Livin' on the Pipeline
Photo from R.C. Baker Memorial Museum, Coalinga
Photo from R.C. Baker Memorial Museum, Coalinga
Charles Epps was born in 1922 at Pumping Station #2 on the Coalinga-Monterey Oil Pipeline, where his family was living in a house right next to the station, because his father worked there. Soon, his family moved to Pumping Station #4, where he grew up. While he was living there, the pumping station blew up two different times. To escape one of the explosions, his father bolted over a six-feet-fence in one leap.
Mr. Epps told me that his house always smelled like sulfer, but he and his family got all the free gasoline they could use. The pumping stations were like small villages and they were the only ones in the countryside who got electricity. Now he lives in Coalinga and is 75 years old.