Word: placerita
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...respectability; it is accentuated by his pudgy figure, his middle-aged stoop, his brownish hair and open countenance. Back in 1935, as a result, he had little difficulty in selling acres & acres of steep, arid, brush-covered land in the barren hills above Los Angeles County's Placerita Canyon. The tract looked like a rest home for Gila monsters, but he got $1,950 an acre for it-just $1,900 more than he had paid...
...customers was a wealthy Spanish cattleman named Ramon Samovia; Yant confided to Samovia that oil had just been discovered near some property he owned in Placerita Canyon-he would be rich as soon as he dug up enough money to sink a well himself. Samovia bought into his scheme...
Last week 154 wells were pumping on one 80-acre tract and 4,000,000 of the pool's estimated 18 million barrels had been sucked out. Though the Placerita boom had knocked the price of crude oil from $2.16 to $1.53 a barrel in Los Angeles, onetime Con-Man Yant and many another were getting rich. Yant was also insisting, to whoever would listen, that the oil find "vindicated" him. "Some people think I'm a scoundrel and some think I'm a wonderful guy-depending on whether they made or didn't make money...
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