Jump to content
 







Main menu
   


Navigation  



Main page
Contents
Current events
Random article
About Wikipedia
Contact us
Donate
 




Contribute  



Help
Learn to edit
Community portal
Recent changes
Upload file
 








Search  

































Create account

Log in
 









Create account
 Log in
 




Pages for logged out editors learn more  



Contributions
Talk
 



















Contents

   



(Top)
 


1 History  





2 Preservation  





3 Film and television productions  





4 California Historical Landmark Marker  





5 See also  





6 References  





7 External links  














Mentryville, California







Add links
 









Article
Talk
 

















Read
Edit
View history
 








Tools
   


Actions  



Read
Edit
View history
 




General  



What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Cite this page
Get shortened URL
Download QR code
Wikidata item
 




Print/export  



Download as PDF
Printable version
 




In other projects  



Wikimedia Commons
 
















Appearance
   

 





Coordinates: 34°2244N 118°3640W / 34.379°N 118.611°W / 34.379; -118.611
 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 

(Redirected from Mentryville)

Mentryville
C.A. Mentry House in 2008
C.A. Mentry House in 2008
Mentryville is located in Santa Clarita
Mentryville

Mentryville

Location in Santa Clarita Valley

Mentryville is located in California
Mentryville

Mentryville

Location in Los Angeles County, California

Coordinates: 34°22′44N 118°36′40W / 34.379°N 118.611°W / 34.379; -118.611
CountryUnited States
StateCalifornia
CountyLos Angeles
Elevation
1,609 ft (490 m)
Time zoneUTC-8 (PST)
 • Summer (DST)UTC-7 (PDT)
Area code661
Websitewww.scvhistory.com/mentryville/

California Historical Landmark

Reference no.516-2[1]

Mentryville was an oil drilling town in the Santa Susana MountainsinLos Angeles County, California, USA. It was started by Charles Alexander Mentry in the 1870s around the newly discovered oil reserves in that area. The first oil strike was on September 26, 1876. The town is located at the terminus of Pico Canyon Road, four miles west of the Lyons Avenue exit from I-5inSanta Clarita. It is currently a part of Stevenson Ranch.

History

[edit]
The town was named for Charles Alexander Mentry, the oil field superintendent from 1876 to 1900.

Charles Alexander Mentry was born in France on March 27, 1847. In November, 1873 moved to San Francisco with his father, Peter Mentry. He moved to San Bernardino County to work at the Holcomb Valley Gold Mining Company. He moved back to San Francisco in 1874 for one year as a stock broker. In 1875 move to Grapevine Canyon and worked for Los Angeles Oil Company, drilling an oil well. He then went to work with J.G. Baker and D.C. Scott the Pico Oil claim. Mentry died in 1900 in Newhall.[2] D. G. Scofield Mentry and financing oil well of the Pico Canyon Oilfield.[3][4] In 1875 Mentry partnered with Sanford Lyon, Henry Clay Wiley and Los Angeles lawman William Jenkins.[5]

"Pico Number 4", a short distance up the canyon from Mentryville, was the first commercially successful oil strike in California [1], and the longest running well on record [2], finally being capped in 1990. The Pico Canyon oil field proved to be the richest in the state's history to that time, and Mentryville became a boomtown from 1876 to 1900. The town was named after the superintendent who was in charge of the oil field, Charles Alexander Mentry. Mentry lived in the town until his death in 1900 and built the 13-room mansion that still stands there.[6][7] In 1900, the Los Angeles Times described Mentryville as "an ideal community of modest homes," where families were reared and a schoolhouse, social hall, bakery, boarding houses, bunkhouses, blacksmith shop and machine shop were built.[6][7] There was also a gas-lighted tennis court, croquet fields, and a main road paved with local asphalt.[8][9] One thing the town lacked was a bar. Mentry had reportedly "imbued the town with his puritanism as well as his name," prohibiting drinking and the use of foul language.[8] When Mentry died, the entire town of more than 200 people,[10][11] except for three individuals left behind in Mentryville, traveled to Los Angeles for his funeral, bringing with them a large floral arrangement in the shape of an oil derrick.[6]

Mentryville was eventually abandoned, partially because the amount of oil slowed over time, and partially because of changes to the oil industry. During the 1930s, most of Mentryville's remaining residents left, many tearing down their houses board by board and nail by nail, and taking it all with them.[11] By 1962, Mentryville had become a ghost town, with only a caretaker family living in Mentry's old 13-room house. A visitor to the camp that year reported that "rusted oil equipment cluttered the canyon," toppled derricks lay rotting, and the cemetery was "choked with weeds, hidden and forgotten."[10]

Preservation

[edit]
Felton Schoolhouse in 2008. The school was named in honor of Senator Charles N. Felton.

