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Alexander, Sol (audio interview #3 of 3)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This third interview was conducted at Alexander's home where he offered the interviewer a glass of water from a bottled water dispenser as he explained that he never drank Long Beach city water because it is fluoridated. It followed lunch at the Petroleum Club where he refused to drink coffee because he said it might have been made with city water. 5/19/1982
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- 2020-12-17
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- *** File: pesalexander9.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-0:11)... Introduction (0:11-3:36)... Alexander met Julian Campbell when he was employed at Lomita Gasoline Company,. Lomita had a natural gas processing plant on Orange. Campbell was a gas engineer and one of the founders of Petrolane. In the 1940s Campbell invented several mechanisms to improve refinery operations. He also manufactured and sold these devices. Alexander used to stop by Campbell's machine shop and they became good friends. (3:36-5:36)... Campbell and Alexander financed drilling of the "hole in the doughnut" lease in Recreation Park. While Alexander was working for Golden Eagle, he bought the oil from this well. Long Beach wouldn't allow oil to be trucked out of the site; it had to be shipped out through a pipeline. The well was not cheap to drill, but it was still profitable. (5:36-8:29)... Some people remember Julian Campbell for opposing fluoridation of water in Long Beach in other cities. Campbell leased a billboard to advertise his opposition; when his lease wasn't renewed, he bought to billboard. Alexander agrees that fluoridation is good for teeth but not for people's stomachs. Alexander personally fought against fluoridation and does not drink Long Beach water. (8:29-14:17)... Campbell and Alexander were good friends. Alexander was a pallbearer at Campbell's funeral at the First Presbyterian Church. Before Campbell passed away, he sold his Petrolane stock to avoid paying income tax; there was a lower tax on long term capital gains. Alexander believes Campbell left his business to his employees. The oil well in Recreation Park is now owned by a company called Herbell Exploration Company, partially owned by Campbell's partner Pete Herder, a drilling contractor. Herder's son Bill knew the oil business and equipment and became successful. (14:17-18:21)... The Dabney family and Sid Johnson had a drilling company called Dabney Johnson. Johnson was active in San Joaquin Valley oil boom. Then he moved south and drilled at least 125 wells on Signal Hill. Murphy Fish was one of their top tool pushers. Sid Johnson was illiterate but a hard worker. Dabney Johnson bought some of the property on which they drilled oil wells and went into building industrial rental property. Eventually the families divided the assets of Dabney Johnson. At the time of the interview, the families still owned a few wells. Johnson heirs own wells on Signal Hill while Dabney heirs own wells in Ventura county. (18:21-25:35)... Alexander spent a year and a half consulting with Frank "Dutch" Lorcher of the Signal Oil Company. Alexander met him in the early days on Signal Hill, in 1928. Lorcher used to be an operator at Signal's plant No. 2 on Signal Hill. In the 1960s, he became president of the company. When Alexander returned from South America in February 1976, he had a call from Union Oil Company about a consulting job. Union wanted Alexander to write a quarterly report on Signal Hill. At first Alexander didn't know why Union wanted these reports which he wrote for a little over 2 years. He found out when he was asked to give a deposition and he found out that the reports were to help Union defend against Western Airlines lawsuit, which charged Union with overcharging for jet fuel. Eventually the case was settled out of court. (25:35-30:34)... When he compiled the reports, he relied on production figures published by the Division of Oil and Gas. Although some producers did not report, Alexander knew from experience the approximate figures for the non reporters. Union Oil Company attorneys asked him to make separate reports for the non-reporting producers and they asked him to separate the figures for those whose reports came in late. Even when the published reports ran behind producers really couldn't keep the oil production a secret. Dan Elliott, for example, was drilling oil wells near Colorado Lagoon but not yet reporting how much oil the wells produced. End of tape. *** File: pesalexander10.mp3 (0:00-2:08)... Alexander recently asked Dan Elliott to check up on some oil wells in Oklahoma for friends who were thinking of investing in them. Elliott is drilling wells near Colorado Lagoon at the time of the interview. They are very expensive to drill and Elliott has to make sure they will be profitable. (2:08-4:14)... Alexander believes a well has to produce 30 to 50 barrels of high gravity oil to be profitable. The next well Elliott is planning may go deeper than 10,000 feet so it will be even more expensive to drill. The cost of drilling is sometime driven up by fishing jobs, etc. It can cost from a half to three quarters of a million dollars to drill an oil well. (4:14-5:44)... Elliott's father was also a very successful Signal Hill oil man along with being