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Edward L. Doheny

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Adapted from the English Wikipedia article Edward L. Doheny, available under CC BY-SA 4.0Updated 11 August 2025
Edward Laurence Doheny
BornTemplate:Birth date
Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, U.S.
DiedSeptember 8, 1935(1935-09-08) (aged 79)
Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
Occupation(s)Oil magnate, businessman
Known forEstablishing first productive oil well in Los Angeles City Oil Field; founding Pan American Petroleum & Transport Company; involvement in Teapot Dome scandal

Edward Laurence Doheny (; August 10, 1856 – September 8, 1935) was a pioneering American oil magnate who established the first productive oil well in the Los Angeles City Oil Field in 1892. This achievement sparked a major petroleum boom in Southern California and secured his wealth upon selling his assets in 1902.

Following this, Doheny initiated lucrative oil ventures in Tampico, located in Mexico’s so-called "golden belt," where he drilled the country’s inaugural well in 1901. He expanded his operations during the Mexican Revolution and developed key oil reserves around Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. These assets eventually formed the basis of the Pan American Petroleum & Transport Company, which became one of the largest global oil enterprises by the 1920s.

During the 1920s, Doheny became associated with the Teapot Dome scandal, facing allegations of offering a $100,000 bribe to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall. While Doheny was acquitted twice, Fall was found guilty. Alongside his second wife, Margaret McFadden, Doheny was a significant benefactor in Los Angeles, contributing to numerous Catholic educational institutions and charitable organizations. The character J. Arnold Ross in Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil!, which inspired the film There Will Be Blood, is loosely modeled on Doheny.

Youth

Born in 1856 in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, Edward L. Doheny was the son of Irish Catholic immigrants Patrick "Pat" and Eleanor Elizabeth "Ellen" (Quigley) Doheny. His father had emigrated from Ireland following the Great Famine and held various jobs including whaling, construction labor, and gardening. His mother, originally from St. John's, worked as a schoolteacher.

Doheny completed high school as valedictorian at age fifteen. Shortly after his father passed away, he joined the U.S. Geological Survey. In 1873, he surveyed and divided lands belonging to the Kiowa and Comanche tribes in Kansas, before prospecting for minerals in the Black Hills of South Dakota and later in territories that would become Arizona and New Mexico.

Early career

According to the 1880 United States Census, Doheny was employed as a painter residing in Prescott, Arizona. Later that year, he moved to New Mexico Territory’s southwestern Black Range, where he prospected and traded mining claims near the silver mining community of Kingston. There he worked at the Iron King mine and met Albert Fall—who would become Secretary of the Interior—and Charles A. Canfield, who later became his business associate.

Together with Canfield, Doheny operated the Mount Chief Mine but found limited success. In 1883, he married Carrie Louella Wilkins in Kingston. While Canfield eventually prospered by developing the nearby Comstock Mine, Doheny chose not to join that venture. Their daughter Eileen was born in December 1885. Over time, Doheny took on various odd jobs including painting to provide for his family.

In early 1891, Doheny relocated to Los Angeles, California, motivated by Canfield’s earlier real estate achievements there. Canfield had converted $110,000 earned from mining into extensive Los Angeles properties during the late 1880s boom but suffered heavy losses when the market collapsed and was deeply indebted by the time Doheny arrived.

The two briefly attempted prospecting again through the Pacific Gold and Silver Extracting Company in San Diego County, California, but this effort failed and they returned to Los Angeles. By 1892, Doheny’s financial situation had deteriorated so severely that he could no longer afford his boarding expenses.

Tragically, their daughter Eileen passed away at seven years old in December 1892 due to heart complications related to rheumatic fever and lung infection. These hardships placed additional strain on Edward and Carrie’s marriage. Nearly a year later, on November 6, 1893, Carrie gave birth to their only son Edward Jr., commonly known as Ned.

Oil wells and early achievements

During his time in Los Angeles, Doheny identified natural asphalt deposits emerging notably at the La Brea Tar Pits. With an initial investment of $400 from Canfield, a mining industry backer, Doheny leased property near downtown and in 1892 began digging a well using manual tools such as picks, shovels, and a windlass, aiming to extract asphalt for oil refining. Completed in 1893 at a depth of , the well produced . This early accomplishment is depicted in John Jakes' novel California Gold, which portrays Doheny and Canfield as business partners.

