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Summerland features Ocean Front Homes and Ocean view homes plus small town living. Summerland, Santa Barbara County community of homes and businesses in only 15 miles four downtown Santa Barbara. A Little History: Tar from natural oil seeps in the Summerland area was long used as a sealant, both by the native Chumash peoples and by the Spanish builders of the Mission Santa Barbara, who used it as waterproofing for the roof. In 1883, Spiritualist and real estate speculator H.L. Williams founded the town of Summerland. He named it as an advertisement for the excellent weather, and in 1888 divided his land tract, on a moderately sloping hill facing the ocean, into numerous parcels. He promoted the tiny lots – 25 x 60 – to fellow spiritualists, who bought them in quantity and moved to the area. The houses they built included bizarre architectural features such as doors which opened to walls, and stairways ascending to nowhere. The spiritual center of the town was a community séance room, demolished only when Highway 101 was put through in the 1950s.[1] In the 1890s, oil development began in the coastal area of Summerland, at the Summerland Oil Field. Numerous wooden oil derricks sprouted on the beach, and on piers stretching into the ocean, as seen in the photograph. The world's first offshore oil well, drilled into the sea floor, was at this location. Production at this beach area peaked before 1910, although most of the rigs remained into the 1920s.[2] Peak production from the onshore portion of the Summerland Field did not actually occur until 1930; the last oil was pumped from the nearshore region in 1940.[3] In 1957, Standard Oil Co. of California (now Chevron) found the large Summerland Offshore Oil Field, several miles offshore, which is still in production.[4] In January 1969, a blowout at this field produced the infamous Santa Barbara Oil Spill, a formative event for the modern environmental movement. |
