I was recently in LA driving down La Cienega and my cousin pointed out the oil fields. I thought it was weird to have that in the middle of the city but put it in the back of my mind. Now I see oil is what built the city
I am old enough to recall orange groves interspersed with oil wells...the special scent of orange blossom, oleander, and oil...floating on the smog...is forever connected to my Angelino childhood.
All kidding aside... This is a very well edited and historic piece of research compiled and will remain completely relevant for obvious reasons... Well done!
I agree 100%. I paused it about half way through and realized this video is professional level quality as far as I'm concerned. 60 minutes could show this no problem, imo. Extremely well done my friend. Thank you.
No more drilling permits so be prepared for more natural tar balls on the shorelines. If you don’t relieve the pressure buildup, the oil will naturally continue to ooze out on the surface or under the water at a faster rate. Typical Newson idiocracy.
The other crazy thing about these oil wells is that they pump the oil miles through the streets to remote tank locations. As a young architect back in the 70’s I worked on a project in Long Beach where we had a hard time routing utilities in the street because the street was filled solid with oil lines.
Excellent mini doc, thank you! Was born Santa Monica 1950 to a surfing family in Malibu and remember as a kid the trips to surf south of LA still with those bizarre dystopian wells in operation. We left for Oahu 1963 and now that I'm 74 am fascinated by LA's history.
@@speedracerjeff No shit sherlock...keyword "former" Unless you have proof of someone that actually worked or has been inside of that building how can you say that it wasn't a fake building/decoy?
@@christinaleija1627 Sherlok never wrote that "it wasn't a fake building/decoy"; quite the opposite, he claims IT IS a fake building, not for oil but "a power/telephone cable line tower building, either Pacific Bell or AT&T" and he adds the exact location of another one. There is no room for doubt. Where do you see "keyword "former"" except in your post? The one who uses the grammatical past tense is only you. You should at least READ someone's post before you decide to mock and doubt one's knowledge. Please. You're wellcome.
You are wrong my friend. There's government public records that show active oil registered right at that location. Here is the address: 5733 W Pico Blvd , well finder link: www.conservation.ca.gov/calgem/Pages/WellFinder.aspx Further more all you have to do is type in the address on google maps and you can literally see them on google earth. The communication buildings you are talking about do exist, just google "the long lines".
They make them look like pine trees where I live. There is one on the side of the interstate that is a giant obelisk, like the one at the Washington Mall. Most of the ones that look like pine trees are way too tall, and don't really look anything like a tree. Some of them are pretty convincing tho.
The cell towers don't cause as much cancer or heart/lung disease in general, although it's possible that the traffic deaths from distracted driving might balance that out. That doesn't even cover the amount of people who die from depression when they notice how aesthitically horrifying those fake palm trees after being beaten by the smog and sun for 10 years and start to be REALLY noticeable.
because property values tend to drop whit industrial or technological eye sores. it's actually local ordinance to camouflage them in some places. there are cell towers everywhere around every geographic obstruction if not on top.
As a kid in the 60's , I remember going to Long Beach to swim and having tar all over my feet. I also remember some oil derricks painted and decorated to look like grasshoppers.
I grew up in the early 2000's and I remember seeing some decorated like grasshoppers too! Albeit a rarity. This was between Santa Maria and the San Fernando Valley.
Guess the new generations really need to learn some history. Like California used to be energy independent but now imports the majority of its oil and much of its electrical.
California (if not capped by exaggerated environmental regulations and policies) would still be energy independent. But nooo.. we elect affluent tree hugging hippies that prioritize sectors and climate hoax agendas that work against the state's economic sustainability and growth. So we now we have to import 75% of our energy use.And when slapped w/CA high taxes, we pay the price at the pump with most expensive fuel out of all 50 states. And if that wasnt counter intuitive and self sabotaging enough, now we are supposed to be driving only electrical cars by 2035 as a part of the advance clean cars regulation towards zero emissions. Welcome to California, the once upon a time dream golden state.
Alrighty buddy so ive come to the conclusion after watching this entire video, you need to do more interesting stories like this. I like your monotone voice, its soothing as your explaining what is going on. Idk man. I think you did GREAT!!!!!! ❤❤❤❤❤❤
I used to date a girl in LA who lived next door to property with an oil derrick on it. You can hear them at night when you're trying to sleep. At first it's creepy and alien sounding but eventually it becomes a rhythmic white noise
crazy to imagine! some of the pictures in this video had me jaw dropped to think that LA looked like that. I wonder if in the future they will be a problem for the city. I didnt think they were so so many like this. Wild
@jesseoro9263 - I saw one picture from those days that had a fire hydrant that sat on it's water supply pipe ... about 10 feet off the ground. Apparently, so much oil was pumped out in that area that the ground subsided about 10 feet. I don't remember where I saw the picture (years later). The picture was part of a newspaper article from that time, but I saw the picture (and the newspaper article) years later reproduced somewhere else. Don't remember where.
@garyhoward2490 You might like a comment I just posted, about living in not-so-far U.S. history. I see you're my generation: world changes so quickly all the time, doesn't it. I've seen several major changes during my life, apart from one extremely destructive war, bc I'm in Croatia. My grandparents who raised me had a childhood in Austro-Hungarian monarchy. I know several grandmothers who remember growing up without electricity, in houses they built themselves, as well as furniture and all useful things, sowing flax and hemp, and they can describe in detail the complicated process of making fabric and dyeing clothes. Also they remember the last few horned women. "But not every day as horns used to be worn, they were putting horns on only on Sundays for the Holy Mass." So much for the Catholicism.
I particularly like the part about Doheny. in a previous biography, it just said that he tried making a living as a sign painter and was basically broke when he arrived with this family in SoCal. The story went on to say he then discovered oil and so made his fortune. They totally glanced over how a guy with not a dime to his name was able to claim a site, get the equipment, and pay his helpers until he managed to sell the first barrel of oil that came out of the ground. Thanks for filling in that gaping hole.
