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Oil Booms and Boosterism

Local Elites, Outside Companies, and the Growth of Ventura, California

California State University-Sacramento

This article examines the intersection of oil industry interests and the growth strategy of local elites in the wake of Ventura, California's oil boom of the 1920s. It amends urban growth machine and civic boosterism theory by showing why cosmopolitan capital may exert influence over parochial politics even if it does not have a direct interest in population increase. The study also finds that oil development sustained long-term quantitative growth for this coastal community, much as Roger M. Olien and Diana Davids Olien found in their study of five towns in the Permian basin of west Texas. Owing to the influence of outside companies, however, boosters failed to develop Ventura qualitatively as a tourist and recreational destination. Indeed, by the 1950s, Ventura more closely resembled inland California oil towns in terms of place than nearby Santa Barbara, which boosters had hoped to emulate.

Key Words: boom towns • boosterism • oil and gas industry • urban growth politics • growth machine theory

This version was published on November 1, 2008

Journal of Urban History, Vol. 35, No. 1, 150-177 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0096144208321873


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