Wilson pivotal in the oilfields, community

A LOOK BACK

Longtime Huntington Beach resident Dale Dunn once told me that the

Huntington Beach Rotary Club has been a driving force here in our

city since it received its charter in July of 1923. This week we are

going to look at one of their past presidents, Arthur F. Wilson.

Wilson was born in 1894 in the small California town of Tres

Pinos, located 12 miles southeast of Hollister on State Route 25 and

within nose shot of Gilroy, the garlic capital of the world. For

those of you who still remember your high school Spanish, Tres Pinos

means “Three Pines.”

The Southern Pacific railroad had a line running from Gilroy to

Tres Pinos and Wilson’s father owned and operated a stagecoach line

from Tres Pinos to the New Idra quicksilver mine. Wilson’s coaches

brought the miners to their jobs in the mines and back daily and this

was the environment that Wilson grew up in.

He attended Hollister Elementary School and in 1912 graduated from

Hollister’s San Benito High School.

While in high school, Wilson made extra money working at a local

stationary store, where he continued working after graduation until

1913 to earn enough money to attend college. In 1914 Wilson entered

Stanford University in Palo Alto where he majored in civil

engineering.

While there, he took up track, running in one and two mile races

and in school-sponsored cross country runs against other schools.

During summer breaks Wilson worked as a surveyor for the Standard

Oil Co. After four long, hard years at Stanford, Wilson graduated and

went back east to attend Boston Tech University where he learned

naval aviation.

With World War I going on Wilson was transferred to the Key West

Naval Flying Station in Florida to further his flying education. He

finished his flying instructions at the Naval Flying School in

Pensacola and received his commission as an ensign in the U.S. Navy.

The Navy sent him to Miami to teach flying to those early daredevil

pilots.

When the war ended Wilson left the Navy in 1919 and returned to

California to work in the engineering department for his old

employer, Standard Oil.

After a short time in their San Francisco office Wilson was sent

to the company’s Elk Hills oil fields as a field engineer. But it was

in 1920 that he was transferred to its newest oil strike in the small

beach town of Huntington Beach.

For 10 years he was in charge of constructing many of the town’s

wooden derricks and during those times watched as the black gold

flowed out of those wells and into the coffers of the company.

Next, Standard Oil send him to their Kettleman Hills fields in

central California in 1929 as their field engineer and three years

later brought him back to Huntington Beach.

A year later the big earthquake of 1933 would destroy many of our

commercial buildings in the downtown and Wilson and his oilmen were

there to help remove the fallen facades and bring the town back to

order.

Now as Standard Oil’s production foreman Wilson supervised

bringing in many of those oil wells and his office was on the old

Standard oil lease located at Goldenwest Street and Orange Avenue.

Not long after returning to Huntington Beach that he became a

member on the Huntington Beach Union High School Board and would

later serve as chairman of that board.

He joined our Huntington Beach Chamber of Commerce and served on

its board as a director. The chamber was also a powerful force in

those days with Bill Gallienne as its manager and being on its board

was quite a privilege.

Wilson also chaired the Orange County Coast Assn. and belonged to

the American Petroleum Institute which most of our powerful oilmen

did in those early days.

But it was his membership in the Huntington Beach Rotary Club that

held a special position in his heart. Dunn told me that in those

later days, the Rotary Club held its meetings at the Golden Bear

Cafe.

Wilson’s life paralleled our city’s oil era and through the years

Wilson took an active place as a civic leader in our community.

* JERRY PERSON is a local historian and longtime Huntington Beach

resident. If you have ideas for future columns, write him at P.O. Box

7182, Huntington Beach, CA 92615.