Refineries – The San Joaquin Valley in the late 1800s had several small refineries that distilled kerosene for lighting homes and work locations. All of these previous refineries are gone now, save one in the following valley to the south, at Newhall, where the brick ruins nonetheless stand of the outdated California Star Oil Works, which are proven in the photograph on the left.

The process of distilling kerosene from oil is very similar to making whiskey from corn mash. The oil is heated in a still, generally product of brick, until the kerosene component boils off as a gasoline, which is collected in a pipe at the top of the nonetheless, where it cools, and condenses out as liquid kerosene at the other finish of the pipe.

From the 1860s till the turn of the century when electric lights became commonplace, kerosene was the illuminant of alternative, being the low-price different to whale oil, and kerosene manufacture provided the principle market for rock oil. Thankfully for the oil business, when the U.S. made the switch from kerosene lamps to electric lights, the vehicle was making its debut, offering a market for gasoline, which up till that time had been a nugatory byproduct from the distillation of oil.

The Star Oil Company, one of the predecessors of the usual Oil Company of California (Chevron), deepened the Pico #four properly at Pico Canyon oil field in 1876, increasing production to 30 barrels of oil per day, which made the Pico #4 the first actually industrial well in California. This discovery resulted in the construction of a refinery to distill kerosene at Andrew Kazinski’s new stage stop in Newhall, which had been built next to the just-accomplished Southern Pacific railroad line running to Newhall from Los Angeles.

Two small stills, of 15-barrel and 20-barrel capacities, have been moved from an earlier refinery built by the Los Angeles Oil Firm in 1873 at close by Lyon’s Station stage cease, and to these have been added two new a hundred and twenty-barrel and a hundred and fifty-barrel stills. The Andrews Station Refinery distilled kerosene till 1888, when production was shifted to a a lot bigger refinery that Normal Oil built at Alameda on the San Francisco Bay. A photograph of the Andrews Station refinery as it seemed within the 1880s is proven below.

The Andrews Station Refinery, which the locals began calling the Pioneer Refinery, sat decaying till 1930 when Chevron did a serious restoration. A picture below that was published within the California Historical past Nugget journal in January, 1938 (vol. V, no. 4) reveals how the refinery looked after the restoration.

Chevron did another restoration (if we can call it that) in the 1950s, after they dismantled the two smaller stills, considered one of which was moved to a museum at their Richmond Refinery. In fact, they closed that museum many years in the past, which today leaves just the two bigger stills which are proven below.

Though it’s now owned by the city of Santa Clarita, The Pioneer Refinery is somewhat onerous to search out, as it’s in the course of an industrial lot. The map under exhibits where you’ll find it. Nonetheless, it is accessible solely throughout working hours, and it is totally enclosed by a fence. Supposedly, town has plans to revive it and make it a little bit extra accessible.

Though many people credit score the Pioneer Refinery as the first commerical refinery within the state, that’s probably not true. Among several earlier refineries, was a small one operated by the Buena Vista Vista Petroleum Firm from 1864 to 1867 in the San Joaquin Valley. It was situated close to the fashionable city of McKittrick, however the historical monument for it’s located on the northeast corner of the intersection of Lokern Road and Freeway 33, near the south edge of South Belridge subject.

The successor to the Buena Vista Refinery was the refinery for the Sunset Oil Firm that Hugh Blodgett and Solomon Jewett erected about 1889. The Sunset refinery was in operation by 1889 at a site a couple of mile southeast of fashionable Maricopa, they usually used open kettles to distill kerosene from asphalt. A number of shallow wells have been drilled to supply flux for heating the asphalt, and the primitive derricks for these early wells are ly evident in the two views below of the Jewett and Blodgett operations.

The discovery of Kern River Area close to Bakersfield in 1899 resulted in the start up of refineries in town, and several other refineries have been working in the San Joaquin Valley by the start of WWI. Nonetheless, the emphasis by then was refining gasoline for cars, not kerosene for lamp oil. Right this moment the massive refinery in Bakersfield is the Mohawk Refinery, shown below. that started in 1932, and has modified palms a number of occasions. There can be the old El Tejon refinery in Arvin (lowermost photograph) that began up in 1934 and is now operated by Kern Oil & Refining Company. Nevertheless, to most people it is thought simply as the Arvin Refinery.