WILLIAM EDMUND YOULE

Los Angeles County

Biographies

WILLIAM EDMUND YOULE

YOULE, WILLIAM EDMUND, Oil Well Development, Los Angeles, California, was born at Pontiac, Michigan, August 21, 1847, the son of William and Bridget Youle. He married Mary Murphy at Pontiac, Michigan, January 10, 1870, and to them there were born two children, Charles and May Youle. Mr. Youle is of British ancestry, one generation removed, his father having been a native of England, while his mother was born in Ireland.

Mr. Youle attended the public schools of his native city until he was fifteen years of age but at that time gave up his studies to seek a place for himself in the business world, and a year later went to the oil fields of Pennsylvania, which were then in a greatly undeveloped condition.

Although a boy in years, Mr. Youle began immediately as a driller and contractor, and for thirteen years was one of the most active young men in the Pennsylvania fields. He also operated in the West Virginia fields and aided there, as in Pennsylvania, in the development of the industry. He was in the forefront of the developers of that day, and led in the search for new territory. He knew the business. He was an expert driller, a capable executive and able to handle the product from the selection of the land to the marketing of the oil. Because of his versatility he won the reputation of being one of the most practical and competent men in the business. He drilled scores of wells during his work in the Pennsylvania and West Virginia fields, and his success was one of the features of the stories which reached the outside world of the wonderful wealth that had been unearthed in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

As has been told many times before, the days of the oil boom in Pennsylvania, when the petroleum beds were first discovered and tapped, were among the most exciting and picturesque in the industrial history of the United States. It can be compared only to the discovery of gold in California and the Klondyke. Men made fortunes and threw them away, confident that there were others to be made when the first had vanished.

Other men, however, realizing the importance of oil to the future of the country, kept their head and devoted themselves to the solid development of the business. The Rockefellers, the Teagles, the Tillotsons, the McDonalds, Mr. Youle and others were in this latter class, and they are the men who nursed the industry through its infancy, led it through its formative stages and, finally, brought it up to the point where it is one of the greatest factors in the world’s progress.

A pioneer in the oil industry, Mr. Youle experienced the usual obstacles to be overcome in every new undertaking, and while vast sums have come to his possession from his work of the earlier days, a large part of it necessarily went in his efforts to interest others and in further pushing the development of a great natural resource that at first met with little sympathy. The result is that today Mr. Youle is in most comfortable circumstances, but does not claim to have accumulated wealth anything like some of the vast fortunes made by other men, some of whom were associated with him, and others who followed in his wake.

Mr. Youle has been a hard worker all his life and most of his success has been due to his willingness to attack a problem with all his physical and mental energies. At one point of his career in the Pennsylvania regions, Mr. Youle, in addition to his work as a contractor, held office as Superintendent of the United States Oil Company of Oil City, Pa., and under his direction the property of the company was made one of the most profitable in the field. His efforts in connection with the development of this company, along with his other successes, attracted attention to him all over the country, and as a result, when a company of prominent Californians wanted some one (sic) to inaugurate the oil business in that State, Mr. Youle was selected to handle the problem.

In 1877 Mr. Youle was engaged by ex-Mayor Bryant of San Francisco and D. G. Scofield to drill a test well. He took men who had worked with him in the eastern fields to a point near Newhall, Cal., and there put down the first paying oil well ever drilled in the Golden State. This well proved a producer from the start and it was the beginning of an era of development in California that has brought fortunes to the men engaged in it and has placed the industry at the head of the wealth-producing channels of the State. From that time forward Mr. Youle has been one of the most active men in the oil business and has been identified with practically every successful field.

After proving the Newhall field by drilling a number of producing wells, Mr. Youle, in 1880, went to Moody’s Gulch, in Santa Clara County, Cal., and there proved a field, the oil being of very light gravity. In 1884 he moved to the Puente oil region of California and repeated his successes.