In the 70's, my family would visit my paternal grandmother in Long Beach. The windows always had to be rolled up due to the petrol smell from the oil fields. The seemingly endless oil rigs became what I associated most with the city. But, though having grown up in Los Angeles, I was ignorant of the fake buildings concealing oil rigs. L.A. history still has many surprises for those who've delved into it and/or live there.
Dude, seriously thank you. I'm 27 I've lived on Pico most of my life and I i always thought that it was like an office building something of that sort. But its a fake building for an oil rig?!? That's so cool! Never would've known.
1. you are 27 old baby, what LIFE are you talking about? MOST OF MY LIFE sounds so cringe. 2. yeah, it is cool to be lied to for all your life. please give us more!
@@erikERXON Huh??? The place I used to live got sold from under us and we had to move. I was about 19 years old, so yeah most of my life. Cringe I like being lied to, too. Especially when it's a semi-cool lie.
I literally grew up in Mid-City LA where the building on the thumbnail can be found on Pico/Spaulding and I passed that build multiple times everyday of my life for 20+ years stopping to even skateboard there a few times as a child until moving to MDR/Playa Vista, home of Howard Hughes runway/hangars and still do to this day from time to time. But I absolutely never knew of its true nature. I always thought it to be a DWP building. Thank you for the info and shedding light on it and some history of LA. Great video!
when you watch the drill rig operation at 06:30, you have to realize that it is no different at all from the way a drill rig is operated today. In fact, you could take a guy from back then, eighty years ago or so, and, with maybe an hour's worth of training, put him to work on a rig today, and he'd fit right in with the crew. The work is still exactly the same, a dirty mess.
I live in a still very oil rich part of the state, for both local economy and even national production. The mention of Tower of “Hope” in the video brings back memories of my dad working in the platforms Heidi, Holly, and Hope off the Santa Barbara coast mid 60s through mid 80s.
Years ago I worked on the THUMS Islands. The letters that make up the name stand for different oil company's. Texaco ,Humble, Union, Mobil and Shell. Humble is now Exon. Just down the coast in Huntington Beach ,CA. They had their share of oil wells back in the early 20th century.
I grew up in LA and I remember some oil rigs but we moved to Huntington Beach when I was in HS. There were oil rigs all along the beach from Beach Blvd to Magnolia. I kept my horse out at what is now central park equestrian center, back then it was just a couple stables surrounded by oil rigs.
THUMS will be part of the LA28 Olympics, Islands now named after NASA astronauts who died in capsule fire: White, Chaffey, and Grissom. Huell Howser did an episode of their history. I see them everyday.
Wow! Well done video! I lived in LA since the early 70s, and I remember as a little boy seeing more oil wells all around Los Angeles. People think Beverly Hills was just glitz and glamor, big mansions, movie stars, and palm trees, etc. But people and tourists don't know it was full of oil wells back in the day. I lived near the Doheny oil well on Olympic blvd. Only a few blocks away and we knew what it was as a little kids. And oil goes under many houses in B.H. so people own the mineral rights and get a check every few months for drilling under their houses. My parents sold their house but kept the mineral rights when we moved in the 80's. So I still get a check every few months from the oil company, which is less than $200.00 at times, which means the well is not going last long in the decades to come. Thanks again for the video, and keep the good work!
Also there was a big scandal involving E.L. Doheny back in the 1930s. It's still hushed up to this day, but apparently he shot his butler and then himself.
San Diego here and we also have fake buildings. My uncle who used to work for SDGE power, knows where all the secret sub stations are and your be surprised as well about how low key they look. RIGHT in the middle of the residential neighborhoods. With one looking like an old gothic church in downtown behind King Amon pour bails bonds building, another in north park just off the 805 freeway and El cajon Blvd exit looking like a beautiful old Balboa Park building, and another nearby looking 1939s art deco, Egyptian looking lol. They did this on purpose so that they would blend in and not look "unsightly". Great video though! ; )
At 1:40 into the video where you circled locations for old well are. One of the places was Wilmington. Back in the mid 80's for a couple years we had a shop in Wilmington and on our property was an oil well. We had to have a second lock on our gate that the oil company had a key for in case they needed to enter when we weren't there.
if you listen to it, it's silent, right? that's because it's a gas turbine generator, it only switches on to augment the grid during peak power draw. When on, you will see heat haze from the exhausts at the top. Notice the high voltage lines running adjacent the buildings... those aren't oil pipelines, they connect the generator to the local grid.
Oil field, i worked there and the one behind the beverly center and Inglewood oil fields and EVEN the Montebello fields before they sold them out. Its a NASTY place.
Wait, there’s one behind the Beverly center? I lived right on Wilshire and Fairfax for a time and drove by the Beverly Center daily. Never noticed that one!
@@khj8716 Yes sir, That industrial dirt with chemicals that will kill you in due time, I SAW THE SHIT they pumped in the ground i would NEVER live there.
I'm shocked that people did not already know that! That is old news. Out off of Long Beach or one of the nearby beaches, the artificial islands with the towers. Even Beverly Hills High School is sitting on top of an oil field. That is the problem, people for decades have wanted these wills closed and plugged. As the people up in Porter Ranch about natural gas storage under their community and how well that worked.
Is this why CA has the cancer warnings on certain items sold in CA? At one time they wanted to put it on every water tap to avoid liability? What a mess.
No. Prop 65 is just to absolve any company of legal consequences in the event someone claims a random cancer diagnosis due to their product. It's precautionary and mandatory for every consumer product so no one can say they weren't warned with actual and questionable cancer causing carcinogens, but, doesn't mean something with the label will give you cancer either. It also prevents corporate disinformation about product safety. It's probably more to do with the Cellphone radiation hoax years ago than anything. Microwave Radiation isn't even the same as cancer causing Ionizing or UV Radiations. It's about as radioactive as a static charge because, that's what it is. The reason why it's advised nothing metal goes into the Microwave. It's Electromagnetic Radiation. It's also as radioactive as an old-school light bulb too. That's what happens when California schools suck.
I appreciate your efforts and research. However, it isn’t a conspiracy. We need oil. The technology for alternative power just isn’t there yet. These are aesthetic decisions more than attempts to hide oil extraction.
