Mentryville

Mentryville Friends of Mentryville: Birthplace of the California Oil Industry - Right here in the Santa Clarita Valley! Learn all about it at Mentryville.org

Share your Mentryville photos here, and they might make it into the Pico Canyon archives at SCVHistory.com!

Watch rare and possibly unique footage of the legendary Pico No. 4 oil well in operation in this 1985 California oil his...
02/17/2026

Watch rare and possibly unique footage of the legendary Pico No. 4 oil well in operation in this 1985 California oil history film produced by the California Department of Conservation’s Division of Oil and Gas. Shot while the well was still actively pumping — five years before its 1990 shutdown — this program preserves moving images of California’s longest continually producing commercial oil well at work in Pico Canyon (Mentryville), in the Santa Clarita Valley.

The film features oil field foreman Frenchy Lagasse explaining and demonstrating the workings of traditional cable-tool drilling equipment in Pico Canyon. Using a detailed model derrick he built himself, Lagasse walks through the mechanics of the walking beam, bull wheel, bailer, jackline systems, and other machinery that defined early California oil production. His segment provides one of the clearest on-camera explanations of how these historic systems operated in Mentryville.



Watch rare and possibly unique footage of the legendary Pico No. 4 oil well in operation in this 1985 California oil history film produced by the California ...

JUN 16 in : 1876 - D.G. Scofield forms California Star Oil Works, hires Alex Mentry to drill in Pico Canyon >
06/16/2021

JUN 16 in : 1876 - D.G. Scofield forms California Star Oil Works, hires Alex Mentry to drill in Pico Canyon >

SCVHistory.com LW3555 | Mentryville | California Star Oil Works Stock Certificate, 1901

https://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/lw3788.htm5-gallon service station fuel/oil can, 1920s—?, inscribed (molded) "Property...
05/22/2021

https://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/lw3788.htm

5-gallon service station fuel/oil can, 1920s—?, inscribed (molded) "Property of Standard Oil Co. of California / 5 Gallons Liquid." Twist-off lid with instructions for opening and closing. Metal (tin?), 23.5" h. with handle extended, 10.5" dia., 12.1 lbs.

Manufactured by Ellisco, a mark of George D. Ellis & Sons Inc., which was founded in 1843 and incorporated in 1887 in Philadelphia. The company initially manufactured mechanics' tools, trusses and elastic metals. The "Ellisco" mark was first used in 1920 and registered in 1922. In the late 1910s and 1920s, persons affiliated with Ellis(co) filed patents on metal can fastening systems and twist-off lids.

Standard Oil Company of California (SOCAL) traces its origins to Pico Canyon in the 1870s.

SCVHistory.com LW3788 | Standard Oil (Calif.) Products | 5-Gal Service Station Fuel/Oil Can, 1920s-(1950s?)

MAY 22 in : 1865 - Discoverer Ramon Perea and partner sell Pico Canyon oil claim to Edward Beale & Robert Baker for $30...
05/22/2021

MAY 22 in : 1865 - Discoverer Ramon Perea and partner sell Pico Canyon oil claim to Edward Beale & Robert Baker for $300 >

SCVHistory.com | People | Ramon Perea: A Forgotten Name at Pico

On her 93rd birthday (4/5/2021): Mentryville Memories from Carol Lagasse.
04/05/2021

On her 93rd birthday (4/5/2021): Mentryville Memories from Carol Lagasse.

SCVHistory.com | Pico Canyon | Mentryville Memories from Carol Lagasse, 2021

MAR 27 in : 1847 - Probable birth date of Pico Canyon oil driller Charles Alexander Mentry >
03/27/2021

MAR 27 in : 1847 - Probable birth date of Pico Canyon oil driller Charles Alexander Mentry >

SCVHistory.com CH1040 | People | Charles Alexander Mentry

OCT 4 in : 1900 - Pico oil driller Alex Mentry (as in Mentryville) succumbs to typhoid fever at California Hospital in ...
10/04/2020

OCT 4 in : 1900 - Pico oil driller Alex Mentry (as in Mentryville) succumbs to typhoid fever at California Hospital in Los Angeles >

SCVHistory.com CH1070 | People | Charles Alexander Mentry

SEP 26 in : 1876 - California oil industry born as CSO No. 4 in Pico Canyon becomes state's first commercially producti...
09/26/2020

SEP 26 in : 1876 - California oil industry born as CSO No. 4 in Pico Canyon becomes state's first commercially productive oil well >

SCVHistory.com CH1000 | Pico Canyon | CSO No. 4, 1877

Heart of Heavy Steel: A Mentryville Story by Darryl Manzer, 4-9-2020>>I have a few items of family memorabilia I've carr...
04/10/2020

Heart of Heavy Steel: A Mentryville Story by Darryl Manzer, 4-9-2020

>>I have a few items of family memorabilia I've carried around from place to place as I transferred and moved for the Navy and in retirement. This one item, above all, is a memory I can't seem to let go. It was such a happy time when it came into my life, and when it became mine, it was a very sad time.

SCVHistory.com | Heart of Heavy Steel: A Mentryville Story by Darryl Manzer, 4-9-2020

Follow link, scroll to Book View>>Scofield was a young geologist from the Pennsylvania oil fields who had come to San Fr...
01/13/2020

Follow link, scroll to Book View

>>Scofield was a young geologist from the Pennsylvania oil fields who had come to San Francisco to enter the marketing end of this new business. But when he heard of the oil seepage near Newhall, he headed south and acquired acreage in the well-nigh inaccessible Pico Canyon.

[...] It took them a month to drill the first well, C.S.O. No. l (Pico No. 1), to a depth of 120 feet where 11 barrels a day of 32 gravity oil were recovered. But it was abandoned because of the small flow.

C.S.O. No. 2 was the same sort of producer, and it, too, was abandoned. The third hole was dry. A steam engine was brought in and the fourth hole was taken to the prodigious depth of 300 feet. There, on September 26, 1876, 77 years ago next month, C.S.O. No. 4 was completed for 30 barrels a day and a fair amount of gas.

Soon, squat 30-foot wooden derricks sprouted all through the canyons and ridges of the territory.

SCVHistory.com | Pico Canyon | California's Oldest Well | The Standard Oiler, August 1953

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Santa Clarita, CA

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(661) 251-8820

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