an expert yachtsmen. Both Elliotts piloted their own boats and sometime piloted boats for others. (5:44-8:41)... Proposition 4 was a California constitutional initiative to restrict oil operations in the early 1950s. All independent oil operators opposed this initiative because they believed it would restrict their activities. Union Oil Company also opposed it and Si Rubel, president of Union, worked with independents to oppose the initiative. (8:41-18:38)... Independents and major companies have to work together. The majors own refineries and have access to pipelines. They sell supplies to each other. The majors buy oil from independents. Independents do wildcatting and discover oil. Often independent oil ends up being refined by a major company. Sometime there are confrontations between majors and independents when majors refuse to let independents use pipelines. One time Alexander had to build his own 2 mile pipeline to circumvent a major pipeline. He didn't "blow the whistle" on the major for refusing use of its line because he understood the need to get along with the major companies. (18:38-21:33)... Long Beach Oil Development in Long Beach harbor is partially owned by Signal Oil and Gas and partially owned by other companies. Alexander never bought oil directly from them but exchanged oil with Signal Oil and Gas which possibly came from Long Beach Oil Development. (21:33-25:44)... Signal Oil and Gas liked 36 gravity oil that Alexander had to sell from Asphalto. Signal had a big refinery in Bakersfield. When the leases for Long Beach Oil Development ran out, the city opened up the leases to bid again. The rebids were made on supply rather than profit. Oil supplies were short and all production costs were deducted before any profits were determined. Signal Oil and Gas sold its valley crude to McFarlane Energy and sold its refinery to Tosco in Denver. Then Signal was out of the refining business. (25:44-28:10)... After a series of transactions, Amanol, which is owned by Reynolds Tobacco, operates what used to be Signal's oil wells in Huntington Beach. There area about 6 wells both on shore and off shore on a drilling platform. They use steam flooding to produce oil from a tar zone that exists there. (28:10-29:53)... The old office building where the offices of Signal Oil Company used to be located is now leased to the Occupational Health and Safety Administration although it's still owned by Allied Signal's real estate division. When Alexander moved into an office in the building in May or June 1972, it has just been refurbished. He rented an office there for a number of years. (29:53-30:36)... Alexander knew Felix Mallon. End of tape *** File: pesalexander11.mp3 (0:00-0:06)... Introduction (0:06-4:50)... Alexander knew Felix Mallon when Mallon was drilling wells in Signal Hill. He drilled 2 or 3 wells and they produced some oil. He also owned a little supply company in partnership with his son, Felix Mallon, Jr. Alexander bought oil from Mallon's wells. Alexander remembers that Mallon brought suit against Long Beach and the suit had some relationship with tidelands money, but Alexander doesn't understand how the city lost the case. The city must have had poor representation because they lost and ended up with only a small portion of the tidelands oil revenue. (4:50-7:36)... Alexander has only a vague memory of the case Mallon brought. Mallon was an individual with his own ideas about how thing should be done. Mallon might have been trying to become involved in oil development with the city, but Alexander isn't sure. Long Beach Oil Development had a few minor partners. Small, independent oil operators were allowed to participate, but only for appearance sake. Maybe Apex or Termo had a less than 2 percent share. (7:36-9:36)... Apex was a successful stock company owned by people in Kansas who had some terrific oil wells. In the early 1940s they sold it to Johnny Jackson, who used to be meter reader for Lomita Gas, and Wilbur Harrison who also had business interests in Kansas. (9:36-11:39)... The Termo Company was owned by the Coombs family. Alexander went to high school with some of the sons, including David. The Termo Company was involved in the Wilmington oil field and also in natural gas wells in northern California. (11:39-14:18)... Newt Bass claimed he had the smallest oil lease in the world, right on the top of Signal Hill. It was a triangle shaped piece of property owned by Bass, Goodnight and another partner who also promoted land development in Apple Valley and the Apple Valley Steakhouse in Long Beach. They used their oil well for publicity although it didn't produce much oil. Alexander bought the oil the well produced but never liked Apple Valley despite the fact that his daughter lived there, (14:18-18:38)... Bass, Goodnight and others were bought out by Reserve Oil and Gas Company and Bass served on that company's board of directors. Similarly Llewellyn Bixby merged the oil leases in the harbor that he controlled with into Reserve Oil and Gas. Eventually Getty Oil Company bought Reserve Oil and Gas along with the Mohawk Oil Refinery in Bakersfield. (18:38-19:08)... The Getty Oil Company, at the time of the interview, had heavy oil in the San Joaquin Valley and sophisticated equipment to refine it. (19:08-21:47)... Several local individuals were involved in the oil business, including members of the Dobyns and Brayton