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Neighbors, Darrell (audio interview #3 of 3)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This interview was conducted in Neighbors' Long Beach home. 12/30/1983
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- 2021-01-07
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- SUBJECT BIO - Darrell Neighbors was among the leaders in the fight to end subsidence in Long Beach. As oil was produced from deposits under Long Beach harbor, the land under the city began to sink. Those who were benefiting from the oil revenue, including the local harbor department, opposed some efforts to stop the sinking. At the same time, those who were suffering damage from the sinking or were afraid if it continued the ocean might inundate the whole city, struggled to stop it. In these three interviews, Neighbors talks about the struggle against subsidence and about his work for the Bixby companies. He describes some of the companies' histories and their impact on Long Beach's growth. In addition, he discusses his other local experiences including working for Security First National Bank during the Depression. These interviews were part of a project to study the impact of the discovery of oil on the development of Long Beach. TOPICS - Neighbor's family background; Neighbor's education; subsidence; Long Beach harbor; tidelands controversy; Security First National Bank; Bixby companies; World War II; and Depression; subsidence; tidelands controversy; US Navy; Long Beach harbor; Long Beach Oil Development; and Gerald Desmond;
- *** File: subdneighbors7.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-2:28)... Introduction Neighbors was born in 1905 in Mountain Grove, Missouri. The town had a population of 2000, and most of the people had migrated from Virginia after the Civil War. After the end of the 7th grade his family moved to Memphis. He went to college for two years at the University of Tennessee. but dropped out in 1925 when his parents moved to Florida, where they stayed for about a year during the land boom. His family came to California in 1926. Neighbors lived in Anaheim where he worked for an automobile dealer, but he wanted to go to school as well. He found another job that allowed him to work and go to school at the same time. He studied economics at UCLA and graduated in 1929. He always wanted to be a lawyer and while at Tennessee he was studying pre-law. (2:28-4:21)... While he was at the University of Tennessee in 1923, the Scopes trial was held. Scopes was convicted of teaching about evolution which was illegal in Tennessee. Many of the law professors at the University left after this trial. Neighbors belonged to the same fraternity as Estes Kefauver, who later became a Senator from Kentucky. Kefauver stayed and finished school, but advised Neighbors to change his major or go to another school. As a result, Neighbors switched to business and finance. After he later graduated from UCLA Neighbors still wanted to be a lawyer. He started taking night classes at the Southwestern School of Law campus in Long Beach. He attended classes 5 nights a week for two and a half years before dropping out. (4:21-6:18)... Neighbors started working for Security Bank in 1933. During the Depression the bank was foreclosing on so many properties that they had to create a Real Estate Department. The 1933 earthquake hit Long Beach after Neighbors had worked for the bank for 2 months. After the quake, more people abandoned their property. The bank acquired more property and the real estate department grew. Neighbor's job was to inspect abandoned properties. He worked at the bank until 1942 . (6:18-8:20)... He joined the Navy in 1942. He initially wanted to join the Navy after Pearl Harbor but was told that he was too old. Six months later a new class of officers was created known as Aviation Volunteer Specialists. Neighbors joined that group and handled paper work at air stations and on carriers. During the war he was sent to Rhode Island for training, spent a year in San Diego for more training, went to Alaska for 6 months, and then was sent back to San Diego. He was in the Navy for 3 years. Though he enjoyed being in the Navy, he felt he was too old to compete with the younger sailors. (8:20-10:17)... Neighbors came back to Long Beach after the war and worked for the bank again. He worked in downtown Los Angeles and commuted on the streetcar everyday. He did not like working in the downtown office. Before the war he had been involved with the Community Chest and the Junior Chamber of Commerce. Harry Buffum and Larry Collins approached him and asked him to take over as executive secretary of the Community Chest and Neighbors took the job in 1946. (10:17-12:27)... The Bixby companies were ready to start a shopping center around the Traffic Circle in 1948. Neighbors went to work for the Jotham Bixby Company and years later worked for the Bixby Land Company when they started building their shopping center at Ximeno and Los Coyotes. He got involved with the Alamitos Land Company when it was building a small shopping center at Spring and Palo Verde. Neighbors also worked with the Amelia Bixby Company, which owned warehouses in Los Angeles. (12:27-14:55)... In 1954, when Neighbors was serving on the Chamber of Commerce Board, he heard about the land-sinking problem. The commanding officer of the Long Beach naval base stopped him after a board meeting and explained that the land under the base and in other parts of the harbor was sinking. In 1959 they created a 5 man