Torrey Canyon Oil Company properties in Ventura County, California photograph album, 1910

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Summary

Title:
Photograph album of Torrey Canyon Oil Company properties in Ventura County, California
Dates:
1910
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.
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Photograph album of Torrey Canyon Oil Company properties in Ventura County, California (Collection 94/51). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.

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

About this collection guide

Collection Guide Author:
Processed by Jane Carpenter with assistance from Simon Elliott; machine-readable finding aid created by Caroline Cubé.
Date Prepared:
© 2013
Date Encoded:
Machine-readable finding aid derived from MARC record, encoding added via Notetab Pro. Date of source: DATE . Supplementary encoding and revision by Caroline Cubé.

Access and use

Restrictions:

Open for research. STORED OFF-SITE AT SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact UCLA Library Special Collections for paging information.

Terms of access:

Property rights to the physical object belong to the UC Regents. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Photograph album of Torrey Canyon Oil Company properties in Ventura County, California (Collection 94/51). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.

Location of this collection:
A1713 Charles E. Young Research Library
Box 951575
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575, US
Contact:
(310) 825-4988
AskLSC@library.ucla.edu
Website