Historical Notes In 1892, "Miss" Emma Summers (1858-1941) was listed in the directory as "Piano Teacher", giving lessons at her residence at 517 Sand Street (soon to become California), where she and carpenter husband A.C. rented a small place. With her 1879 degree from the New England Conservatory of Music, she was in strong demand to teach many children the black and white of pianos, and in fact had multiple pianos in the house. But in April 1893 all that was about to change, as two down-on-their-luck miners (Doheny and Canfield), using a 60 foot Eucalyptus tree trunk as a drill bit, struck oil a few blocks away at Court and Patton. It was the first oil well in downtown Los Angeles. Emma had the business head in the family--she had saved $700 from her child tutelage, and she used the money to go in half on a new well in the neighborhood. She ended up following the initial amount with an additional $1800, and the well hit. In fact it was still producing after 10 years. Wells popped up everywhere in the area. The neighborhood by the late 1890's looked like the below, with houses interspersed between well derricks. Emma continued to invest in oil wells, still teaching piano at night, followed by then balancing the books of the business. In the beginning she was in debt up to $10,000 and thought that she might quit when the debt was paid off, But she continued and by 1901 she was being called the "Oil Queen", and with her many dealings in oil, she controlled the Los Angeles market. By 1904 she dealt in 50,000 barrels per month, having moved her office from her home on California St. to the Mason Opera House building downtown. Down the block from her early California Street residence Emma had built the Queen Apartments, which by 1940 had been "downgraded" to the Princess Apartment-Hotel. At that time Ansel Adams came by to take a shot of the apartment building as part of an article for the L.A. Examiner. It is said that Emma lived in the apartment building for awhile. The building survived until the early 1950's when the downtown freeway destroyed the whole block.^