California's First Oil Boom Ghost Town
27201 Pico Canyon Rd, Stevenson Ranch, CA 91381
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
$5 parking fee at the automated kiosk in the lot. Hiking and site access free beyond parking.
Access
Limited Access
Dirt trails and uneven historic grounds; 6.9-mile out-and-back trail option available
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1876 · California's First Commercial Oil Strike · California Historical Landmark #516-2 · 19th-Century Oil Industry · Ghost Town Preservation
The first commercial oil well in California was completed at Pico Canyon on September 26, 1876. Charles Alexander Mentry, born in France on March 27, 1847, had arrived in California via San Francisco and taken on the role of oil field superintendent in the canyon. The well — Pico No. 4 — produced an initial flow of 30 barrels per day and went on to operate continuously until 1990, making it one of the longest-running oil wells on record.
Mentry built a community around the well. Mentryville, as it came to be called, eventually housed approximately 100 to 200 residents in boarding houses, cottages, and family homes. Mentry imposed strict behavioral standards: the town had no bar, and both drinking and profanity were prohibited. The amenities were unusually sophisticated for a remote mountain settlement — gas-lighted tennis courts, croquet fields, and a main road paved with locally extracted asphalt.
Mentry died in October 1900 from kidney disease complicated by typhoid fever. Without its founding figure, the town's social and economic cohesion dissolved gradually. Oil production diminished, the industry changed, and by the early 1930s, most residents had departed — many literally dismantling their homes and taking the lumber with them. By 1962, only a caretaker family remained in Mentry's thirteen-room mansion.
The property was donated to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy in 1995. Today it is managed as a public historic park by the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, classified as California Historical Landmark No. 516-2. The Mentry mansion, a one-room schoolhouse, and a period barn remain standing. The location has also been used as a filming site, appearing in productions including 'The Color Purple,' 'Walking Tall Part 2,' 'The X-Files,' and 'Murder, She Wrote.'
Sources
Charles Mentry's descendants have said he found a way to remain useful after his death. During the 1994 Northridge earthquake, family members reported that his spirit guided them to safety — though the specifics of these accounts vary and no contemporaneous documentation has been located.
More recently, a paranormal investigation team visited the standing structures and captured a range of reported phenomena. In Pico Cottage, team members heard footsteps moving deliberately between upstairs rooms with no visible source. The pattern of movement — traveling from one room to another — was distinctive enough that investigators described the sound as walking rather than building noise.
During an EVP session, a handprint appeared beside one investigator. The print was smaller than the investigator's hand, and it persisted longer than surface moisture would typically allow. Audio review later revealed two recordings: a male voice saying 'yeah' and a female voice speaking an incomplete phrase ending with 'be here.' Neither voice had been audible to the investigators during the session.
In the period barn, investigator Kimberly Demmary described sensing a male presence that seemed hostile to women. While climbing the barn stairs, she experienced pressure on the top of her head, as if being pushed back. The sensation was specific and directional.
The Shadowlands account notes a slightly different emphasis — figures in old western clothing observed among the oak trees, and voices heard in the open air — consistent with Mentryville's 1880s settler aesthetic. The relationship of these accounts to the specific 1928 St. Francis Dam disaster downstream in San Francisquito Canyon (which killed hundreds in a flood) is unclear; the communities are geographically proximate but the historical events are distinct.
Notable Entities
Explore the standing structures of California's first commercially successful oil town, including Charles Mentry's thirteen-room mansion, a period barn, and a one-room schoolhouse. A paranormal investigation team documented unexplained footsteps moving between upstairs rooms of Pico Cottage and a handprint that appeared beside an investigator during an EVP session.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Gatlinburg, TN
Great Smoky Mountains National Park preserves 522,427 acres of southern Appalachian terrain across Tennessee and North Carolina. The land was the heart of the Cherokee Nation before forced removal in 1838 along what became the Trail of Tears, and home to Appalachian Scots-Irish and English settler communities through the early twentieth century. Congress authorized the park in 1926; it was formally dedicated by Franklin D. Roosevelt on September 2, 1940.
Linville Falls, NC
The Linville Gorge Wilderness in Burke County, North Carolina is part of the Pisgah National Forest and contains the deepest river gorge in the eastern United States. The Brown Mountain Lights — unexplained luminous phenomena visible from Wiseman's View and other overlooks near the gorge — were first reported in published accounts around 1910. A 1922 investigation by USGS scientist George R. Mansfield attempted to explain them as reflected headlights and brush fires but could not account for all reported sightings.
Centralia, PA
Centralia is a near-ghost town in Columbia County, Pennsylvania, atop an underground coal-mine fire that has been burning since May 1962. The borough's population fell from 1,000 in 1980 to five residents in 2020. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania condemned the borough in 1992 and acquired most properties by eminent domain. The fire is estimated to be capable of burning for another 250 years.