Los Angeles County
Biographies
THOMAS ARTHUR O’DONNELL
O’DONNELL, THOMAS ARTHUR, Oil Producer, Los Angeles, California, was born at McCain, Pennsylvania, June 26, 1870. He is the son of Thomas O’Donnell and Myra (Parsons) O’Donnell. He married Miss Lilly Woods, at Los Angeles, August 28, 1896, and they have two children, Ruth and Doris.
Mr. O’Donnell was educated in the common schools of his native town, but left at an early age and went out into the life that was to fit him for his present position, vice-president and field manager of two of the largest oil companies operating in the United States.
At the age of 12 years, Mr. O’Donnell, who has been working for some time as a newsboy in Pennsylvania, left his native State and went to Colorado, locating at Florence, in the region of gold mines and oil. His first position when he arrived in Colorado was with a grocery store and for the two years following he remained there, working in an all-round capacity.
His ambition extended beyond the limits of a grocery store, however, and it was only natural that he should seek a place in the more lucrative, more exciting and more strenuous mining business. Quitting his place in the store he sought and obtained work in a gold mine and for the next five years was actively engaged with the pick and shovel. At the age of 19 years he was a thoroughly experienced miner.
This was not the level he sought, for in 1889 he gave up mining and moved to California, where he went into the oil business in the employ of the Union Oil Company in Ventura County. He remained with that company for four years and during that time mastered the oil business as few men had.
Now came the turning point in his career. Leaving the Union Oil Company’s service in 1893, Mr. O’Donnell moved from Ventura to Los Angeles, and there met E. L. Doheny, a wealthy man and one of the pioneers in the development of oil in California. At that time the possibilities of the California oil territory were intruding themselves upon investors and Mr. Doheny was one of the first to recognize them and Mr. O’Donnell became one of his best lieutenants.
But Mr. O’Donnell, too, saw the promise that the oil fields held, and he decided very soon to go into business for himself. After he had worked for Mr. Doheny about a year, he formed partnership with M. H. Whittier, another whose name is in the list of pioneer oil seekers, and they went into the business of drilling wells. This was the beginning of a career that was to land Mr. O’Donnell among the leaders of the oil industry. The partnership with Mr. Whittier continued for five years and at the conclusion of that period, Mr. O’Donnell decided to continue alone. Accordingly, the partnership was dissolved and he became an independent driller, operator and oil land speculator.
At the end of three years the one-time newsboy was recognized as an independent oil factor, having properties scattered in all parts of California. In 1902, he entered the Coalinga, California, field, and his success there has been one of the most remarkable on record. He organized several companies and financed many of them himself.
In 1909, he, in association with E. L. Doheny and others organized the American Oil Fields Company, and this company’s success has put his name in that group which includes Canfield, Doheny, Bridge, and others, regarded as the real developers of the California fields. Mr. O’Donnell is vice-president and field manager of that corporation; also he holds the same position in the American Petroleum Company. These two oil companies are among the largest independent concerns in the United States. They control wide areas of the best oil lands in the most productive districts of California. In actual production of crude petroleum at the present time they have no rivals but one in the United States. Their combined storage capacity is in the millions of barrels. The rapidity of the rise of these two great oil corporations has been without a rival in the Pacific Coast oil fields, and they can increase the volume of production at any time to far greater proportions. In addition to these, he is a member of the executive board of the Independent Oil Producers’ Association and holds directorships in several smaller companies.
Mr. O’Donnell is a thirty-second degree Mason, a Mystic Shriner and an Elk. He holds membership in the Jonathan and Sierra Madre Clubs, of Los Angeles, and the Growler’s Club of Coalinga.
Transcribed
by Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 635, International
News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston,
Atlanta. 1913.
© 2011 Joyce
Rugeroni.
GOLDEN NUGGET'S LOS ANGELES
BIOGRAPIES