Edward L. Doheny

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Edward Laurence Doheny (; August 10, 1856 – September 8, 1935) was an American oil tycoon who, in 1892, drilled the first successful oil well in the Los Angeles City Oil Field. His success set off a petroleum boom in Southern California, and made him a fortune. In 1902, he sold his properties, then began highly profitable oil operations in Tampico, Mexico, drilling the first well in the nation in 1901. He developed Mexico's "golden belt" there, expanded operations during the Mexican Revolution, and opened large new oil fields in Lake Maracaibo Venezuela. His holdings developed as the Pan American Petroleum & Transport Company, one of the largest oil companies in the world in the 1920s. In the 1920s, Doheny was implicated in the Teapot Dome scandal and accused of offering a $100,000 bribe to United States Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall. Doheny was twice acquitted of offering the bribe, but Fall was convicted of accepting it. Doheny and his second wife and widow, Carrie Estelle Betzold, were noted philanthropists in Los Angeles, especially regarding Catholic schools, churches and charities. The character J. Arnold Ross in Upton Sinclair's 1926-27 novel Oil! (itself the inspiration for the 2007 film There Will Be Blood) is loosely based on Doheny.