"The technology for alternative power just isnt there yet" ... was a intellectual statement perhaps in 1924... Today people who make such inconsiderate statements are either low IQ ... or bribed or associated with bribery from agencies like CIA FBI and other clandestine agencies we dont know about that confiscate any inventions by lethal force if needed using threat to national security as reason for their actions. Add to the fact that the ones who hold the power of gatekeeping advanced technology know that the slave as a human being will still always learn evolve and enhance their awareness when given the proper environment so to maintain a slave population there must come a planned time when all must be destroyed so nothing remains to be learned from. Still nature provides ways to record preserve information so in that regard its always a effort that must be done by destroying sacred sites, blocking access to sites, limiting ones perception with false education and distractions like war or pop culture scandals. So its actually very coward of you to say with entitlement that we can only sustain our current modern civilization of electricity plumbing transportation construction and aggriculture only on oil.
Yeah I'm not.sure what's up with all the dishonesty these days...ppl understand these things...but yet they try and hide so much kinda like China does ...it's odd 🤔🤔🤔🤔
The toxic fumes emitted by these active and orphan wells have been killing LA residents for generations. The well on Beverly Hills HS was ordered closed after 100s of former students all got the same kinds of blood cancers. The importance of “energy demand” cannot outweigh the importance of avoiding human suffering and death.
I discovered a building in Manhattan many years ago. People walked by this building everyday. One day I realized all the windows were fake/painted. Right of times Square. I showed many.
Pouching off others videos bro, go back home and stop trying to fake your uniqueness to pay your rent here while you gentrifying neighborhoods that belong to native angelenos.
It’s more of a problem that people live there in this oil field than the oil field and drilling equipment being there. People shouldn’t live there. People don’t live on superfund abandoned mining sites and tailings, neither should they live in LA
Great job producing this video. Very informative. I especially enjoyed the work you put into your research, and ahowing the vintahe photography. Excellent work to be sure.
Un...Be...lievable! I had no idea Cali oil was on this level. I knew Cali was oil-centric, but never looked into how big the industry was, until watching this video. Now I know why they call Cali the 5th largest economy in the world. One of the largest oil producers in the world. Hiding in plain site for me to even see this fact, just like those buildings. At the beginning, the buildings you showed looked like COs, or telecom Central Offices. This is where they divvy out the telephone and Internet lines to residential and commercial buildings and dwellings. I had no idea oil was this big. Excellent work on the footage, music and editing. One of the most informational and best home made videos I have seen in a long time.
That’s what took so long to build that School On Temple & Beudry (Edward Roybal) and that park (Vista Hermosa) too. It was supposed to be built in the late 1990’s but didn’t get built until like the mid 2000’s.
A guy named Arthur Gilmore bought a parcel of land in the 1870s that contained the tar pits. He later found oil near the site of the old Farmers' Market at 3rd and Fairfax and started his own company.
Woah. Theres a gilmore bank at the farmers market. Must be the same guy. Small bank and only one location. My mom has been with them forever. @@zendonreyland1298
Vanowen in White Oak there's a fake building it's a power distribution plant. There's also another one I believe in Hayvenhurst and Devonshire. I know about the oil wells as well surprised you don't know about the power distribution stations😮
There still remains a huge lake of oil under LA. I grew up there. When I was a kid there were oil wells everywhere, the beach just a few hundred feet south of Playa del Rey beach there were wells scattered across the sand. At some point, they started disguising them by building structures around them. On Venice Beach, they built a fake lighthouse around one of them. There are many hidden ones to this day!
The classic use of this technique is the THUMS Islands. A set of four artificial islands in San Pedro Bay off the coast of Long Beach, California. The THUMS Islands were built in 1965 to tap into the East Wilmington Oil Field. The landscaping and sound walls were designed to camouflage the operation and reduce noise.
In about 1990 I worked in a London office on a study to repressurise a region of the SE Torrance oilfield that had been originally developed in the 1930s. There were stories of old telegraph poles popping up through the floors of residential houses that had been built over abandoned wells. The wells were plugged by shoving a telegraph pole down the well casing. In some areas where the reservoir was already being repressurised this caused the old wells to blowout..
Thank you for this video. I’m born and raised in L.an and never truly dived into the rich oil history of my city! I guess it’s safe to say most of us are here because of Mr. Edward Doheny! 😁
Wow. What an epic history lesson 🙌🏼 My Family had a cattle ranch in the L.A. Basin, 1800’s until the late 1970’s. Everyone got cancer - GG, Grandparents, parents, children…
I really enjoyed the video, but it drives me a bit insane when people use LA County and City of Los Angeles interchangeably (though it seems you realized this when you got to Long Beach). Also the website you gave just leads to a domain seller lol
A lot of these are called water jackets. They pump water out of the ground and that’s what people get confused with between pumping water and pumping oil. If you come down the 14 freeway you will find that you have probably eight different pumps of pump water.
Watching from the State of Rhode Island-I've never been to California-much less L.A.-& just found this doc. randomly-but-wow-I had-no idea-great job bro-just another reminder of all this stuff that went on-long before the world that we know-not to mention-very creepy to realize the extent to which the environment was contaminated by all the petro-chemical crap that resulted. 😳
Great video. Having grown up in the Santa Cruz Ca area [ born in 1971 ] and only ever visiting So Cal on yearly vacations, I had no idea oil was ever a thing down there.
