In 1921 the secret of Signal Hill was discovered and an added impetus given the development of the two ranchos. Soon the hill bristled with oil derricks. There being then many owners there soon were many millionaires. Oil flowed so fast from the hill that on several occasions it streamed uncontrolled over lawns and flowers on the slopes of Signal Hill. Daily the value of the oil taken from the hill equalled twice the price the Bixbys paid for both ranchos. Slowly the oil fields have been extended—northwesterly toward the hacienda of Don Juan Temple and southeasterly toward the hacienda of Don Abel Stearns. Rancho Aguaje de La Centinela Traded with two barrels of wine for a small adobe house in the Pueblo of Los Angeles, then in turn owned by a noble Spaniard, an ignoble Frenchman, a famous Confederate General and a Scotch Baronet, then the scene of one of the most spectacular boom subdivisions in the Land Boom of 1886-1888 and finally the site of a prosperous and successful city—such is the history of the Rancho Centinela. The rancho was granted in 1844 by the “Department of California,” Government of Mexico, to Ignacio Machado by a grant which described the land as “half a league more or less of grazing land.” Machado did not prize his grazing land very highly and the following year traded the property to Bruno Abila for a small adobe house “with vineyard fenced” in the suburbs of the Pueblo of Los Angeles. But in the eyes of these two traders, the small adobe was worth more than the great Rancho Centinela and the deed provided that in addition to the rancho Machado was to give as an added consideration two barrels of aguardiente (wine). Bruno Abila held the rancho until 1857 at which time he carelessly—or desperately—borrowed $900 with interest at six per cent per month, or seventy-two per cent per year, and, giving his rancho as security, promptly lost it under the hammer. Hilliard P. Dorsey bought the property at Sheriff’s Sale for $2000, or about $1 an acre. But Hilliard P. Dorsey paid too much for the land and two years later Civility R. Dorsey, his widow, sold it out of his Estate for $930, or thirty-five cents an acre. However, the deed to Francis I. Carpenter, the purchaser, provided that he, Carpenter, was obligated as part of the consideration to run off and dispossess of his own effort one Fernando, a Frenchman and son-in-law of Bruno Abila, a former owner, who had refused to surrender peaceable possession of the rancho.