EXCURSION : Unocal Museum Is a Celebration of Oil

The 1890s red brick building with its beige awnings and green cast-iron columns looks as if it has been transplanted from Disneyland’s Main Street.

The quaint, two-story building has played a prominent part in Santa Paula history, as well as doubling as a tourist attraction for decades. Now, two years after its closure in 1988, the Unocal Museum is open for business again.

The museum on East Main Street was where Union Oil Company (now known as Unocal Corporation) was founded nearly a century ago. The company headquarters were moved to Los Angeles in 1901, but division offices were kept at the Santa Paula location until 1988, said Karen Sikkema, a Unocal vice president.

The first floor of the building has housed museum exhibits since 1950, but the second floor was reserved for offices, Sikkema said. About $2.5 million was spent updating the first floor exhibits and converting the second floor into turn-of-the-century style offices.

Judging from a preview of the museum before its March 25 opening, the money was well-spent. An old-fashioned time clock is the first thing that greets visitors when they come through the door. Visitors may punch in and keep a card as a souvenir.

The self-explanatory exhibits and videos allow tourists to roam freely on the first floor. The museum exhibits are an unabashed celebration of oil and the oil industry.

For children, there’s the crude-oil pinball machine, and for history buffs, there are old photographs and 1890s film footage that accompany the Unocal time line.

For model builders, there are miniature versions of a drill ship, a jack-up brig and off-shore oil stations.

For movie fans, there is a little-known Unocal commercial featuring Marilyn Monroe. And there are exhibits showing how oil is created, how geologists find it and how it is transported.

Those who think wistfully of the good old days when gasoline was 9 cents a gallon can relive them by viewing an old-fashioned pumper and cash register.

Visitors who wish to see the old-fashioned offices upstairs should make appointments first, said museum curator Carol Schwindt. Tour guides, many of whom are retired Unocal employees, will lead groups through the restored offices.

The second floor features an apartment from the 1930s, when the superintendent of the operation lived at the office. The brass bed, old-fashioned stove and kerosene lamps are right out of an episode of the Waltons.

Other offices feature the original desk of Unocal’s first geologist, plus his old maps and files. A family photograph sits on his desk, along with an old-fashioned pencil sharpener.

The board room, which offers a view of 10th Street and Main Street, actually doesn’t look much different from today’s version, with the possible exception of brass lights and kerosene lamps.

In an adjoining building, in front of a park, is an old cable-tool drill rig that is over 100 hundred years old.

And, naturally, adjoining the museum is a Unocal gas station.

Thirty minutes to two hours could be spent at the Unocal Museum.

* UNOCAL MUSEUM

The museum is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays. Call 805-933-0076 for more information.