Charles A. Canfield. (1848-1913) Oil Magnate, Businessman, Philanthropist
Charles A. Canfield was born in Springville, New York in 1848. He began a mining career in Colorado in 1869 and led a grueling life in Nevada and New Mexico for the next seventeen years, suffering long absences from his wife, Chloe, and children in Grand Island, Nebraska. He succeeded in the Comstock silver mine in Kingston, New Mexico. Accompanied by a $112,000 fortune, he moved his family to Los Angeles in 1887. Los Angeles was in the midst of a real estate boom that soon collapsed leaving Canfield broke by 1890. He returned to mining in Southern California and encountered an old New Mexico colleague, Edward L. Doheny, who at the time was unemployed and destitute.
California Oil Development
In 1892, Doheny convinced Canfield to invest $400 to lease a three lot parcel of land at Second Street and Glendale Blvd., near downtown Los Angeles. Despite the absence of any experience in oil exploration, they used pick and shovel, followed by drill, to produce the first oil well in Los Angeles, initiating an oil boom that sunk more than 2300 wells within the city. Eventually more than 75 million barrels would be pumped from Los Angeles (Starr).
In 1896, Canfield and Joseph A. Chanslor formed the Coalinga Oil Company. By 1899, the Coalinga wells in the San Joaquin Valley were the most prolific oil producers in all of California. Coalinga was California's first great oil producer and 'put California on the world's oil map' (Whitney). In this period, Canfield rejoined Doheny in successful ventures in the Kern RiverBakersfield area of the San Joaquin Valley.
To expand the market for their oil, Canfield and Doheny convinced the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad to convert from dirty, wasteful, bulky, and expensive coal to oil, beginning the era of petroleum-fueled rail transportation and the rise of the automobile.
The impact of California oil was dramatic. By 1910, California's oil production reached 73 million barrels, more than that of any foreign nation, and twenty two percent of the total world production.
Mexican Oil Development
The Mexican Central Railway, led by a former executive of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe, required a reliable source of petroleum. In 1900, the Railway invited Canfield and Doheny to explore for oil in the Tampico region of Mexico. Kevin Starr, in Material Dreams, describes the events:
Near Tampico, they (Canfield and Doheny) left their car and roughed it inland into the jungle to investigate reports of brea, oily tar seeping from the ground, the same reports they had so successfully pursued on Glendale Blvd., in 1892. Sure enough, they discovered a large crater filled with tar and hissing with escaping gas. Returning to civilization, Canfield and Doheny bought up the surrounding 400,000 acres, a jungle kingdom unto itself. They then spent millions in setting up drilling rigs and building a pipeline into Tampico.
Their company was named the Mexican Petroleum Company, later the Pan American Petroleum and Transport Company; it was the precursor of the modern Pemex Oil of Mexico. Not only did Canfield and Doheny drill the first commercially successful oil well in Mexico, they refined, marketed, and transported oil around the world. The Charles A. Canfield was one of die transport ships acquired in the fleet of oil tankers. By 1909, the Mexican Petroleum Company produced 80 million barrels of oil.
Canfield was extremely active in Mexico from 1900 until 1906 when a disgruntled former employee murdered his beloved wife, Chloe, on the porch of their Los Angeles home. Upon hearing the news in Mexico, Canfield collapsed into Doheny's arms. Devastated by his wife's murder, Canfield did not return to Mexico until 1910, although he remained an active executive of the Mexican Petroleum Company. He also directed his attention to local ventures in Southern California, including land development and philanthropy.
In early 1910, Canfield returned to Mexico after a four-year absence, still possessing his keen instinct and zest for the oil business (Davis). Within months, two of the greatest oil wells in history were drilled, the Casiano No. 6 and Casiano No. 7. Within a few years, Mexico became the world's second largest producer of oil. Mexico quickly became a major force in the international oil market, and, in 1913, Mexican oil was even being used on Russian railroads. In the turmoil of the Mexican Revolution that began in 1911, much of US diplomatic strategy centered on access to oil as World War I loomed.
California Land Development
Canfield, Burton Green, and Max Whittier had acquired the Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas, west of Los Angeles, for petroleum exploration. In 1906, after thirty wells failed to yield appreciable oil, they formed the Rodeo Land and Water Company to convert the ranch into a real estate development. One-half acre plots would sell for up to $2,000. Canfield remained president of the company until his death.
1906, Canfield joined three prominent Los Angeles business men and a young San Diegan to form the South Coast Land Company to acquire and develop coastal property south of Los Angeles. Del mar, the first project, was created with a vision of becoming the 'Newport of the Pacific/Del Mar had come into existence in the land boom of the 1880's but had since languished. South Coast plotted residential lots along the beach and up the hillside known as Arden Heights. The hillside was carefully designed to have large lots with ocean views and roads that followed the contour of the land. One-eighth acre beach lots sold for up to $1,100 and one-half acre hillside lots sold for up to $2,000.
On the Del Mar hillside, four of the five directors of South Coast chose to build homes: Charles A. Canfield 420 Avenida Primavera, (Canfield-Wright House) William G. Kerckhoff, 1660 Luneta Drive, Henry W. Keller, 41015th Street, (Rock Haus), and Colonel Ed Fletcher, 1571 Luneta Drive, (Mary Fletcher Cottage). The fifth director, Henry E. Huntington, devoted his attention to the Huntington Library, Museum, and Gardens in San Marino, the world's greatest collection of British art and literature outside of the United Kingdom. Each of the five directors had extensive interests and ownership in land development throughout California, yet it is noteworthy that the four chose to build homes in Del Mar, all of which are now Del Mar landmarks.
Canfield's land companies developed Beverly Hills and Del Mar at the same time using a similar strategy, a centerpiece hotel designed by an important architect. The Spanish-style Beverly Hills Hotel, on Sunset Blvd., was designed by noted architect, Elmer Grey. In Del Mar, the hotel was the English Tudor-style Stratford Inn, designed by architect John C. Austin (who also designed Canfield's Del Mar home). Both hotels were attractions for celebrities who could promote land sales.
Canfield Philanthropy
Among several philanthropic gestures, one was of particular interest to Charles Canfield; the McKinley Home for Boys in Los Angeles. Canfield became president of the Board of Trustees in 1910 and, in 1911, and created a $100,000 endowment for the school. The facility has recently been renamed the McKinley Children's Center, and is now located in San Dimas, CA. Since 1900, it has served more than fifteen thousand children in distress and is one of southern California's oldest and most important resources for troubled children. Canifeld's interests also translated to educational projects. Between 1955-1972, the Canfield Foundation funded 670 scholarships to fifteen California schools including 152 scholarships to Stanford University. In 1973, the foundation was dissolved and the proceeds were divided among Stanford University, Pepperdine University, and Mills College, where Canfield Memorial scholarships still exist.