‘You Can Kiss Fellows Goodby’ : A Company Town Is Fading Away as Oil Rigs Replace the Houses and Residents Lament Their Fate

This town is gradually fading away.

Every time a family moves out, the oil company that owns all the land here buys the vacated home and has it demolished, clearing the way for drilling into the deposit of oil beneath Fellows.

The Santa Fe Energy Co. is a benign landlord, by most accounts. The company has never forced anyone out of town. It owns one-year leases on all the houses, and no one who has wanted to renew one has ever been refused.

But there are plenty of people in this unincorporated Kern County community of 350 to lament the passing of Fellows.

“You can kiss Fellows goodby. Its death is imminent,” said Eugene Griffith, 65, a lifelong resident who owns a small trucking firm with his son.

“Fellows is being phased out. Nearly half the houses are gone--bulldozed, flattened and hauled away; 80 homes have been wiped out in the last five years. Only 110 are left.”

Some residents are pressing Santa Fe Energy to change its policy. Friends of Fellows, a group of homeowners and former homeowners, initiated a letter-writing campaign earlier this year urging the company to sell the land on which their homes sit to the residents.

“We can see the handwriting on the wall. We don’t want the town to die; it’s too nice a place,” said Richard Pellerin, 45, captain of the Kern County fire station in Fellows and chairman of Friends of Fellows.

“The oil company never told us they want to remove all the houses. But the houses are disappearing; the town is slowly vanishing in front of our eyes,” he said.

Ed Hall, 47, public relations director for Santa Fe Energy, a subsidiary of Santa Fe & Southern Pacific Holding Co., said the firm has no intention of changing its policy.

“We’re not trying to run people out of town. We have never forced anyone to move, nor do we have any intention of making anyone move now or in the future, but we are in the oil business and not the real estate business,” Hall said.

“When a house goes up for sale, we buy it and remove it. The town is on top of a rich oil deposit. Oil is all around Fellows. Drilling pads are within the town limits. The houses are in the way. That’s the nuts and bolts of it.

“If homeowners want to continue to live in Fellows, that is perfectly OK with us. If they want to sell, we will buy them out and tear down the house. But we have no intention of selling the land to them.”

The company, which owns all the land and mineral rights in town, has first right of refusal whenever a house goes on sale. Concerns raised by Friends of Fellows, however, have led to a modification of the lease arrangements with residents.

‘Community Rules’

Leases always have been for one year, with residents paying $200 to $400 for 12 months ground rent. Beginning next month, however, residents who are disabled or over 62 will be given free five-year leases. All others will have three-year leases on the land on which their homes are located.

Because the company owns the land and the town is unincorporated, Santa Fe Energy issues community rules that are posted on the bulletin board in the post office. Some samples:

“Riding dirt bikes in town is prohibited. Drinking alcoholic beverages on public streets is prohibited. Littering or disposal of trash or junk is prohibited. No one shall commit unlawful acts within the community. We have observed that residents are not removing trash cans from the curb side.”

To Griffith, the community rules “smack of Big Brother. People are disturbed. We’re living under a dictatorship. We can’t make any additions to our homes. We can’t do anything to the exterior of our house, even paint it, without first getting permission from the company. The company’s favorite color is beige.”

Hall noted that most of the razed houses have been small frame cottages, old, substandard, undesirable places needing a lot of work that the oil company purchased in nearly all cases for less than $10,000.

Tearing Down ‘Eyesores’

Those selling their homes, he said, have been absentee landlords who were renting their places or owners who moved to better dwellings in nearby Derby Acres, Taft or Bakersfield.

“We’ve been cleaning up the town, getting rid of the eyesores, removing a bunch of dilapidated buildings,” Hall said.

But Frances Gish, 74, who lives in Fellows with her husband, Howard, 78, a retired oil field worker, insisted: “I’ve seen nice homes destroyed as well as the shacks. It makes me sick every time I see a nice home come down. Destroying the nice homes is what worries us.”

Gish said that when she and her husband moved here 40 years ago, the town had a drugstore, two grocery stores, a dime store, a dress shop, two dry goods stores, a jewelry store, barber shop, beauty shop, Masonic Hall, veterans club, skating rink, hotel and bar.

“Now all we have left is one grocery store, the post office and the elementary school. The oil company purchased the business section building by building and tore the stores down,” she said.

Alberta Stubblefield, the Fellows postmistress, said there is little incentive for many residents to maintain their homes:

“One of the problems is many residents let their homes deteriorate. They would fix them up but lack interest because they don’t own the land, and they feel the oil company is looking over their shoulder, waiting in the wings to buy them out.”