Industry
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Lakeview Gusher was a catastrophic oil-well blowout in Kern County's Midway-Sunset Oil Field that began in 1910 when pressurized crude burst from Lakeview Oil Company Number One at about 2,440 feet. Lacking modern blowout preventers, crews improvised with sandbag dams, dikes, and pipelines, but only about 40 percent of the flow was captured. The eruption lasted 18 months, released an estimated 9 million barrels of oil, and became the largest accidental oil spill in history. Its immense output destroyed the derrick, spread oil across the landscape, depressed oil prices, and became one of the defining events in California oil history.
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