Vesuvius, Krakatoa, Mt. St. Helens—names that conjure up images of searing heat, smoke, ash, and rivers of molten lava. Now, what about Rincon or Hope Ranch? The South Coast is not usually associated with volcanoes, but there were indeed such phenomena of a sort in our area.
Actually these were not volcanos, but solfataras or fire wells, volcano-like fissures that give off sulfurous gases and steam. The first mention of the Rincon “volcano,” near the present border of Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, appeared in a report written by José María Garcia about a trip in 1835 from Mission San Fernando Rey in the San Fernando Valley to Mission La Purísima near today’s Lompoc.
The site, on the cliff side overlooking the beach, then basically disappears from the historical record until the 1870s, when two oil prospectors, digging an exploratory tunnel, rediscovered it. The oilmen excavated down some 250 feet, temperatures climbing as they dug, and they eventually had to abandon the project.