potential, Max Whittier traveled extensively over the area, setting up camps as he investigated potential oil lands. In partnership with
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The Whittier Mansion, on a 3.6-acre (15,000 m) plot on Sunset Boulevard, gained notoriety after its purchase in 1978 by
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By 2012 the field had produced over 1.6 barrels of oil, with an estimate of the 6 billion still in place.
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https://web.archive.org/web/20010417181749/http://www.bakersfield.com/special/oil100/s-belridge.asp
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https://www.newspapers.com/image/388294755/?terms=%22belridge%20oil%22&match=1
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like Standard Oil fell as quickly, dropping from $ 1.00 to $ .12 a barrel.
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https://www.searchanddiscovery.com/documents/2011/20110allan/ndx_allan.pdf
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348:"The Life and Times of Max Whittier | California Revealed"
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By 1903 Kern River was the top producing oil field in the
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and several others, Max Whittier developed the city of
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372:"Hanford Kings County Sentinel 21 Nov 1901, page 8"
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396:"The San Francisco Examiner 11 Aug 1906, page 3"
266:https://geoexpro.com/the-many-lives-of-belridge/
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140:20th Maine Infantry Regiment
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82:Donald, Leland, Paul, Helen
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553:People from Caribou, Maine
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558:Businesspeople from Maine
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98:C.F. Whittier (brother)
494:Whittier Trust Company
352:californiarevealed.org
303:Whittier Trust Company
238:Associated Oil Company
228:Associated Oil Company
207:Kern River Oil Field's
105:Mericos "Max" Whittier
20:Mericos "Max" Whittier
194:Los Angeles Oil Field
184:Los Angeles Oil Field
505:Los Angeles Examiner
309:The Whittier Mansion
255:Belridge Oil Company
200:Kern River Oil Field
148:Battle of Gettysburg
176:Thomas A. O'Donnell
74:Johanna E. Williams
319:Mohammed al Fassi
172:Union Oil Company
122:With his partner
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537:Categories
477:2023-12-20
453:2023-12-19
429:2023-12-19
405:2023-12-20
381:2023-12-19
357:2023-12-19
331:References
134:Early life
109:Kern River
61:Occupation
95:Relatives
87:Parent(s)
324:The Jerk
79:Children
65:Business
146:at the
317:Sheik
222:nation
165:Career
154:roads.
115:, and
71:Spouse
315:Saudi
188:When
53:Died
46:U.S.
35:Born
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