Six years after he put down his first well in the Puente District the attention of oil men generally was called to seepages in that part of Kern County, Cal., known now as the Sunset fields, and Mr. Youle went there as a contracting well driller. He was “the” first to arrive and to appreciate the advantages of the country and he remained in that territory from 1890 to 1901. During those eleven years he was almost ceaseless in his activities and not only aided largely in the development of the Sunset field but also of the McKittrick and Midway fields, the latter being regarded as the richest oil district ever found on the American Continent. Mr. Youle put down over fifty wells in these fields.

The oil industry in California has resulted in the establishment of several thriving towns. The Southern Pacific Railroad Company, quick to recognize the commercial importance of the Petroleum fields, first constructed a branch railroad to the McKittrick district and later to the Sunset and Midway centers. With the introduction of the railroad into the new oil country, thousands of settlers went there, and Mr. Youle, as one of the first successful operators, was one of the basic factors in the section’s growth.

Mr. Youle is justly called the pioneer of the California oil business because, with the first well in the Newhall district in 1877, he was first to demonstrate the practicability of oil producing in the State. He was a discoverer; and after being the first to prove that drilling was capable of accomplishment, he led in the opening up of new territory and pointed the way to petroleum beds that others had never dreamed existed. Prior to his advent in California various college professors and noted geologists, consulted in the matter by prospective investors, had declared that there was no oil to be found in the State; but Mr. Youle and his associates demonstrated in the best kind of way—by drilling—that it was there, and as a result thousands of wells are now pumping, and millions of dollars are invested in the California fields—the world’s richest and most productive oil lands.

During his career in California, which has spanned a period of almost forty years, Mr. Youle has personally supervised the drilling of more than one hundred and fifty wells and today is known as “the” veteran of the business. He applied methods which made deep wells feasible, and much of the credit for finding oil at extreme depths, after the higher levels had failed to produce, is due to him, although he disclaims the honor.

Mr. Youle’s efforts in the discovery and production of oil have not been without difficulties other than those presented by nature herself; on many occasions his experience was matched against that and the theories of others, but he developed numerous properties successfully against their opposition. Oftentimes he was condemned for persisting in sinking his drill hundreds of feet below what was then considered the oil level, his critics declaring that it was impossible to drill to the depths contemplated by him. He persisted, however, and his judgment was finally vindicated by striking oil at the lower levels.

In all his operations Mr. Youle has been guided by one thing—the firm conviction that California is full of oil, this conviction being based on his great experience in the various fields of the United States.

In addition to his actual work in the fields, Mr. Youle has also been an important factor in the development of uses for oil. He handled the first carload of oil that was used for fuel purposes in Los Angeles, this being delivered to the Lankershim Flour Mills of that city. This was one of the very earliest instances of the use of oil for fuel, but today it has become general for domestic use, transportation and industrial lines.

As is well known, the use of crude petroleum for fuel was delayed for a long time because it was not thought by business man and manufacturers that enough could be produce to make it worth while for the large corporations to install oil-burning plants in place of the coal-consuming kind. The rapid development of the California fields, however, and the production of oil in such tremendous quantities, swept away this opposition. Mr. Youle was a strong advocate of the new fuel.

Recognized as one of the country’s greatest authorities on oil and oil-bearing lands, Mr. Youle’s counsel is sought on numerous occasions. His judgment on oil matters is accepted as the last word and through him many hundred thousands of dollars have been safely invested in the business, while at the same time many other thousands have been saved to those who otherwise might have invested in losing propositions. Many men who have made fortunes in oil lay their success to his advice.

Despite his fifty years of work, Mr. Youle is still in harness and takes an active part in the various enterprises in which he is interested. His outdoor life in the fields has kept him a strong, vigorous, well-preserved man.

Mr. Youle has maintained his residence in Los Angeles since the late seventies and has lent his aid to various civic movements which have served to place the city among the great American business centers, but has never taken a very active part in politics, nor has he ever had any ambition to hold public office. He is not a clubman, but gives most of his spare time to the quiet enjoyment of his home and family. He finds relaxation in travel and in 1912 spent several months in visiting Europe and the British Isles.

Transcribed 2-1-11 Marilyn R. Pankey.

Source: Press Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 575, International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta. 1913.

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