Just subbed, you deserve more than 1.6 k subscribers! GREAT production value in this video, will definitely be watching more of your work. Also, my maternal side of my family is Orr, maybe we're related?!?
i know the focus is on la and the immediate metro area but oil pumps can still be found at least 30 miles inland/east of dtla and some of them are still working! its crazy
Yep I've been down there too on both of the ones you've highlighted in your video. they are quite the hollywood prop. on the one that you most highlighted there's about 30 to 50 deep Wells that run about 6,000 ft allnworking the same oil vein. I know this because I used to work for a company who who used air shots to determine where the oil levels were at in each well head to more accurately pump down that shaft without compromising its deep positioned pump. Each well headis approximately 6 to 10 ft apart from each other all running in a low light kind of submarine underground. When we were down there testing we were the only ones with most of all the activity being above ground at the open area behind the infrastructure all the drill piping and all the different things that are used to maintain these Wells it's very eerie to park right there on the street and then go inside a door and then down a flight of stairs and to see a long row of working oil wells. Hey oil is our life blood with all of ots baggage, they're still producing quite well and instead of shutting them down they just built a facade over them I will say though that they are highly secure systems you can't just walk in and get to where I got without security checks. Nice undercover work though you'd have to be an oil worker or associated with something to do with the oil business to know that they are there, That there are hundreds perhaps thousands of people in Los Angeles that know about this if they work in the oil trade.
There are also buildings in every city that contain infrastructure of many types that look like these. They contain everything from gas and water pumps to telecommunications infrastructure to stuff I have no idea about. Most are nobody's business and non-descript, but they are interesting.
@@MrshoujoLOL! You failed, your grade is 50, Mrs Spelling Nazi. It's PHASING not phaZing. LOL 🤡 This screenshot is going on "People Incorrectly Correcting Others". 😂
@@Mrshoujo@Mrshoujo LOL! You failed, your grade is 50, Mr/Mrs Spelling Nazi. It's PHASING not phaZing. LOL 🤡 This screenshot is going on "People Incorrectly Correcting Others". 😂
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I was recently in LA driving down La Cienega and my cousin pointed out the oil fields. I thought it was weird to have that in the middle of the city but put it in the back of my mind. Now I see oil is what built the city
@@omostim2385 Kenneth Hanh Park was another big drilling spot. There are still visible working oil derricks pumping to this day there.
We used to have to drive through thousands of old wood rigs, from back in the day when they built new locations for every hole.
I was born and raised on Adams and St Andrew's...Oil Field right next Door...
yeah i was shocked when i saw those to
That's why this government wanted from 🇲🇽 n got it.
I am old enough to recall orange groves interspersed with oil wells...the special scent of orange blossom, oleander, and oil...floating on the smog...is forever connected to my Angelino childhood.
Yes! This!
Me too!
All kidding aside... This is a very well edited and historic piece of research compiled and will remain completely relevant for obvious reasons... Well done!
thank you!
I agree 100%. I paused it about half way through and realized this video is professional level quality as far as I'm concerned. 60 minutes could show this no problem, imo.
Extremely well done my friend. Thank you.
@@GarthWatkins-th3jt60 Minutes couldn’t air this as its not fake, theres too much valid history in it.
No more drilling permits so be prepared for more natural tar balls on the shorelines. If you don’t relieve the pressure buildup, the oil will naturally continue to ooze out on the surface or under the water at a faster rate. Typical Newson idiocracy.
What? Sound "dampered". He's jo king!!
The other crazy thing about these oil wells is that they pump the oil miles through the streets to remote tank locations. As a young architect back in the 70’s I worked on a project in Long Beach where we had a hard time routing utilities in the street because the street was filled solid with oil lines.
Wow, interesting point.
Excellent mini doc, thank you! Was born Santa Monica 1950 to a surfing family in Malibu and remember as a kid the trips to surf south of LA still with those bizarre dystopian wells in operation. We left for Oahu 1963 and now that I'm 74 am fascinated by LA's history.
My step father grew up with these oil wells. It adversely affected his health later in life.
@@speedracerjeff
No shit sherlock...keyword "former"
Unless you have proof of someone that actually worked or has been inside of that building how can you say that it wasn't a fake building/decoy?
@@christinaleija1627 Sherlok never wrote that "it wasn't a fake building/decoy"; quite the opposite, he claims IT IS a fake building, not for oil but "a power/telephone cable line tower building, either Pacific Bell or AT&T" and he adds the exact location of another one. There is no room for doubt.
Where do you see "keyword "former"" except in your post? The one who uses the grammatical past tense is only you.
You should at least READ someone's post before you decide to mock and doubt one's knowledge. Please.
You're wellcome.
So Many will be mind-blown by this expose ! It is small wonder why S.Calif. Is so Tremulous !!
You are wrong my friend. There's government public records that show active oil registered right at that location. Here is the address: 5733 W Pico Blvd , well finder link: www.conservation.ca.gov/calgem/Pages/WellFinder.aspx
Further more all you have to do is type in the address on google maps and you can literally see them on google earth. The communication buildings you are talking about do exist, just google "the long lines".
Cell towers are disguised as palm trees 🏝
Yup, I've seen them in Henderson, Nevada.
They make them look like pine trees where I live. There is one on the side of the interstate that is a giant obelisk, like the one at the Washington Mall.
Most of the ones that look like pine trees are way too tall, and don't really look anything like a tree. Some of them are pretty convincing tho.
The cell towers don't cause as much cancer or heart/lung disease in general, although it's possible that the traffic deaths from distracted driving might balance that out. That doesn't even cover the amount of people who die from depression when they notice how aesthitically horrifying those fake palm trees after being beaten by the smog and sun for 10 years and start to be REALLY noticeable.
because property values tend to drop whit industrial or technological eye sores. it's actually local ordinance to camouflage them in some places. there are cell towers everywhere around every geographic obstruction if not on top.
@@letsdothis9063In Arizona Cell Phone Towers are Disguised as Saguaro Cactus 🌵.
😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍
As a kid in the 60's , I remember going to Long Beach to swim and having tar all over my feet. I also remember some oil derricks painted and decorated to look like grasshoppers.
Now you have to worry about raw sewage.
Cute !
I grew up in the early 2000's and I remember seeing some decorated like grasshoppers too! Albeit a rarity. This was between Santa Maria and the San Fernando Valley.
And they were everywhere in So Cal back then. Explains where they went.
When I would walk on the beach in Manhattan Beach, I'd also get tar on my feet.
Guess the new generations really need to learn some history. Like California used to be energy independent but now imports the majority of its oil and much of its electrical.
