Demetrius G. Scofield (c. 1834 – July 31, 1917),
/ref> more commonly D. G. Scofield, was a pioneer of the oil business in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

who founded a number of companies in that state and became the first president of

Standard Oil of California Standard may refer to: Symbols * Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs * Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification Norms, conventions or requirements * Standard (metrology), an object th ...

. He served as secretary to the now-defunct F.W. Mitchell Oil Company of Pennsylvania during the Titusville oil boom and arrived in California in about 1875, as the

Pico Canyon Oilfield Well No. 4, Pico Canyon Oilfield, located about seven miles (11 km) west of Newhall, California, in the Santa Susana Mountains, was the first commercially successful oil well in the Western United States and is considered the birthplace of Ca ...

was being developed. By 1876, he was the manager of the small refinery of the California Star Oil Works, which was capable of refining up to of oil a day. The facility, located at Lyon Station in

Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, with 9,861,224 residents estimated as of 2022. It is the ...

was the first refinery in California. It is now abandoned but may be restored as an historical site. Scofield hired oil well driller Charles Alexander Mentry (1847-1900) and financing oil well of the Pico Canyon Oilfield. By 1879 he was a key employee of the

Pacific Coast Oil Company Chevron Corporation is an American multinational energy corporation. The second-largest direct descendant of Standard Oil, and originally known as the Standard Oil Company of California (shortened to Socal or CalSo), it is headquartered in S ...

responsible for bringing other skilled workers to California. In that year, the Pacific Coast Oil Company completed a five-mile (8 km) long, pipeline from Pico Canyon to a new refinery near Newhall. In 1906, Pacific Coast Oil Company was acquired by

Standard Oil Standard Oil Company, Inc., was an American oil production, transportation, refining, and marketing company that operated from 1870 to 1911. At its height, Standard Oil was the largest petroleum company in the world, and its success made its co-f ...

. With the 1911 breakup of that corporation, Scofield became president of the new

. The Associated Press reported that on July 30, he shot and killed himself at his home. He was 74 and despondent over his wife's death five years before. He was the namesake of the oil tanker, the MS D. G. Scofield which was, on 1 May 1939, the first oil tanker to load oil in

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

References

Businesspeople from California Standard Oil 1830s births 1917 deaths 1917 suicides Suicides by firearm in California {{US-business-bio-1830s-stub