Olinda

The bronze and the state's register describe two different Olindas. The 1978 plaque tells of drilling with the hole full of water in 1899, of fuel oil for the Santa Fe Railroad, and of the Carbon Canyon Dam, begun in 1959, that finished the town. The register names Edward Doheny's first well of 1897 and Walter Johnson. The two accounts meet in one family: Johnson's father came in 1902 to haul for the Santa Fe Oil Company, and his son pitched for a semipro nine called the Olinda Oil Wells before Washington signed him.

What the plaque says

Olinda The course of oil production was changed in 1899 when the Olinda area became the first site in California to use the technique of drilling with the hole full of water. Having been developed as a source of fuel oil for the Santa Fe Railroad, Olinda became a bustling boomtown at the turn of the century. Its demise came with construction of Carbon Canyon Dam in 1959. California Registered Historical Landmark No. 918 Plaque placed by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with Orange County Board of Supervisors, November 6, 1978.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Planes of Fame Air Museum — 12 mi
  On the field where the country smelted its surplus warplanes — and about thirty of the aircraft here still fly.
• Graber Olive House — 15 mi
  The oldest business in Ontario, a cannery of five hundred brine vats — shut since the pandemic and in foreclosure.
• Puvungna — 19 mi
  The Acjachemen and Tongva place of creation: twenty-two acres of open ground on a university campus, still not in the hands of its people.
• Mission San Gabriel Arcangel — 20 mi
  The fourth Alta California mission, built on Tongva land with Tongva labor, rebuilt after arson and now telling that story straight.

More markers nearby

• Don Bernardo Yorba Ranchhouse Site — 4.9 mi
• Old Santa Ana — 5.9 mi
• North Gate of City of Anaheim — 7.3 mi
• Site of the Rancho Chino Adobe of Isaac Williams — 8.0 mi