Olinda Oil Museum and Trail

It was a sunny and beautiful day on Monday. Tom and I decided to do some “micro-traveling” by driving fifteen minutes away from home to the Olinda Oil Museum and Trail.  Olinda was a former village of 2,000 to 3,000 people in its heyday of oil production in 1920.

The museum and trail are located near the cities of Brea and Yorba Linda, and Carbon Canyon Regional Park.  The area close to the museum has been highly developed in recent years with many homes.

As it turned out, the museum was closed on Monday.  We were able, though, to walk around the building to see a lot of vintage oil equipment.

The signs by the museum gave more detailed information.  Edward Doheny drilled the first oil well in the Olinda fields in 1897.  A year later, there were as many as ten oil wells on the property.  These days two barrels of oil a day are being pumped from Well #1, which used to pump fifty barrels a day.

A story that I found interesting (and comical at this lady’s expense) was one about Merle Van Ness Hale, who was a resident of Olinda in the 1920s.  She was sure that Well #18 struck oil on a Monday, which was wash day for her.  Much to her chagrin, black spray coated her family’s laundry, which had been hanging out to dry.  This was a memory she couldn’t forget.

After reading the signs, we finally started walking on the trail, which began near the museum.  Tom had told me it was a two-mile trail.  But beyond knowing that the trail would zigzag around a large hill, we didn’t know much more.  We gradually went higher and higher on a single-wide, uneven, unpredictable dirt path for a good hour before we started to descend.  It definitely grew windier the higher we hiked.  The view, as you can see, was pretty amazing!

We could see the mountains on Catalina Island, which were almost fifty miles away.  If you look on the far right side of the picture below, you can make them out through the distant smog.

After we had recovered from the hike, Tom asked me what I had liked best about the morning.  I had to say it was the hike even though it was challenging at times.  There was something very freeing about being up high and seeing the panoramic view.  Would I do it again?  I’m still thinking about it.