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Edward Laurence Doheny (; August 10, 1856 – September 8, 1935) was an American oil tycoon who, in 1892, drilled the first successful oil well in the Los Angeles City Oil Field. His success set off a petroleum boom in Southern California, and made him a fortune when, in 1902, he sold his properties. He then began highly profitable oil operations in Tampico, Mexico's "golden belt", drilling the first well in the nation in 1901. He expanded operations during the Mexican Revolution, and opened large new oil fields in Lake Maracaibo (Venezuela). His holdings developed as the Pan American Petroleum & Transport Company, one of the largest oil companies in the world in the 1920s. In the 1920s, Doheny was implicated in the Teapot Dome scandal and accused of offering a $100,000 bribe to United States Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall. Doheny was twice acquitted of offering the bribe, but Fall was convicted of accepting it. Doheny and his second wife and widow, Carrie Estelle, were noted philanthropists in Los Angeles, especially regarding Catholic schools, churches and charities. The character J. Arnold Ross in Upton Sinclair's 1926-27 novel Oil! (the inspiration for the 2007 film There Will Be Blood) is loosely based on Doheny. Youth Edward L. Doheny was born in 1856 in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, to Patrick "Pat" and Eleanor Elizabeth "Ellen" (née Quigley) Doheny. The family was Irish Catholic. His father was born in Ireland, and fled Tipperary in the wake of the Great Famine. Patrick tried whaling after reaching Labrador. His mother was born in St. John's, Newfoundland, and was a school teacher. After Patrick and Ellen married and moved to Wisconsin, Doheny's father became a construction laborer and gardener. As a young fellow, Doheny was known to had consumed alcohol before attending the Peachtree Dance with a local girl he had been courting. Doheny graduated from high school in his fifteenth year, and was named the valedictorian of his class. Following his father's death several months after his graduation, Doheny was employed by the U.S. Geological Survey. In 1873 he was sent to Kansas with a party to survey and subdivide the Kiowa-Comanche lands. The following year he left the Geological Survey to pursue his fortune prospecting, first in the Black Hills of South Dakota, and then in Arizona Territory and New Mexico Territory. Early career Doheny is listed in the 1880 United States Census as a painter living in Prescott, Arizona. Later in 1880, he was in the Black Range in western Sierra County of south-western New Mexico Territory, living in the rough silver-mining town of Kingston (about 10 miles (16 km) west of Hillsboro), prospecting, mining, and buying and trading mining claims. He worked in the famed Iron King mine, just north of Kingston, which drew men to the area. In Kingston, he met two men who later played important roles in his life: Albert Fall, the future Secretary of the Interior, and Charles A. Canfield, who became his business partner. Doheny and Canfield together worked the former's Mount Chief Mine with little success. In 1883, in the Black Mountains town of Kingston in the New Mexico Territory, Doheny met and married his first wife, Carrie Louella Wilkins, on August 7. In 1886, Canfield prospected further in the Kingston area, leasing and developing with great success the Comstock Mine (not to be confused with the Comstock Lode of Virginia City, Nevada). Doheny declined to join him in this venture, but Canfield made a small fortune from it. Doheny's daughter, Eileen, was born in December 1885. Doheny was eventually reduced to doing odd jobs (including painting) to support his family. In the Spring of 1891, Doheny left New Mexico and moved to Los Angeles, California, attracted by Canfield's success in real estate there. Canfield had previously left New Mexico with $110,000 in cash from his Comstock Mine venture, which he parlayed into extensive real estate holdings during the Los Angeles boom of the later 1880s. With the collapse of the speculative fever, Canfield lost his wealth and land holdings and, by the time Doheny arrived in Los Angeles in 1891, he was deeply in debt. The two men briefly tried prospecting in the San Diego County area of Southern California, forming the Pacific Gold and Silver Extracting Company there—but without achieving success, they soon returned to Los Angeles. By 1892, Doheny was so poor he could not afford to pay for his boarding room. Doheny's daughter Eileen was a frail child and died at age seven on December 14, 1892. Her death was caused by heart disease stemming from rheumatic fever, as well as a lung infection. Edward and Carrie's marriage was fragile, owing mostly to the harsh reality of mining life and their many financial problems. Eileen's death further strained the marriage. Nearly a year after Eileen's death, on November 6, 1893, Carrie gave birth to their only son Edward Jr., known as Ned. Oil wells and success While in Los Angeles, Doheny found out that there were local reserves of natural asphalt, which in places came to the surface—notably at the La Brea Tar Pits. Doheny obtained a lease near downtown with $400 in financing from Canfield, who had made some money from the mining industry. In the fall of 1892, Doheny dug a well with picks, shovels, and a windlass, looking for asphalt, from which oil could be refined. When the well (6 by 4 feet (1.8 m × 1.2 m) wide) reached 155 feet (47 m), Doheny devised a drilling system involving a eucalyptus tree trunk. When completed in 1893, the well reached 225 feet (69 m) and produced 40 barrels per day (6.4 m3/d). (The discovery of this well appears in John Jakes's novel California Gold,—as do Doheny and Canfield, as partners with the novel's fictional protagonist, Mack Chance.) Edward and Carrie Doheny divorced in 1899, when Ned was six years old. Edward gained custody of their son, and remarried. Unable to cope with her losses, the following year Carrie Doheny committed suicide. Doheny married his second wife, Carrie "Estelle" Betzold, inside the private Pullman car of Santa Fe Railway executive Almon Porter Maginnis ("Car 214"). It was held on the siding in New Mexico Territory on August 22, 1900. Though she bore no children, Carrie raised Ned. The first well dug in Los Angeles was in 1863, on Hoover Street between Seventh Street and Wilshire Boulevard, by a man named Baker. However, in his book Petroleum in California: A Concise and Reliable History of the Oil Industry of the State, Lionel V. Redpath says the Los Angeles oil industry began with the Doheny and Canfield well at the corner of Patton and West State streets. The well was a small producer, but it pumped steadily for three years, and during that time Doheny and others sunk about three hundred more wells. Doheny and Canfield soon made a fortune by drilling in the area and selling the oil to nearby factories. Later, they helped spur the California oil boom of the early 1900s by persuading railroads .... Discover the Margaret Leslie Davis popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Margaret Leslie Davis books.