committee to deal with the sinking. (14:55-18:45)... Before the war, in 1937-38, Neighbors managed the Security bank building. General Petroleum came in to lease an office and wanted to be discreet about their presence. They were there for 6 weeks but in that time, they began the studies that led to the discovery of a new oil field in the harbor area. Neighbors believes this is when subsidence really started. In 1941-42, after several companies had come in and started drilling for oil, the city decided to get involved in producing oil from under land they owned as well. The land sinking began gradually over the years. Kerr McGee Oil Company wanted to drill east of Pine Avenue, out of the harbor district and they wanted to drill along the beaches, but they didn't get permits to do it. At the time, few people connected this to subsidence. (18:45-23:24)... When Neighbors joined the Chamber of Commerce Board, one of the first issues that came up was a proposed city ordinance to prohibit oil drilling within 2500 feet of the centerline of Ocean Boulevard. The ordinance was eventually passed but the distance was cut down to 1500 feet. Oil wells were kept off the beach but people were still concerned with the problem of land sinking. In 1954 a 25 man subsidence committee was created and they met once a week. The Navy was concerned because Congress was threatening to shutdown the Long Beach shipyard, which was suffering great damage from the sinking. The dry dock had sunk 7-8 feet and it was difficult to dock ships in Long Beach. The dry dock was sinking so fast that it threatened to pop back up out of the water. Big pumps were installed around the dock but they kept sinking. They had to add fill dirt all across the front of the shipyard in order prevent high tides from breaking over the shipyard. (23:24-26:54)... The Harbor Subsidence Committee, formed in 1948, pointed out to the Harbor Commission that they had the legal responsibility to deal with subsidence. The Harbor Commissioners did not appreciate having this pointed out to them. The head of the Harbor Commission, Frosty Martin, was an oil tool inventor and supplier. All of his customers and friends were involved with oil. They hired Stanford Research Institute to prove that oil producing had nothing to with subsidence. In essence they paid the company to reach a prearranged conclusion. With this report, they "proved" that producing oil had nothing to do with subsidence. (26:54-29:23)... The Harbor Department wanted to believe that there was nothing to worry about and that, because they were making so much money producing oil, they could just rebuild the harbor as it sunk. Some engineers told them subsidence could be prevented. It was at this time that the Mallon suit was filed and the city lost title to much of the oil money. Without this money the city could not "rebuild" as the Harbor Department has suggested. (29:23-30:42)... The Mallon suit challenged the city's ownership of the tidelands under which much of the oil was located. Over time the Harbor Department had accumulated over $100 million in cash. They spent some of the money on rebuilding the harbor and repairing the subsidence damage. But the rest of it ust sat there. End of tape *** File: subdneighbors8.mp3 (0:00-4:01)... There was also subsidence in Texas. An oil company had developed an oil field where they had to drill near water to produce oil; as the oil was produced, the land under the oil wells sunk. Then the state moved in and told the company that the state now owned the oil. As a result of natural subsidence, the shore had moved and the oil was now under publicly owned land. The company sued Texas and tried to prove that the subsidence wasn't "natural" but created by the oil drilling, so the oil was still theirs. News of this situation was slow to reach California since the oil company involved didn't want it publicized. But eventually people argued that instances of subsidence occurring over the sites of oil extraction happened too frequently for it to be a coincidence. (4:01-8:35)... The Navy eventually canceled their suit. The commander of the shipyard hired his own engineer to keep track of the sinking and to make sure the shipyard was stable. Neighbor's committee had several conferences with the shipyard commander, who had not heard of subsidence until he came to Long Beach. (8:35-12:52)... The Harbor Department was in charge of the subsidence problem for a long time but later the City Council decided to take a more direct role in addressing the problem because the damage it created went beyond the harbor. City Manager Sam Vickers soon passed the problem back to the Harbor Department when public pressure increased. The Harbor Department would not do anything unless Long Beach Oil Development, the consortium of oil companies that was created to produce the oil under the tidelands, allowed it. The largest part of Long Beach Oil Development was controlled by the Hancock Oil Company. Jonah Jones, Hancock's attorney, worked with the committee to lobby the Long Beach City Council. At first, all they could do was try to stall. (12:52-17:53)... Neighbors and his committee worked closely with Gerald Desmond, an attorney, a council member and later City Attorney. The committee came to be called the "hard-core" committee. There was antagonism between the committee, and the Chamber of Commerce that created it, and the Harbor Department. The bridge between Long Beach and Terminal Island was named after Gerald Desmond. End of tape
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