I received this inquiry unrelated to restaurants and don’t know the answer. Do you?
Hi John,
My name is Biddy, and I am the Assistant Producer for Like A Shot Entertainment, a TV production company based in London, England. We are known for producing the history documentary series Hidden America for Discovery’s Science Channel and streaming service Discovery+.
The new series of Hidden America will tell the story of the USA through the amazing structures left across the land, built by America’s inhabitants and each one telling a unique tale. We are telling the story of the Ellwood oil fields, the Bombardment of Ellwood and the Barnsdall-Rio Grande gas station in Goleta, California.
To help tell the story, we feature historic archive in the programme, and to be able to include specific archive we need to gain the correct permission from the archive owner/copyright holder. I am looking for the owners of some specific images of the Barnsdall-Rio Grande Gas Station, which I understand may be the Institute of American Research (which may also go by the name South Coast Railroad Museum).
I wondered if you were able to assist with this request at all please, if you knew who I might be able to contact regarding this? Any information would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Biddy
I would think this is right up Tom Modugno’s alley.
Tom Modugno, yes!
Or Goleta Valley historical society…
Or
Dacia Harwood at SB Historical Society where she’s E.D. – she was E.D. at Goleta when they did a fabulous series of lectures and had lots of photographs of the old oil fields. Contact her at dacia@sbhistorical.org
And tell her Mo McFadden suggested her.
Try the Santa Barbara historical Museum library. Not sure of Goleta has similar.
Googling “Ellwood Gas Station” yields several short articles about the gas station and its history. According to an article on the Goleta Valley Historical Society (“Saviors of Goleta History,” November 10, 2022), Ty Warner owns the gas station.
https://scrm.goletadepot.org/
This is the link to the SB Historical Society library. The archivist there is very helpful.
https://www.sbhistorical.org/gledhill-library/