Editing Ojai, California (section)

=== Rancho Ojai ===
{{main|Rancho Ojai}}
In 1837, Fernando Tico, a Santa Barbara businessman, received the 17,716-acre Rancho Ojai Mexican land grant, which included both the lower and upper Ojai valleys. Tico operated a cattle ranch on the land and moved his large family to an adobe in the lower valley. Tico sold the entire Rancho Ojai in 1853.<ref>Fry, Patricia, Elise DePuydt & Craig Walker, ''The Ojai Valley: An Illustrated History''. Ojai Valley Museum. 2017. pp. 16-18</ref> The rancho changed hands several more times before it was purchased in 1864 by [[Thomas A. Scott]], a Pennsylvania oil and railroad baron. The petroleum exploration of the Ojai Basin was the result of a report of [[petroleum seep|oil seeps]] (oil springs) along the Sulphur Mountain area. In 1866, Scott's nephew [[Thomas Bard]] used a steam-powered cable-tool [[drilling rig]] on the north side of Sulphur Mountain. On May 29, 1867, Ojai No. 6 produced an [[oil gusher]], at a depth of 550 feet, and the Ojai Field eventually produced 10-20 [[barrels of oil]] a day.  Also in 1866, [[Leland Stanford]]'s brother Josiah dug oil tunnels on the south side of Sulphur Mountain, producing 20 barrels a day for the Stanford Brothers refinery in San Francisco. For economic reasons, falling oil prices at the end of the Civil War and cheaper imports from the east, Scott and Stanford ceased [[oil exploration]] in the valley area.  Thomas Bard then began selling the surface rights to parcels of Rancho Ojai in late 1867. As the president of [[Unocal]], Bard would return in the 1890s to dig about 50 oil tunnels into Sulphur Mountain, which produced until 1998.<ref>Sheridan, Solomon Neill. ''History of Ventura County, California'', Vol. 1, 1926. p. 217</ref><ref>Westergaard, Waldemar and Thomas Bard. "Thomas R. Bard and the Beginnings of the Oil Industry in Southern California," ''Historical Society of Southern California'', Vol. 10, No. 3, 1917, pp. 61-69</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Nelson |first1=Mike |title=The Hunt for California Crude |journal=AAPG Explorer |date=2020 |volume=41 |issue=2 |page=18 |url=https://explorer.aapg.org/story/articleid/56103/the-hunt-for-california-oil |access-date=February 13, 2020}}</ref>