In 1899, Edward Doheny divorced Carrie and obtained custody of their son Ned. The following year, Carrie Doheny took her own life. In 1900, Doheny married Carrie "Estelle" Betzold aboard a private car on the Santa Fe Railway. While they did not have children together, Estelle raised Ned.

Although the first oil well in Los Angeles was drilled in 1863 on Hoover Street, Lionel V. Redpath credits Doheny and Canfield's well at Patton and West State streets as the true genesis of the local oil sector. Their well maintained steady production for three years, during which time approximately 300 additional wells were drilled. By supplying oil to factories and drilling extensively in the area, Doheny and Canfield built a substantial fortune. They also played a key role in accelerating California’s early 20th-century oil boom by promoting the railroads’ transition from coal to oil fuel for locomotives.

Doheny broke new ground by initiating oil extraction in Mexico, drilling the nation’s first well near Tampico in 1901. He expanded operations amid the Mexican Revolution, developing significant oil fields inland from Tampico’s "golden belt." His firm drilled the Cerro Azul No. 4 well, which in February 1916 became the world’s highest-producing well at 260,000 barrels per day. The eruption was audible from miles away and sent oil shooting up to heights of , ultimately yielding over fifty-seven million barrels across fourteen years.

Major enterprise and Teapot Dome affair

Doheny founded the Pan American Petroleum and Transport Company (P.A.T.) to unify his Mexican ventures (Mexican Petroleum and Huasteca), along with Atlantic and Gulf Coast U.S. assets and California properties. By October 1919, the company controlled 600,000 acres valued at roughly $50 million and had acquired an additional 800,000 acres in Mexico.

In 1919, P.A.T.’s affiliate, the Colombian Petroleum Company, secured a 75% interest in Colombia’s Barco oil concession. Doheny also explored developing Venezuela’s petroleum sector and proposed building a pipeline linking Colombia to Venezuela to facilitate exports from Lake Maracaibo. By 1920, Pan American had become the largest U.S.-based oil company, surpassing Sinclair and Standard Oil of Indiana amid rising automobile production and elevated oil prices. The Mexican Petroleum Company was Mexico’s dominant producer during this period when Mexico led global oil output. By 1925, Doheny’s net worth reached $100 million—exceeding that of John D. Rockefeller at the time.

In 1922, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall leased California’s Elk Hills oil field to Pan American Petroleum & Transport without competitive bidding; around the same period, Wyoming’s Teapot Dome was leased under similar conditions to Sinclair Consolidated Oil Corporation. These noncompetitive leases triggered the notorious Teapot Dome scandal. Doheny’s reputation was tarnished due to a $100,000 bribe paid to Fall in 1921 connected to the Elk Hills lease. Although charged with bribery, Doheny was acquitted in 1930; Fall was convicted.

In April 1925, Doheny divested most shares of Pan American Petroleum & Transport to Standard Oil of Indiana but retained all California assets by establishing Pan American Western Petroleum Company as an upstream exploration and production entity. Non-California interests—including Mexican holdings, refineries, pipelines, and tankers—were sold to Standard Oil.

Following this divestiture, Pan American Petroleum & Transport acquired Lago Petroleum Corporation at Lake Maracaibo in 1925; this deal later faced shareholder litigation alleging conflicts of interest involving bankers on Pan American’s board. In 1926, Venezuelan Eastern Petroleum Corporation became a subsidiary under Pan American Eastern to develop Venezuelan oil properties; Doheny held only a minority stake.

During the Teapot Dome controversy era, Doheny constructed Greystone Mansion for his son Ned and daughter-in-law Lucy in 1928 at a cost exceeding $3 million; he sold it to them for just $10.

In 1929, amid impending second bribery trials for both Doheny and Fall, Ned Doheny fatally shot his assistant Hugh Plunkett before taking his own life under ambiguous circumstances. Authorities quickly classified it as a murder-suicide amid speculation about an affair between Ned and Plunkett.

After these events and ensuing shareholder lawsuits following Teapot Dome, Doheny withdrew from public life. His wife Carrie Estelle commissioned architect Wallace Neff to design Ferndale Ranch on their Ojai estate as a tranquil refuge. The expansive 9,000-square-foot home was completed swiftly with hundreds of workers laboring around the clock.

