Orcutt Tutors

About Orcutt

You could say there were two gold rushes that took place in California. One was for shiny gold nuggets found in streams. Later in history, there was a rush for black liquid gold. Californians struck oil. The discovery of oil in the Santa Maria Valley is what created the town of Orcutt. In the early 1900’s Orcutt became an oil boom town. In a matter of a few years, the area was crawling with oil sights. The town was home to one of the largest oil strikes in North America up to its time producing 12,000 barrels of oil a day. Orcutt owes its thanks to the oil industry and it seems fit that it was named after the man who pushed the oil union to drill there, William Warren Orcutt.

W.W. Orcutt was a member of the first graduating class of Stanford University in 1895. He graduated with a degree in engineering, which certainly did not go to waste. A tutor in your area can help you get the high grades to earn a degree. W.W. Orcutt then returned to his home town, Santa Paula, and opened an engineering office. By 1898 he began a career working the Union Oil Company. His career with the firm would last 42 years. He would become known as a pioneer in the use of geology in the exploration for oil. The Santa Maria area was assigned to W.W. Orcutt to survey for oil. By late 1901 he urged the Union Oil to invest in the area. The company ended up leasing for than 70,000 acres and what had seemed impossible for the area happened. Santa Maria Valley had been explored for oil without success since the mid-1860’s. However, thanks to Orcutt, by 1903 Union Oil had 22 wells pumping oil. Production grew and so did the population with it.

Workers moved their families into the area as it seemed oil wasn’t going to run out anytime soon. With the growth of population in the area, Union Oil directed Orcutt to map out a town site. The site landed near the Pacific Coast Railway, which by October of 1904 it had its own post office. It was insisted the town be named after W.W. Orcutt himself. However, he was not keen on the idea replying it was like, “naming cheap cigars after cheap actresses.” Looks like they did not listen to his opinion and gave the town his name anyway. Now that the town was established its oil industry really began to boom. In June of 1904, a boiler fell off a wagon while in route to the new drill site. Instead of moving the boiler the crew decided to drill where it landed. Turns out this site ended of being the biggest oil strike of its time. Without warning, a geyser of oil burst 150 feet into the air. The site produced what seemed limitless amounts of oil until 1988 when it closed and was given the name Old Maud.