California (if not capped by exaggerated environmental regulations and policies) would still be energy independent. But nooo.. we elect affluent tree hugging hippies that prioritize sectors and climate hoax agendas that work against the state's economic sustainability and growth. So we now we have to import 75% of our energy use.And when slapped w/CA high taxes, we pay the price at the pump with most expensive fuel out of all 50 states. And if that wasnt counter intuitive and self sabotaging enough, now we are supposed to be driving only electrical cars by 2035 as a part of the advance clean cars regulation towards zero emissions. Welcome to California, the once upon a time dream golden state.
Where do they import the energy from?
@@renevallejo1014 Overseas, which is even crazier. They don't have a direct pipeline from Texas, for some ungodly reason
@@AlvaBarr Climate change isn’t a hoax, you dunce
@@AlvaBarr California imports roughly 30% (where the hell did you get 75%?😂) but that has drastically dropped in the last 2 years - keep crying
Alrighty buddy so ive come to the conclusion after watching this entire video, you need to do more interesting stories like this. I like your monotone voice, its soothing as your explaining what is going on. Idk man. I think you did GREAT!!!!!! ❤❤❤❤❤❤
I used to date a girl in LA who lived next door to property with an oil derrick on it. You can hear them at night when you're trying to sleep. At first it's creepy and alien sounding but eventually it becomes a rhythmic white noise
Her parents told her that's what the rhythmic thumping sound was, but how did explain away the moaning?
@@tommytwotacos8106. 😂😂😂
Maybe it was her Dad smacking the pony cause he didnt get none that night. Pop! Pop!
@@lovejumanji5 - Just like in Police Academy... "OH EUGENE" ha ha ha ha
In 2011 I lived on Signal Hill with a cricket pump not more than 50 yards from my bedroom. Never heard it, the new tech makes the silent.
When I was a child in the early 50s, I clearly remember a Los Angeles that was swamped with oil derricks.
what's ur problem with oily derricks, i know a few of them and they chill asf
@@thememoriesof4892 - I guess you don't understand English.
crazy to imagine! some of the pictures in this video had me jaw dropped to think that LA looked like that. I wonder if in the future they will be a problem for the city. I didnt think they were so so many like this. Wild
@jesseoro9263 - I saw one picture from those days that had a fire hydrant that sat on it's water supply pipe ... about 10 feet off the ground. Apparently, so much oil was pumped out in that area that the ground subsided about 10 feet. I don't remember where I saw the picture (years later). The picture was part of a newspaper article from that time, but I saw the picture (and the newspaper article) years later reproduced somewhere else. Don't remember where.
In the movie Double Indemnity, Barbara Stanwyck's rich husband is an oil man, their awesome Spanish home was filmed at 6301 Quebec Dr. in Hollywood
Yeah. When I was a kid in the 50s 60s, there were wells all over LA.
@garyhoward2490 You might like a comment I just posted, about living in not-so-far U.S. history.
I see you're my generation: world changes so quickly all the time, doesn't it. I've seen several major changes during my life, apart from one extremely destructive war, bc I'm in Croatia. My grandparents who raised me had a childhood in Austro-Hungarian monarchy. I know several grandmothers who remember growing up without electricity, in houses they built themselves, as well as furniture and all useful things, sowing flax and hemp, and they can describe in detail the complicated process of making fabric and dyeing clothes. Also they remember the last few horned women. "But not every day as horns used to be worn, they were putting horns on only on Sundays for the Holy Mass." So much for the Catholicism.
Another piece of evidence that we live in a world of illusions. Great documentary! ❤
LA native here, knew about the fake buildings but not the orphaned wells and why that has happened. Very nice work on this documentary!
thanks!
In the 70s we were driving down coast highway and my 3 yr old son saw that island. He yelled out, "Look Mom! There's Hawaii!!!"
Classic!! 😂
This is a professional documentary.
I particularly like the part about Doheny. in a previous biography, it just said that he tried making a living as a sign painter and was basically broke when he arrived with this family in SoCal. The story went on to say he then discovered oil and so made his fortune.
They totally glanced over how a guy with not a dime to his name was able to claim a site, get the equipment, and pay his helpers until he managed to sell the first barrel of oil that came out of the ground. Thanks for filling in that gaping hole.
theyre kickin out in doheny too
In the 70's, my family would visit my paternal grandmother in Long Beach. The windows always had to be rolled up due to the petrol smell from the oil fields. The seemingly endless oil rigs became what I associated most with the city. But, though having grown up in Los Angeles, I was ignorant of the fake buildings concealing oil rigs. L.A. history still has many surprises for those who've delved into it and/or live there.
Newport Beach was also another oil well hotbed.
Look at old photos of Signal Hill taken before the Depression... it was nothing but oil derricks.
yes it was
Huntington Beach has some also.
Dude, seriously thank you. I'm 27 I've lived on Pico most of my life and I i always thought that it was like an office building something of that sort. But its a fake building for an oil rig?!? That's so cool! Never would've known.
Yes i drove past it for years and had no idea as well. Thanks for watching!
1. you are 27 old baby, what LIFE are you talking about? MOST OF MY LIFE sounds so cringe. 2. yeah, it is cool to be lied to for all your life. please give us more!
@@erikERXON Huh??? The place I used to live got sold from under us and we had to move. I was about 19 years old, so yeah most of my life. Cringe
I like being lied to, too. Especially when it's a semi-cool lie.
@@erikERXONCringe? U aren’t even 27 yet
@@erikERXONAt least James appears to have a life, unlike yourself
I literally grew up in Mid-City LA where the building on the thumbnail can be found on Pico/Spaulding and I passed that build multiple times everyday of my life for 20+ years stopping to even skateboard there a few times as a child until moving to MDR/Playa Vista, home of Howard Hughes runway/hangars and still do to this day from time to time. But I absolutely never knew of its true nature. I always thought it to be a DWP building. Thank you for the info and shedding light on it and some history of LA. Great video!
