MENTRYVILLE

NAME: Mentryville COUNTY: Los Angeles ROADS: 2WD GRID: 1 CLIMATE: Hot in summer, warm in spring, fall BEST TIME TO VISIT: Anytime

COMMENTS: Now a California State Historic Park. Located in the Santa Clarita Valley about 35 miles north of Los Angeles off the Lyons/Pico Canyon Exit to I-5. Several preserved buildings, some guided tours. Site of first commercial oil well in west. REMAINS: Several buildings, house barn, dance hall

Mentryville was establihed by Charles A Mentry, who had discovered oil in the Santa Clarita area near Los Angeles in 1876. Known as Pico Number 4, the well dug by Mentry was the first commercially successful oil well in the west. Pico Camp, as it was called at the time, attracted transient oil workers to the area which boasted as many as 100 families. The town, which changed its name to Mentryville after its founder, began to prosper and had a schoolhouse bunkhouses, and a 13 room Mansion inhabited by the Mentry family. The town began to decline in the early 1900's following Mentry's death. The town was later bought and run as a company town by the Standard Oil Company. After 1938, Mentryville's sole residents were the head foremen and their families--employees of Standard Oil. After Pico Number 4 ceased operation in 1990, Standard Oil either sold or donated the site to the State of California. By that time Pico Number 4 had become the longest running oil rig in the world. The riends of Mentryville has a website with several photos and biographies at www.scvhistory.com/mentryville Submitted by: Reed McLurkin

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