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The Oil Industry is Born

The many discoveries of oil, natural gas and tar made during the 1800s, began to capture the interest of geologists, though not yet investors towards the end of the 1800s. Thomas M. Storke, editor of the local newspaper , wrote in his 1958 autobiography " These obvious clues attracted the attention of the public and the investigation of geologists as far back as the 1860s. The first study of the Santa Barbara County coastal area for oil purposes was made by A. S. Cooper, a civil engineer who wrote the first official literature on the subject. Cooper was so sure of his findings that he made numerous attempts to persuade commercial oil developers to drill test wells, but did not succeed. Cooper died before his findings were verified many years afterwards. "

By the early 1900s, the oil industry began to take the oil deposits seriously, and small and large corporate investors began drilling up and down the Channel coast when the oil discovered in Summerland was determined to be but the northern tip of a deposit that extended down into Ventura County. " For the first time in the history of intercontinental petroleum prospecting, wharves were built out over the surf in Summerland and oil wells were drilled from the wharves. The hither-to unknown spectacle of over-the-ocean oil wells was capitalized upon by the Southern Pacific Railroad, which featured pictures of the unique Summerland oil wells in its national advertising to attract tourist travel. The Summerland boom petered out around World War I, winter storms smashed the wharves and derricks, and by the Depression Thirties the boom has gone to bust. " ( Thompkins )

During the first half of the 1900s. the oil industry continued to prospect - and find - profitable oil reserves beneath the surface of the mainland. And by the 1950s, oil lobbyists were pressuring the State Legislature for permits to drill out in the Channel waters. Between 1958 and 1967, seven permanent production platforms went up east and west of Santa Barbara. The local newspaper reported in 1954 " For years Santa Barbarians have been very outspoken in their determination that oil was not going to administer a death blow to one of their greatest heritages, a beautiful shoreline. " But the 1955 State Legislature bowed to the oil industry, refused to ban oil drilling regardless of the safety and environmental dangers it posed, and gave Santa Barbara merely a shallow 13 mile oil-drilling-free sanctuary off its coast between Summerland and Goleta. By the mid 1960s, the federal government became interested in the taxes they could gain by allowing oil giants to drill in their waters that began only three miles off shore, and with out asking for the input of local citizens, began leasing out platform rights in 1967. Santa Barbarans had tried fighting the State, and would now try to fight the federal government to keep oil development from ruining their coastline. But again, they faced defeat, and were granted only a small additional buffer zone beyond the State-approved sanctuary off the coast. Then by the end of 1968, a conglomerate of Union, Gulf, Mobil and Texaco oil companies erected two new platforms a close five and half miles off the Summerland-Carpinteria coast. Even before they could get in to production, one of the worst oil spills in history was to damage the coast - and start an international environmental movement - in 1969.

How had the government justified the lease of the lands so close to shore to the oil companies in 1968 ? The federal government stated " we feel that maximum provision has been made for local environment and that further delay in the lease sale would not be consistent with national interest or regional economic welfare. " And the Western Oil and Gas Association reassured local citizens that the operations would be conducted "in such a manner that few, if any, local residents will be aware of their activity. " The oil spill of 1969 was to speak louder than any citizen action group ever could in refuting these un substantiatable oil and government claims.