Just passed that building right now 08/13/24…. And all I could think while I stared at it was, you deceptive motha fucka. My childhood was a lie.
when you watch the drill rig operation at 06:30, you have to realize that it is no different at all from the way a drill rig is operated today. In fact, you could take a guy from back then, eighty years ago or so, and, with maybe an hour's worth of training, put him to work on a rig today, and he'd fit right in with the crew.
The work is still exactly the same, a dirty mess.
I live in a still very oil rich part of the state, for both local economy and even national production. The mention of Tower of “Hope” in the video brings back memories of my dad working in the platforms Heidi, Holly, and Hope off the Santa Barbara coast mid 60s through mid 80s.
Oil wells! People think I'm crazy when i tell them that.. LOL
Great video. Great info
LA & SoCal has do it for years... 🛢
People are stupid
lol
People are stupid tho
A Big Thank You for informing Many for what we Never Knew !!
Years ago I worked on the THUMS Islands. The letters that make up the name stand for different oil company's. Texaco ,Humble, Union, Mobil and Shell. Humble is now Exon. Just down the coast in Huntington Beach ,CA. They had their share of oil wells back in the early 20th century.
I grew up in LA and I remember some oil rigs but we moved to Huntington Beach when I was in HS. There were oil rigs all along the beach from Beach Blvd to Magnolia. I kept my horse out at what is now central park equestrian center, back then it was just a couple stables surrounded by oil rigs.
THUMS will be part of the LA28 Olympics, Islands now named after NASA astronauts who died in capsule fire: White, Chaffey, and Grissom. Huell Howser did an episode of their history. I see them everyday.
Wow! Well done video! I lived in LA since the early 70s, and I remember as a little boy seeing more oil wells all around Los Angeles.
People think Beverly Hills was just glitz and glamor, big mansions, movie stars, and palm trees, etc. But people and tourists don't know it was full of oil wells back in the day. I lived near the Doheny oil well on Olympic blvd. Only a few blocks away and we knew what it was as a little kids.
And oil goes under many houses in B.H. so people own the mineral rights and get a check every few months for drilling under their houses. My parents sold their house but kept the mineral rights when we moved in the 80's. So I still get a check every few months from the oil company, which is less than $200.00 at times, which means the well is not going last long in the decades to come. Thanks again for the video, and keep the good work!
Beverly Hillbillies
If you stop pumping a oil well fkr a couple years they fill back up again
Also there was a big scandal involving E.L. Doheny back in the 1930s. It's still hushed up to this day, but apparently he shot his butler and then himself.
San Diego here and we also have fake buildings. My uncle who used to work for SDGE power, knows where all the secret sub stations are and your be surprised as well about how low key they look. RIGHT in the middle of the residential neighborhoods. With one looking like an old gothic church in downtown behind King Amon pour bails bonds building, another in north park just off the 805 freeway and El cajon Blvd exit looking like a beautiful old Balboa Park building, and another nearby looking 1939s art deco, Egyptian looking lol.
They did this on purpose so that they would blend in and not look "unsightly".
Great video though! ; )
Any relations to Christine Ananpour from BBC news channel?
@@PattyWilliams-bg4ec I have no idea.
What is most shocking is that there are over 5,000 abandoned oil rigs in CA that are leaking methane gas due to not being sealed properly.
And the California legislature wants to get rid of gas stoves 🤣
And count cow farts and tax ranchers
Reminds me of those odd looking cell phone towers disguised as street lights and fake trees
Good job producing. With fracking those limited drills are probably killing it! Explore Ventura oil fields history “shell”.
Thanks Chris. Oil wells regenerate over time. The wells are not empty. Travel to Norway and see how rich they are due to current oil production.
I've been in LA all my life and never knew this. Wonderful video. Thank you.
Thanks! Happy you enjoyed it.
At 1:40 into the video where you circled locations for old well are. One of the places was Wilmington. Back in the mid 80's for a couple years we had a shop in Wilmington and on our property was an oil well. We had to have a second lock on our gate that the oil company had a key for in case they needed to enter when we weren't there.
if you listen to it, it's silent, right? that's because it's a gas turbine generator, it only switches on to augment the grid during peak power draw. When on, you will see heat haze from the exhausts at the top. Notice the high voltage lines running adjacent the buildings... those aren't oil pipelines, they connect the generator to the local grid.
that explains why he didn't show those buildings up close with the drone, this was just another stupid video talking about the history of oil
@@standodge7687 didn't do very well in school did you. Especially History.
Fun fact: The word LISTEN when unscrambled Spells SILENT
Wow, this went far beyond what I expected from just the thumbnail. Very fascinating!
"Tower of Hope Enough People Don't Find Out." LOL
Fascinating stuff. Looking forward to seeing your future releases matey.
We need that oil. Drill baby drill. 😂
Oil field, i worked there and the one behind the beverly center and Inglewood oil fields and EVEN the Montebello fields before they sold them out. Its a NASTY place.
Wait, there’s one behind the Beverly center? I lived right on Wilshire and Fairfax for a time and drove by the Beverly Center daily. Never noticed that one!
There are now building town homes in Montebello where the oil derricks used to be! WTH???
@@khj8716 Yes sir, That industrial dirt with chemicals that will kill you in due time, I SAW THE SHIT they pumped in the ground i would NEVER live there.
@@Nitro_Foundry Yes its exactly what i thought first time i saw it but they work really hard so you don't see it.
"What should we do with this old, spent oil field"
"Build a swimming pool"
It’s the same price as a fancy oil cap plus we get free rust prevention.
I respect how much time it took you to do all this research & editing. You actually took your time to go to the locations as well. Amazing video
I'm shocked that people did not already know that! That is old news. Out off of Long Beach or one of the nearby beaches, the artificial islands with the towers. Even Beverly Hills High School is sitting on top of an oil field. That is the problem, people for decades have wanted these wills closed and plugged. As the people up in Porter Ranch about natural gas storage under their community and how well that worked.
5:59
_" Drill baby, drill ..! "_
Great content, Chris. Thanks for taking the time to research and document this!
of course! Thanks for watching!
