Well No. 4, Pico Canyon Oil Field | |
 Well Number 4 in 1961, Pico Canyon Oil Field | |
    | |
| Nearest city | Newhall, California |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 34°22′10″N 118°37′49″W / 34.36944°N 118.63028°W |
| Area | 850 acres (340 ha) |
| Built | 1876 |
| NRHP reference No. | 66000212[1] |
| CHISL No. | 516[2] |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | November 13, 1966[1] |
| Designated NHL | November 13, 1966[3] |
Well No. 4, Pico Canyon Oilfield, located about seven miles (11 km) west of Newhall, California, in the Santa Susana Mountains, was the first commercially successful oil well in the Western United States[4][5][6][7] and is considered the birthplace of California's oil industry.[8] Drilled in 1876, it turned nearby Newhall into a boomtown and also spawned a smaller boomtown called Mentryville adjacent to the drilling site. Well No. 4 continued in operation for 114 years until it was capped in 1990. The site was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966, and the Mentryville ghost town is now open to the public as a historic park.
- ^ a b "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
- ^ "Well, CSO 4". Office of Historic Preservation, California State Parks. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
- ^ "Well No. 4, Pico Canyon Oil Field". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Retrieved November 18, 2007.
- ^ "Mentryville Path to Be Repaired". Daily News (Los Angeles). June 17, 2007. ("Mentryville was established in 1876 after workers drilled what became the first commercially successful oil well in the West.")
- ^ Judy Raphael (October 8, 1998). "Boomtown Bash: Tiny town of Mentryville, site of 1876 oil rush, will hold festival fund-raiser". Los Angeles Times. ("The well, known as Pico No. 4, was the first commercially successful oil well in the western U.S.")
- ^ Nicholas Grudin (August 3, 2003). "Ghosts of an Era: Mentryville Is a Monument to Both the Start and Decline of the Area's Oil Drilling Industry". Daily News (Los Angeles). ("Scofield formed California Star Oil Works, and with skilled oil man Alex Mentry, tapped the first commercial oil well in California - Pico No. 4.")
- ^ Jonathan Gaw (February 21, 1993). "Oil in a Day's Work The Boom May Be Over, but a Few Wells Pump On". Los Angeles Times. ("Oil men had been groping around the canyons of the area since 1876, when the first commercially successful oil well west of Pennsylvania was built several miles south of Lechler's ranch in Pico Canyon.")
- ^ Charles Hillinger (April 23, 1962). "Ghost Town Memento to Oil Field's Past: Only One Family Lives in Mentryville, Where the California Oil Industry Was Born". Los Angeles Times.