An Excerpt from my book Prohibition Madness
On
April 7, 1924, the City of Signal Hill was created when voters in the oil district
cast 348 ballots in favor of incorporation and 211 against. Because of oil discovered on the "hill" in 1921 they were now the richest city
in America.
Forty-eight year-old Mrs. Jessie
Elwin Nelson was elected mayor and won the distinction of becoming the first
female mayor in Southern California. The Jessie Elwin Nelson Academy on Signal Hill is named in her honor.
A correspondent for the Long Beach Press Telegram, Jessie Nelson’s story was the first to describe the initial discovery of oil on Signal Hill, the “spudding in” of the Shell oil well on June 23, 1921. She evocatively captured the scene in the Press Telegram:
A correspondent for the Long Beach Press Telegram, Jessie Nelson’s story was the first to describe the initial discovery of oil on Signal Hill, the “spudding in” of the Shell oil well on June 23, 1921. She evocatively captured the scene in the Press Telegram:
“Gravel,
shot from the vortex of the roaring gas spout, stripped the insulation from
nearby electric wires. The resultant
sparks ignited the gas and writhing jets of flame set a lurid light over the
landscape.”
The Tennessee native had lived on Signal
Hill for twenty years in an old fashioned yellow frame house set among a ragged
cluster of trees with a grand panorama. Pigeons cooed about the home at Cherry Avenue
and Hill Street and a bay mare had the back lot all to herself. When the
Nelsons settled on the Hill in 1904 only eight houses could be counted on the
plains below. Jessie’s husband, Zechariah T. Nelson, had relentlessly sought to
preserve Signal Hill as a residential district, unmarked by industry. It was he who was instrumental in securing a
scenic drive on the hill and other improvements. Perhaps it was the discovery
of oil and the altering of the place he loved that caused him to die of a heart
attack on July 4th 1922, at the age of seventy-three. But Jessie accepted the changes fate had
brought and explained it was “taxation without representation” that forced the
Hill to incorporate:
“We
paid $20,000 to the county for library tax, but we had no library. We paid the
county road tax of 35 cents per $100 valuation, making a $140,000 road fund. We
paid $500,000 a year to Long Beach for schools, but we had no schools. We want a good, modern town when the derricks
are gone.”
Signal Hill City Hall after 1933 earthquake |
Walter Case's History of Long Beach and Vicinity (1927), also used as source for this story.
Thanks Claudine! I was privileged to take the lead in the 90th anniversary events of the City of Signal Hill in 2014. During my research I read many accounts of Signal Hill's incorporation. This blog has given me even more information to 'fill in the blanks'. For example, I did not know that Jessie Elwin Nelson was a native of Tennessee. This is especially interesting to me since I am a female and currently the Mayor of Signal Hill....and am also originally from Tennessee! Lori Y. Woods, Mayor, City of Signal Hill, CA 2016-2017
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