The last caretaker of Mentryville was Francis "Frenchy" Lagasse, who moved into the old Mentry mansion with his wife and children in 1966. The property's owner, Standard Oil of California, wanted to raze the remnants of the ghost town, but Lagasse persuaded the company to allow him to restore the town. With help from the Santa Clarita Historical Society, Lagasse eventually began offering tours of Mentryville.[11] Lagasse was forced to leave Mentryville after the 1994 Northridge earthquake damaged the house,[8] and in 1995, Chevron (which had become the owner upon its acquisition of Standard Oil of California in 1977) donated the Mentryville site and the surrounding 800 acres (3.2 km2) in Pico Canyon to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.[12] A group called the Friends of Mentryville was organized to restore the buildings and open the old town as a historic park with docent-led tours.[8]

The site is now registered as California Historical Landmark #516-2.[1]

A fire nearly destroyed Mentryville's historic structures in 2003, and a storm in 2004 washed out the visitors' parking lot and also flooded the historic buildings.[8]

Film and television productions

[edit]

Mentryville and Pico Canyon have become popular shooting locations. They were used in motion pictures, including Steven Spielberg's "The Color Purple" and "Walking Tall Part 2", and in television series, including "The X-Files", "The A-Team", "Murder, She Wrote", and "Highway to Heaven.".[8][11]

Mentryville is the subject of "Ghost Adventures" Season 26 Episode 5.

California Historical Landmark Marker

[edit]

California Historical Landmark Marker No. 516–2 at the site reads:

NO. 516-2 MENTRYVILLE – Named after pioneer oil developer Charles Alexander Mentry, who in 1876 drilled the first successful oil well in California. His restored home and barn and Felton School remain here where the Star Oil Company, one of the predecessors of Standard Oil of California, was born.[13]

Nearby is state marker 516 for Well, CSO 4, the marker reads:

NO. 516 WELL, CSO 4 (PICO 4) – On this site stands CSO-4 (Pico No. 4), California's first commercially productive well. It was spudded in early 1876 under direction of Demetrious G. Scofield who later became the first president of Standard Oil Company of California, and was completed at a depth of 300 feet on September 26, 1876, for an initial flow of 30 barrels of oil a day. Later that year, after the well was deepened to 600 feet with what was perhaps the first steam rig employed in oil well drilling in California, it produced at a rate of 150 barrels a day – it is still producing after 77 years (1953). The success of this well prompted formation of the Pacific Coast Oil Company, a predecessor of Standard Oil Company of California, and led to the construction of the state's first refinery nearby. It was not only the discovery well of the Newhall Field, but was a powerful stimulus to the subsequent development of the California petroleum industry.[14]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b "California Historic Landmarks – Los Angeles County". Office of Historical Preservation, California State Parks. Retrieved October 8, 2012.
  • ^ C.A. (Charles Alexander) Mentry. Pen Pictures From the Garden of the World: An Illustrated History of Los Angeles County, Calif. Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Co., 1889
  • ^ The Pioneer Refinery in the early 1880s
  • ^ Marker database First Commercial Oil Well In California, Pico #4
  • ^ Mr. & Mrs. Charles Alexander Mentry, Pico Canyon
  • ^ a b c "C.A. Mentry's Funeral: Remains of the Pioneer Oil Man Laid to Rest in Evergreen by His Masonic Brethren". Los Angeles Times. October 8, 1900.
  • ^ a b "Influential Career: Facts About the Life and Work of the Late Charles Alexander Mentry, a 'Self-Made Man'". Los Angeles Times. October 20, 1900.
  • ^ a b c d e f Cecilia Rasmussen (January 29, 2006). "L.A. Then and Now: After Oil Boomtown's Bust, Nature Added Its Blows". Los Angeles Times.
  • ^ Richard Kahlenberg (October 6, 2000). "Valley Life; jaunts; Back to the Boom; Mentryville Harvest Festival gives visitors the story of a once-prosperous oil town". Los Angeles Times.
  • ^ a b 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.
  • ^ a b c d Debra Sorrentino Larson (May 22, 1986). "Mentryville State Landmark a Ghost of Once-Bustling Oil Town". Los Angeles Times. ("During its heyday around the turn of the [20th] century, about 100 families lived in Mentryville. No precise figures exist on how many people lived there, but some families had up to a dozen children.")
  • ^ 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).
  • ^ "CHL # 516.2 Mentryville Los Angeles". www.californiahistoricallandmarks.com. Retrieved August 29, 2019.
  • ^ "CHL # 516 Well, CSO 4 Los Angeles". www.californiahistoricallandmarks.com. Retrieved August 29, 2019.
  • [edit]
    Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mentryville,_California&oldid=1225622815"

    Categories: 
    Ghost towns in California
    Parks in Los Angeles County, California
    Open-air museums in California
    Santa Susana Mountains
    Petroleum in California
    California Historical Landmarks
    Former settlements in Los Angeles County, California
    History of Los Angeles County, California
    History of the San Fernando Valley
    Oil fields in California
    Santa Clarita, California
    Populated places established in 1876
    1876 establishments in California
    Hidden categories: 
    Pages using gadget WikiMiniAtlas
    Articles with short description
    Short description is different from Wikidata
    Use mdy dates from July 2023
    Coordinates on Wikidata
    Commons category link is on Wikidata
     



    This page was last edited on 25 May 2024, at 17:26 (UTC).

    Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.



    Privacy policy

    About Wikipedia

    Disclaimers

    Contact Wikipedia

    Code of Conduct

    Developers

    Statistics

    Cookie statement

    Mobile view



    Wikimedia Foundation
    Powered by MediaWiki