Rotary: Wallace L. Hardison a strong character in upcoming book
August 18, 2010
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula News
You’ll find a lot of colorful characters in The Oaks of Santa Paula: A History of Santa Paula Canyon and the Oaks Neighborhood," but not one can match Union Oil co-founder Wallace L. Hardison.
Historian Mitch Stone is still writing the book, he told Rotarians at a recent meeting, that “started out as a history of the Oaks” alone, until he realized the history had to broaden out.
In the 1870s, “Santa Paula Canyon was really Santa Paula’s lifeline” as the city’s primary water source. The “heart” of the Oaks neighborhood was built in the 1920s, and featured many notable citizens including Albert Call, the county’s first agricultural commissioner, and acclaimed photographer Horace Bristol. But it was Wallace Libby Hardison, “in my opinion the other ‘father’ of Santa Paula,” who was perhaps the most famous resident of the area.
Born in Maine in 1850, Hardison came to California 19 years later and then moved to Pennsylvania’s oil region. He married Clara McDonald, whose sister married a Say - a principal street in the Oaks bears that family’s name - in 1875 and the couple started a family.
Stone said Lyman Stewart, one of the “deans of Pennsylvania oil” who Hardison worked with, suffered reversals and moved to California in 1882 after J. D. Rockefeller tied up the franchise. Stewart had two rigs by the time Hardison arrived in California, and the two men joined in oil exploration as well as establishing small oil companies.
“They started out with seven dry holes,” and spent about $200,000 doing so. Stone said although the pair was “broke and deeply in debt,” they were able to secure a $10,000 line of credit. Then the oil started to come in, and in 1890 all their joint petroleum holdings were incorporated as the Union Oil Company.
Limoneira Company has been growing in Ventura County since 1893. Its founders were pioneers of spirit and vision that helped lay the foundations of a thriving California citrus industry. Their dedication and innovation in the agricultural industry helped found and develop many institutions that exist today.
Hardison branched out in more ways than one, including water holdings and as a founder of Santa Paula’s Universalist Unitarian Church and Limoneira Company, when in 1893 Nathan W. Blanchard and Hardison purchased 413 acres of land from J.K. Gries in 1893. The company was named Limoneira, meaning lemon lands in Portuguese, with primary crops of lemons, Valencia oranges and walnuts. Hardison’s business interests grew to include Peruvian gold mines and cattle ranching, among other enterprises.
Hardison and Clara divorced in 1900 and he moved to Los Angeles, where he became a newspaperman when he purchased the Los Angeles Herald, a business in which he included his nephew Guy L. Hardison. Hardison had plans for the Herald: “He reshaped it into a Republican paper” that Stone said naturally became an advocate for the oil industry.
“The General” Harrison Gray Otis, owner of the Los Angeles Times, “did not lose battles,” and Stone said he wasted no time in battling Hardison and his Herald “who invaded his turf.... He launched” a series of articles that referred to his new rival as “Hardupson.”
An incident involving Hardison’s future wife, a singer, led to Hardison “marching over to the Times” to find The General, whom he was told was attending the theater. Stone said what followed was a physical attack on Otis by Hardison and the subsequent downfall of the Herald, which Hardison had to sell “for 10 cents on the dollar... but Hardison started to rebuild his career and his life.”
That life ended tragically when a train struck Hardison’s car in 1909, killing him instantly. He was only 59 years old.
Overall, Stone said he was very surprised when he researched Hardison and found how influential he was, leading to his belief Hardison should be considered “The other father of Santa Paula.”
