The two photos above: Loading Oil at The Crump Oil Station, Ora, California. Image taken 1908-1909 by Walter J. Nichols of Coalinga. Ora was a train stop just east of Coalinga where oil cars would be filled up with crude oil. These oil cars would then be shipped to refineries, such as the Hanford Gas & Power Company. This is one of my favorite "occupational" postcard images because it shows how casual the danger of crude oil was taken. Crude oil is highly flammable and just seeing this man standing next to a spigot of flowing oil with no eye protection or safety equipment of any kind is mind-blowing. The best part is the oily board that was laid down between the loading platform and the rail car which he used to cross over to the oil tank to close it off. OSHA would have a heart attack.
Oklahoma City had a similar loading area. During WW2 much of the oil that won the war came from one square mile in OKC. The trains were loaded with oil at breakneck speed, and the oil spillage on the ground was huge. After the war, and the slowdown of that oil field, they just put down some topsoil, and ignored it. Years later a bank wanted the are e for a branch and discovered what an environmental mess it was. It was a superfund site and cleaned up.
The routines of camp life of the 31st Penn. Infantry (later, 82d Penn. Infantry) at Queen's farm, vicinity of Fort Slocum, Washington, District of Columbia, during the Civil War in 1861.
These progressive high school girls learn the finer points of auto mechanics in 1927.
Typical staged photo about like the stock photos of today.
