Phelps, Z. L.

Zerah Lambert “Zed” Phelps was born on February 24, 1878, at Marion Station, Oregon, to O. B. Phelps and Esther Robertson Phelps. After moving to California in 1885 and attending school in Traver, he entered the livery business in Sanger at age sixteen before transitioning to the oil industry during the 1898 Kern River oil boom. Settling in Coalinga in 1904, he became a pioneer oilman on the West Side by organizing the Lucile Oil Company and drilling the area’s first successful well despite geologists’ claims that no oil existed there.

Phelps built a prominent career in Coalinga as an oil developer, organizing the Silver Tip Oil Company in 1909 and drilling a record-setting 20,000-barrel-a-day gusher that became the state’s longest uninterrupted flowing well. Beyond oil, he constructed the three-story brick Phelps Building in Coalinga and developed the district’s first successful commercial fruit orchard on his nearby 160-acre ranch. A former chairman of the Coalinga board of trustees and active civic leader during World War I bond drives, he resided in Coalinga with his wife, Pearl Overton, whom he married in 1901, and their son, Edward.