Demetrius Gustavus Scofield (January 28, 1843 – July 31, 1917)
/ref> was a pioneer of the oil business in

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

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

Standard Oil of California Chevron Corporation is an American multinational List of oil exploration and production companies, energy corporation predominantly specializing in Petroleum industry, oil and gas. The second-largest Successors of Standard Oil, direct descenda ...

. 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 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 California's oil industry ...

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 Lyon station is an underground light rail station on Line 1 of the O-Train in Ottawa located in the western portion of Ottawa's downtown, specifically at Lyon Street and Queen Street, the latter being the street the line runs under within Ottaw ...

Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles and sometimes abbreviated as LA County, is the most populous county in the United States, with 9,663,345 residents estimated in 2023. Its population is greater than that of 40 individua ...

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 Mentryville was an oil drilling town in the Santa Susana Mountains in Los Angeles County, California, USA. It was started by Charles Alexander Mentry in the 1870s around the newly discovered oil reserves in that area. The first oil strike was ...

(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 predominantly specializing in oil and gas. The second-largest direct descendant of Standard Oil, and originally known as the Standard Oil Company of California (shortened to ...

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 was a Trust (business), corporate trust in the petroleum industry that existed from 1882 to 1911. The origins of the trust lay in the operations of the Standard Oil of Ohio, Standard Oil Company (Ohio), which had been founde ...

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

. The Associated Press reported that on July 30 1917, 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 West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

References

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