Is this why CA has the cancer warnings on certain items sold in CA? At one time they wanted to put it on every water tap to avoid liability? What a mess.
No. Prop 65 is just to absolve any company of legal consequences in the event someone claims a random cancer diagnosis due to their product. It's precautionary and mandatory for every consumer product so no one can say they weren't warned with actual and questionable cancer causing carcinogens, but, doesn't mean something with the label will give you cancer either. It also prevents corporate disinformation about product safety. It's probably more to do with the Cellphone radiation hoax years ago than anything. Microwave Radiation isn't even the same as cancer causing Ionizing or UV Radiations. It's about as radioactive as a static charge because, that's what it is. The reason why it's advised nothing metal goes into the Microwave. It's Electromagnetic Radiation. It's also as radioactive as an old-school light bulb too. That's what happens when California schools suck.
This level of true journalism is fantastic! 🎉 Great work!
I appreciate your efforts and research. However, it isn’t a conspiracy. We need oil. The technology for alternative power just isn’t there yet. These are aesthetic decisions more than attempts to hide oil extraction.
they did the same on one of the islands off the coast of la its an oil island but they make it look like disneyland
16:10 there it is
"The technology for alternative power just isnt there yet" ...
was a intellectual statement perhaps in 1924...
Today people who make such inconsiderate statements are either low IQ ...
or bribed or associated with bribery from agencies like CIA FBI and other clandestine agencies we dont know about that confiscate any inventions by lethal force if needed using threat to national security as reason for their actions. Add to the fact that the ones who hold the power of gatekeeping advanced technology know that the slave as a human being will still always learn evolve and enhance their awareness when given the proper environment so to maintain a slave population there must come a planned time when all must be destroyed so nothing remains to be learned from. Still nature provides ways to record preserve information so in that regard its always a effort that must be done by destroying sacred sites, blocking access to sites, limiting ones perception with false education and distractions like war or pop culture scandals.
So its actually very coward of you to say with entitlement that we can only sustain our current modern civilization of electricity plumbing transportation construction and aggriculture only on oil.
Yeah I'm not.sure what's up with all the dishonesty these days...ppl understand these things...but yet they try and hide so much kinda like China does ...it's odd 🤔🤔🤔🤔
The toxic fumes emitted by these active and orphan wells have been killing LA residents for generations. The well on Beverly Hills HS was ordered closed after 100s of former students all got the same kinds of blood cancers. The importance of “energy demand” cannot outweigh the importance of avoiding human suffering and death.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching this. Well done!
This was a really good news piece- thank you for your work!
Excellent video and an excellent telling of the story of what really built los angeles.
This was a fantastic video!
I never knew any of this and it blows my mind.
Great work keep it up.
Very informative. Thank you!
I love old LA history. Thanks for this vid!
I discovered a building in Manhattan many years ago. People walked by this building everyday. One day I realized all the windows were fake/painted. Right of times Square. I showed many.
aaaand?
33 Thomas Street. A former AT&T long distance switching hub. Currently it’s likely an NSA surveillance center.
Some of those are ventilation/exhaust pumps and emergency exits for the subway or commuter trains.
You’re gonna want to approve some of those oil permits . You’ll see
Outstanding and long overdue documentary.
Thank you!
Pouching off others videos bro, go back home and stop trying to fake your uniqueness to pay your rent here while you gentrifying neighborhoods that belong to native angelenos.
Interesting video! Thanks so much for sharing!
It’s more of a problem that people live there in this oil field than the oil field and drilling equipment being there. People shouldn’t live there. People don’t live on superfund abandoned mining sites and tailings, neither should they live in LA
Great job producing this video. Very informative. I especially enjoyed the work you put into your research, and ahowing the vintahe photography. Excellent work to be sure.
Un...Be...lievable! I had no idea Cali oil was on this level. I knew Cali was oil-centric, but never looked into how big the industry was, until watching this video. Now I know why they call Cali the 5th largest economy in the world. One of the largest oil producers in the world. Hiding in plain site for me to even see this fact, just like those buildings. At the beginning, the buildings you showed looked like COs, or telecom Central Offices. This is where they divvy out the telephone and Internet lines to residential and commercial buildings and dwellings. I had no idea oil was this big. Excellent work on the footage, music and editing. One of the most informational and best home made videos I have seen in a long time.
It isnt Cali my friend. Its California. lol
@@loopymcgeee3939 Short for California. Instead of typing California multiple times, I use Cali.
@@JohnnyBean78 thats like calling Michigan "Mich" it doesnt jive
@@loopymcgeee3939 No one says Mich. LOL You're a special kind of tarded. LMAO
My Dad worked near Temple & Douglas - there was a "grasshopper" oil well behind the offices.
I had to google what a “grasshopper” well was. In my 15 years in the oilfield I’ve never heard that term. We just call them pump jacks.
That’s what took so long to build that School On Temple & Beudry (Edward Roybal) and that park (Vista Hermosa) too. It was supposed to be built in the late 1990’s but didn’t get built until like the mid 2000’s.
Amazing work!! Thank you for covering this fascinating history!
I didn't realize there were so many oil rigs in L.A. but I should have guessed if the tar pits are any indication.
A guy named Arthur Gilmore bought a parcel of land in the 1870s that contained the tar pits. He later found oil near the site of the old Farmers' Market at 3rd and Fairfax and started his own company.
Woah. Theres a gilmore bank at the farmers market. Must be the same guy. Small bank and only one location. My mom has been with them forever. @@zendonreyland1298
Awesome documentary, thanks for sharing! 🙌🏾
Vanowen in White Oak there's a fake building it's a power distribution plant. There's also another one I believe in Hayvenhurst and Devonshire. I know about the oil wells as well surprised you don't know about the power distribution stations😮
I would watch more content like this. Good job on the video.
Great video! I love stuff like this. I live in LA. Very well done.
There still remains a huge lake of oil under LA. I grew up there. When I was a kid there were oil wells everywhere, the beach just a few hundred feet south of Playa del Rey beach there were wells scattered across the sand. At some point, they started disguising them by building structures around them. On Venice Beach, they built a fake lighthouse around one of them. There are many hidden ones to this day!
