VINCENT GELCICH

Discovery of Oil in California

Adam S. Eterovich

One of the better known figures in Los Angeles in the latter part of the nineteenth centurey was Vincent Gelcich, a surgeon born in Starigrad, on the island of Hvar, Dalmatia, Croatia.  Gelcich studied medicine in Venice and Vienna before participating in Garibaldi’s unsucessful revolution of 1848.

Shortly thereafter he sailed for San Francisco, where he practiced medicine and became active in the affairs of the growing Croatian community.  Gelcich was one of the chief organizers of the first Croatian society in America, the Slavonic Illyric Mutual and Benevolent Society of San Francisco which was founded in 1857. On November 26, 1860, a delegation consisting of Nikola Barovich born in Janjina, Peljesac; John Ucovich born in Dubrovnik; and President Dr. Vincent Gelcich born on the Island of Hvar arrived on the morning barge from San Francisco to present to their Croatian brothers in Sacramento the Croatian Red, White and Blue Flag and Banner to celebrate their first anniversary as the Croatian Slavonic Illyric Society of Sacramento organized in 1859. This being the second oldest Croatian organization in the Americas. Croatians in Sacramento during the period 1849-1890 either belonged to the Slavonian Society or the Austrian Benevolent Society based in San Francisco. All were Croatians.

Serving as Surgeon to the Fourth California Infantry, which was stationed at Wilmington during the Civil War, Gelcich was mustered out of the army there and settled in Los Angeles, where he became one of the city’s pioneer druggists and also its first coroner.

Standard Oil Company of California

Not content to confine his activities to medicine, Gelcich soon became involved in the search for oil in the Newhall-Saugus area. Knowledge of crude oil in the canyons in the western rim of the Newhall Basin dated back to at least 1842 when Francisco Lopez discovered gold in Placeritas Canyon, and “seep-skimmers” were active in the same canyons during the 1860s. Therefore, Gelcich was reasonably optimistic about the oil potential when he organized the Los Angeles Petroleum Refining Company on July 30, 1873.  He was joined in this ventury by some of Los Angeles’s most prominent figures, and together they set up a primitive refinery at Lyons Station, about two miles south of Newhall. The attempts to refine the crude oil ended in failure.  Nonetheless, Gelcich was correct in his belief that the ground underneath Los Angeles was rich in oil deposits.  In 1877 the Los Angeles Petroleum Refining Company was purchased by the California Star Oil Works which became the Pacific Coast ancestor of Standord Oil Company of California. In 1871, Gelcich published an article in the California Mailbag extrolling the economic potential of Los Angeles, part of which reads: “Happy, indeed, will be the time when the brilliant sparks of fire will fly from the smokestack of the railroad engine as it passes over these luxurious valleys and through these rich mountains, carrying along the great treasure which has for ages been awaiting the arrival of industry and progress.”

Gelcich married Petra Pico, a daughter of Captain Antonio Maria Pico, a member of the old and wealthy Pico family of California.  There used to exist in downtown Los Angeles, on the west side of Pearl Street near the end of Sixth, a building known as Gelcich Place.” Gelcich died on June 5th 1895.

Gelcich, V. “Great Discovery of Petroleum in the San Fernando Range.” California Mail Bag, December 30, 1871. Gelcich involved in discovery.