Diorama: "Kettleman Hills North Dome Oil Field, California"

Created for the inaugural installations in the U.S. Geological Survey alcove at the U.S. Department of the Interior Museum, which opened in 1938, this original diorama depicts the circa 1935 operations at Kettleman North Dome Oil Field, spanning Kings and Fresno counties in California. The diorama features a paved road descending toward the viewer on the right of the scene. At the left margin, the base of an oil derrick is visible with two figures; one man in a cowboy hat is standing on the wooden floorboards looking out onto the landscape; a second man in overalls is in the middle background bending over a piece of equipment. There are seven threaded pipes on a pallet and an eighth on the wooden floorboards. The painted backdrop shows arid terrain punctuated by power lines and the appearance of several more oil derricks and a single large cylindrical structure. There are additional figures standing beside a flatbed truck.

The Milham Oil Company discovered huge oil and gas reservoirs at Kettleman on October 5, 1928, at a depth of 7,108 feet. Since then, this field has produced more than one half billion barrels of oil and two and one half trillion cubic feet of gas.