The classic use of this technique is the THUMS Islands. A set of four artificial islands in San Pedro Bay off the coast of Long Beach, California. The THUMS Islands were built in 1965 to tap into the East Wilmington Oil Field. The landscaping and sound walls were designed to camouflage the operation and reduce noise.
In about 1990 I worked in a London office on a study to repressurise a region of the SE Torrance oilfield that had been originally developed in the 1930s. There were stories of old telegraph poles popping up through the floors of residential houses that had been built over abandoned wells. The wells were plugged by shoving a telegraph pole down the well casing. In some areas where the reservoir was already being repressurised this caused the old wells to blowout..
Great film i love the old footage!
Thank you for this video. I’m born and raised in L.an and never truly dived into the rich oil history of my city! I guess it’s safe to say most of us are here because of Mr. Edward Doheny! 😁
Absolutely fascinating documentary short! My time was well spent watching it. Thank you!
Wow. What an epic history lesson 🙌🏼
My Family had a cattle ranch in the L.A. Basin, 1800’s until the late 1970’s. Everyone got cancer - GG, Grandparents, parents, children…
I really enjoyed the video, but it drives me a bit insane when people use LA County and City of Los Angeles interchangeably (though it seems you realized this when you got to Long Beach).
Also the website you gave just leads to a domain seller lol
A lot of these are called water jackets. They pump water out of the ground and that’s what people get confused with between pumping water and pumping oil. If you come down the 14 freeway you will find that you have probably eight different pumps of pump water.
It’s call the packard lease . And yes it’s an oil field . And it’s been there longer then most of you have been alive .
Watching from the State of Rhode Island-I've never been to California-much less L.A.-& just found this doc. randomly-but-wow-I had-no idea-great job bro-just another reminder of all this stuff that went on-long before the world that we know-not to mention-very creepy to realize the extent to which the environment was contaminated by all the petro-chemical crap that resulted. 😳
I'm a 62 year old native and this is just common knowledge for my generation.
I’m 34 in San Diego and I’ve never heard of this before
I'm 48 and I haven't ate lunch so I'm very hungry , but can't decide what to eat .
im 26 and had no idea about any oil being here ... I just did a bunch of research past 2 hours on the start of Los angeles
62? 😂😂😂 Come on, you probably the oldest person using TH-cam 😅😅
Why not spread knowledge
I ❤ Fossil Fuels!!!!
They’re good fuels. But they’re not necessarily from fossils.
I never realized how much oil is in California. I have seen drills. Thank you for the video. It was very informative.
high quality work.
Great video. Having grown up in the Santa Cruz Ca area [ born in 1971 ] and only ever visiting So Cal on yearly vacations, I had no idea oil was ever a thing down there.
happy you enjoyed it, thanks for watching!
I used to deliver Telecommunications equipment to many buildings like this
why does an oil well need telecomm gear?
Man, they always talk about oil and Texas, the gulf area or Alaska, but never L.A. I learned something new.
Just subbed, you deserve more than 1.6 k subscribers! GREAT production value in this video, will definitely be watching more of your work.
Also, my maternal side of my family is Orr, maybe we're related?!?
i know the focus is on la and the immediate metro area but oil pumps can still be found at least 30 miles inland/east of dtla and some of them are still working! its crazy
This is like when Egyptians 900 years ago were like, who the heck built these pyramids, and why? Haha. 😂🤣🤣
pharoahs was just sickos demonic lieng loser fallen angels noting new under the fake led lightbulbs as the sun with a portal
I thought you were going to at least show Carson, Torrance, Signal Hill, El Segundo, Montebello and other Oil Rich Drilling Cities.
Tell me what's going to be an adequate replacement for petroleum.
Yep I've been down there too on both of the ones you've highlighted in your video. they are quite the hollywood prop. on the one that you most highlighted there's about 30 to 50 deep Wells that run about 6,000 ft allnworking the same oil vein. I know this because I used to work for a company who who used air shots to determine where the oil levels were at in each well head to more accurately pump down that shaft without compromising its deep positioned pump. Each well headis approximately 6 to 10 ft apart from each other all running in a low light kind of submarine underground. When we were down there testing we were the only ones with most of all the activity being above ground at the open area behind the infrastructure
all the drill piping and all the different things that are used to maintain these
Wells
it's very eerie to park right there on the street and then go inside a door and then down a flight of stairs and to see a long row of working oil wells. Hey oil is our life blood with all of ots baggage, they're still producing quite well and instead of shutting them down they just built a facade over them I will say though that they are highly secure systems you can't just walk in and get to where I got without security checks. Nice undercover work though you'd have to be an oil worker or associated with something to do with the oil business to know that they are there, That there are hundreds perhaps thousands of people in Los Angeles that know about this if they work in the oil trade.
Such a high quality video!! Thank you for sharing!
Yes the production quality was good, that's about it.
There are also buildings in every city that contain infrastructure of many types that look like these. They contain everything from gas and water pumps to telecommunications infrastructure to stuff I have no idea about. Most are nobody's business and non-descript, but they are interesting.
It is sad to see that La is slowly getting rid of oil drilling do the fact the city is facing them out
Biggest reserve in the world is under LA. They won’t allow anyone to get to it though.
*due
*phazing
@@MrshoujoLOL! You failed, your grade is 50, Mrs Spelling Nazi. It's PHASING not phaZing. LOL 🤡 This screenshot is going on "People Incorrectly Correcting Others". 😂
@@Mrshoujo@Mrshoujo LOL! You failed, your grade is 50, Mr/Mrs Spelling Nazi. It's PHASING not phaZing. LOL 🤡 This screenshot is going on "People Incorrectly Correcting Others". 😂
Strange I've seen more of these structures that appear as if storage warehouse off the freeway
Think of an island that that got busted with children and the dude in charge was ended behind bars
You just made it! Cheers mate great content
this is really well done, learned a lot, love this style content subbed hoping for more!
Yea I’m 53yrs old and I remember oil pumps around south central LA