In the September edition of the Orcutt Pioneer, Jim Bray presented a historical overview of the history of oil production and the beginnings of the town of Orcutt.  Bray was employed at Unocal in public relations for 24 years and has been a longtime advocate in community service.   This report follows a presentation Bray made at an OTORA (Old Town Orcutt Revitalization Association) in July at the Newlove Picnic Grounds. The following is the second and final in a series reviewing the life of William Warren Orcutt, the young geologist who mapped out oil drilling operations in the early 1900’s and was instrumental in establishing the town named after him. Bray told the amazing story of “Old Maud,” the oil well that put then Union Oil on the map and established Santa Barbara County as a major petroleum producing center.  
La Brea Tar Pits
          William Orcutt was a friend of Allan Hancock for whom the local college is named. He produced oil, the basis of the Hancock fortune, on the Hancock Ranchero in West Los Angeles.  The Hancock Ranchero is now the fashionable neighborhood park in the mid-Wilshire district in Los Angeles.  
           Bray says in the early 1900’s, Orcutt noticed some old bones on the ranchero and was told by Hancock, “They are just old cow bones.”   Orcutt knew they were not cow bones and had them sent to Stanford University in Palo Alto for identification.  But Orcutt’s Stanford alma mater did not have a paleontology department, so the bones were sent to the University of California, Berkeley where they were verified as an historic paleontology find at the location of what is now known as the La Brea Tar Pits. 
 The naming of Clark Avenue in Old Town Orcutt 
          In the early twentieth century when oil production from Old Maud and other discoveries pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into equipment, storage tanks, pipeline and supplies, the town of Orcutt became the clearing house for the materials and home for the men who worked in the nearby hills. E. W. Clark was the president of the Pacific Coast Railway that built the siding, a stretch of railroad track where the equipment and supplies were located.  
          William Orcutt and Clark were good friends. Over Orcutt’s objections, Clark chose to name the railroad siding Orcutt. The oil field took its name from William Orcutt as did the community. Of the idea of naming the town after him, he reportedly said, “reminded me of the practice of naming cheap cigars after cheap actresses.”
           In 1934, Orcutt had a serious automobile accident and lost his left arm but he continued to be a major player for Union Oil. He retired from the company in 1939 and passed away in 1942.  Orcutt’s granddaughter, Mary Orcutt Henderson, who lived in Santa Paula, helped restore the Unocal Oil Museum in 1990 in Santa Paula.  She passed away in December 2020.   
The generosity of Penelope Hartnell
          Old Maud is located on land that belonged to the Hartnell family. Penelope Hartnell was born and raised in San Francisco and lived most of her life in New York, but she loved to visit the Hartnell property, and Bray says she would come sometimes twice a year.  When she died in 2020, her desire was for the land be set aside as open space.  Because of her love for education and libraries, she donated two-million dollars towards the building of a library in Orcutt.