Photograph album of Torrey Canyon Oil Company properties in Ventura County, California, 1910
Collection context
Summary
- Creators:
- Arnold, Ralph, 1875-1961, photographer.
- Abstract:
- Album of ten large platinum photoprints (17 x 25 cm), by Ralph Arnold, of properties of the Torrey Canyon Oil Company in Ventura County.
- Extent:
- 1 album (10 photographic prints) : platinum photoprints, 24 x 29 cm (album)
- Language:
- Finding aid is written in English. and Materials are in English.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
The photographs, dated 1910, document the topography of the areas owned by the company in Eureka Canyon, Chaffee Canyon, Wiley Canyon, Santa Clara Valley, and near the Oak Ridge fault and Vaqueros and Sespe beds. Visible in some of the photographs are company oil wells, camps, and fuel tanks; other photographs show oil sands and seepages in various locations. Wiley Lake, at the head of Wiley Canyon, may have been a source of water for company operations. Torrey Canyon Oil Company, founded in 1889, merged with Hardison & Stewart Oil Company and Sespe Oil Company in 1890 to form Union Oil (Unocal).
- Biographical / historical:
-
Paleontologist and petroleum engineer. Ralph Arnold was born in Marshalltown, Iowa on April 14, 1875. The family moved to Pasadena in 1886, and Ralph continued his studies at the Polytechnic School there, and at Stanford University, where he earned degrees in geology, mining, and paleontology. As a researcher for the U.S. Geological Survey between 1900 and 1909, Arnold published widely on fossils and the geology of the Santa Cruz and Coalinga regions. In 1910, he began working for the petroleum industry as an engineer and consultant, and conducted numerous surveys of oil fields in the United States, Mexico, Alaska, and South America. He was also deeply engaged in wildcatting or exploratory drilling for not only oil, but many types of minerals as well.
- Physical location:
- Stored off-site at SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact UCLA Library Special Collections for paging information.
- Physical facet:
-
Photographs are mounted on rectos of leaves [2]-[11] of the 12-leaf album; typed paper labels for each photograph, identifying site, photographer, and date, are affixed to facing pages.
Bound in plain dark brown paper covers.
Spec. Coll. copy: in modern beige cloth clamshell box, with box label "Arnold. Torrey Canyon Oil Company." Gift of Luis E. Kemnitzer, former professor of geology at the California Institute of Technology.
- Rules or conventions:
- Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: a Content Standard
Access and use
- Location of this collection:
-
A1713 Charles E. Young Research LibraryBox 951575Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575, US
- Contact:
- (310) 825-4988