(Wireline 10) Logging in Elk Hills, Cuyama, and the many oilfields in the Bakersfield Schlumberger District.

There were 20 plus rigs drilling in the Elk Hills field. It was then the Naval Petroleum Reserve #1. If we were sent on a job there, quite often we would log several wells before we got to come home. Long days. But the Navy wanted the field ready to turn on. (Cold War). But now the Navy has given it up to private interest. Occidental Petroleum owns it now.

This barren 10 mile long anticline rose up out of the farmlands of Buttonwillow.

It was covered with oil wells.

Cuyama was a new development in the mountains between Maricopa and Santa Maria. There were many rigs working there also. It was a long drive from Bakersfield with lots of jobs. Schlumberger had two travel trailers parked there. After a crew's days off they would take their truck to Cuyama and stay there two days, I have been there when we went from well to well for the whole two days. There was one restaurant in the Cuyama Valley. It was full of oil field workers. It was like a "wild west" frontier.

The restaurant did not look like the above then. It did have the same name. The Cuyama Buckhorn. Look at this sign.

What do you get when you add Population, Ft above sea level, and Year established? In this case you get 4663 people/feet above/years. That is a lot.

We logged many fields. From 500 feet at the Kern River field to 23.000 feet at the Paloma field. I got lots of experience. I did work up to a bigger logging truck. They retired 321. (the last canvas back)

The Manager of Bakersfield was a historic character named Jacque Gallois. He was hired by the Schlumberger brothers right after World War I. He had been gassed in the war. He opened the Bakersfield District in 1933. That was only 6 years after the first electric log in 1927. Jacque was an old world Frenchman.

Jacque's office was in the corner.

I worked in Bakersfield about three years. Then I was transferred to Sacramento. For experience in gas country. I  look excited about my move, huh?