Personal

Edward Doheny was passionate about sailing and owned the steam yacht Casiana, which he named after his first significant oil well in Mexico, Casiana No. 7. In 1922, he lent this vessel to Elisha Walker for the urgent transport of attorney Abbot J. Dorn to a hospital where he underwent cancer surgery.

Death

Doheny passed away from natural causes at his Beverly Hills residence on September 8, 1935, just days following his seventy-ninth birthday. His funeral took place at St. Vincent's Church in Los Angeles. That same year, his widow, Carrie Estelle Doheny, destroyed hundreds of letters and business papers that biographer Margaret Leslie Davis described as the "written remnants of Edward Doheny's life."

Philanthropy

The Doheny family contributed generously to various educational institutions. After the tragic shooting death of their son Edward Jr., they gifted $1.1 million in 1932 to the University of Southern California (USC) for the creation of the Edward L. Doheny Jr. Memorial Library. Their name is also commemorated in Doheny Hall at Loyola Marymount University and the Doheny Campus at Mount St. Mary's College. The senior Doheny’s French Gothic-style mansion on Mount St. Mary's campus, located within the gated Chester Place neighborhood, was restored following damage from the 1933 earthquake.

Owning vast coastal property in Dana Point, California, the family donated this land to establish Doheny State Beach as a tribute to their son Ned. Additionally, they financed St. Edward Chapel (now known as San Felipe de Jesus Chapel) and supported St. Vincent de Paul Church in Los Angeles. Near Tampico, Mexico—where Doheny began his oil ventures in 1902—he aided in building and maintaining the Cathedral of Tampico.

After Carrie Estelle Doheny experienced partial vision loss in 1944, she founded and funded the Doheny Eye Institute, which has since become a leading global center for vision research. As a prominent cultural benefactor in Los Angeles, she frequently engaged architect Wallace Neff for civic projects. In 1940, she donated antiquities and funding toward establishing the Edward Laurence Doheny Memorial Library at St. John's Seminary in Camarillo, California.

In 1954, she provided resources and collections for a library facility at St. Mary's of the Barrens seminary in Perryville, Missouri. By the year 2000, this library was transferred to Southeast Missouri State University, and the Doheny collections were subsequently sold.

Family

Edward Doheny and his first wife, Carrie Louella, had two children: a daughter named Eileen who died young, and a son Edward L. ("Ned") Doheny Jr., who owned Greystone Mansion and is the namesake of USC’s Doheny Library; Ned died at age 29.

Through Ned’s descendants, Doheny is the great-grandfather of science fiction author Larry Niven and singer-songwriter Ned Doheny. Additionally, through his cousin Michael’s marriage, Edward was connected to Canadian industrialist Alice Ryan and her brothers Hugh Ryan and John Ryan, both notable railway magnates.

Legacy

Numerous places across Southern California carry Doheny’s name:

In popular culture

  • The payment made by Doheny to Albert Fall and the ensuing controversy served as inspiration for Upton Sinclair's novel Oil!, which draws partly from Doheny's experiences.
  • Doheny Beach receives a mention in the Beach Boys' track "Surfin' USA" with the line "...all over Manhattan and down Doheny way..."
  • The character Daniel Plainview in the film There Will Be Blood, adapted from Oil!, is loosely modeled after Doheny.
  • The 1964 song "Dead Man's Curve" by Jan and Dean includes the lyric "He passed me at Doheny..."
  • The character Lydell McCutcheon in season two of "Perry Mason" is partially based on Doheny.

Bibliography

  • Ansell, Martin R. (1998). Oil Baron of the Southwest: Edward L. Doheny and the Development of the Petroleum Industry in California and Mexico. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press. ISBN 0-8142-0749-9 — Recognized as a definitive academic biography. online
  • Davis, Margaret Leslie (1998). Dark Side of Fortune: Triumph and Scandal in the Life of Oil Tycoon Edward L. Doheny. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-22909-6 — Considered a comprehensive scholarly biography.
  • Gross, Dalton; Gross, MaryJean (1998). Understanding The Great Gatsby: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-30097-4.
  • La Botz, Dan (1991). Edward L. Doheny: Petroleum, Power and Politics in the United States and Mexico. New York: Praeger. ISBN 0-275-93599-X — Noted for containing some inaccuracies and omissions.
  • Swaine, Robert T. (1946). The Cravath Firm And Its Predecessors: 1819-1947. The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 978-1-58477-713-7.

External links

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