families. Braytons have a street named after them, owned a theater and collected oil royalties. One of their sons, Jack Brayton, was active in the oil business and another one, Bill Brayton, became district attorney. (21:47-26:19)... Another local mean, Otis Hoyt, drilled oil wells during the boom but didn't find any oil. Alexander's brother worked as an usher at the Hoyt Theater when he was young. Hoyt's son, Wayland Hoyt, became an oil operator in the San Joaquin Valley. Even Cadillac dealer John Rankin, whom Alexander didn't like working for when he was young, drilled a well; it was in the same area as Hoyt's and it wasn't successful either. (26:19-30:41)... The Progressive Oil Company was an outgrowth of a downtown club called the Progressive Service Club which later became the Exchange Club. Alexander's not sure if the oil company was organized by the club or just by some of its individual members. The company, however, acquired land and drilled wells. Wyn Payne, Jr. eventually acquired Dobyns 5 acre lease on Signal Hill; he got it in exchange for 3 wells on the top of Signal Hill that Shell Oil Company wanted. End of tape *** File: pesalexander12.mp3 (0:00-4:04)... Shell wanted Wyn Payne's oil wells on top of Signal Hill for engineering reasons, Payne got a good deal in the trade with Shell. Alexander's not sure how Payne originally got the wells he traded, but he used to be an engineer for Richfield Oil Company. Then in the early 1950s he went out on his own. (4:04-8:18)... Before oil was discovered on Signal Hill, while Alexander was in junior high school, there were Japanese and Chinese farmers there. These farmers were tenant farmers because they were prohibited from owning land. They raised and sold vegetables. On the southeast slope of the hill there were lemon orchards When the first oil well came in, Alexander was in junior high and hadn't been around Signal Hill very much. He went to Signal Hill to see a producing oil well. Part of the land on Signal Hill's southeast slope was owned by the same person that Alexander's family rented their home from. (8:18-11:59)... Rig builders were the hardest working and toughest men in the oil patch. They were husky, strong armed fellows and sometime they had tempers. Some also became boxers such as one Alexander knew who fought Kid Mexico. He was a "knock out artist" and Alexander often saw him fight at Wilmington Bowl. In addition, he had "woman trouble," and Alexander can't remember his name. (11:59-18:24)... Kid Mexico started out as an oil worker in the early days at Huntington Beach. He taught Onus Lindsey to be a professional boxer; Lindsey might have become a professional fighter except he went to work in South America. There used to be a gym in downtown Long Beach where fighters worked out. When Alexander had a day off, he'd go there and watch them train. Kid Mexico worked out there as well as at Jack Doyle's gym and arena in Vernon. Alexander saw Kid Mexico fight there along with Bert Colima. Alexander also sometimes took vacations at Wheeler's Hot Springs near Ojai where he once saw Jack Dempsey; Alexander's youngest brother was friends with Dempsey and managed light weight boxers. Dempsey liked to spar with light weights to improve his speed. (18:24-21:24)... Alexander was a member of the YMCA and he played basketball and softball. He started athletics too late in his life and was never very good at it. Later he discovered that he liked playing handball. Sometime he played at the Pacific Coast Club with Lee Foutz who was a member of the club and published a "scout sheet." (21:24-25:39)... In 1927 when Alexander was getting ready to build house in north Long Beach, he traded a barrel of oil for 1926 Model T Sedan and named it Rebecca. His wife was pregnant at the time and needed car. End of tape.
- SUBJECT BIO - Sol Alexander bought and sold crude oil for oil refining companies. He worked not only in southern California and the central valley, but in other oil fields, including those in Mexico. He also invested in producing oil wells and bought and sold oil on his own account. At the time of the interview, he was still in the business buying and selling oil on his own account. In these four interviews, Alexander talks about growing up in Long Beach and graduating from Poly High before he went to work for Union Oil Company selling their products. When he lost that job as the Depression approached, he started his own "one man oil company," selling other brands of oil to his previous customers. Eventually this led him to buying and selling crude. There are five interviews in this group, but one was conducted in Alexander's car as he drove around Signal Hill and pointed out important sites. The sound quality of this interview is too poor to include in this archive, but it available at CSULB. This interview was part of a project to study the impact of oil on the development of Long Beach TOPICS - oil industry; Petrolane; Lomita Gas Company; fluoridation; Union Oil Company; and Signal Oil Company;oil industry; Dan Elliott; Colorado Lagoon; Long Beach Oil Development; and Huntington Beach, California;oil industry; Felix Mallon; tidelands controversy; Long Beach Oil Development; natural gas; Llewellyn Bixby; Reserve Oil and Gas; and Shell Oil Company;oil industry; Japanese farmers; Kid Mexico, boxing; rig builders; and Signal Hill, California;
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