Oilman’s legacy lives on in L.A.

When Lyman Stewart dropped out of school at age 11 to become a tanner’s apprentice, few who knew him then would have predicted the enduring mark he would make on Los Angeles’ business, religious and civic life.

And many Angelenos would be surprised to know that he was the driving force behind many of the institutions that dot the landscape here and beyond: Union 76 gas stations, with their bright orange and blue emblems, the Union Rescue Mission -- long a beacon of hope on downtown’s skid row -- and Biola University, whose neon “Jesus Saves” signs have been a downtown landmark for decades.

A great philanthropist, Los Angeles pioneer and Civil War veteran, Stewart helped to dig the oil wells that powered the company that would become Unocal Corp. and, in 1891, founded the mission that today is one of the largest private homeless shelters in the nation.

Born in Pennsylvania in 1840, Stewart at a young age displayed a religious bent that was to guide his life. While working as a tanner’s apprentice, he saved up the then-princely sum of $125 in hopes of becoming a missionary. But he lost every cent to what became another calling when he invested in an oil well that soon went bust. When the Civil War started, he joined the Union Army.

Returning home after the war, he was caught up again in oil fever. In the early 1880s, after some success in Pennsylvania’s oil fields, he came to California and began drilling in the Newhall and later Santa Paula areas, according to Times accounts and the Biola University website.

The Hardison and Stewart Oil Co. helped to dig the wells that were incorporated in 1890 as Union Oil Co. Stewart became its president. The following year, Stewart, who had seen the poor on L.A.’s streets during his trips to the city, started what was then called the Pacific Gospel Union, which held revival meetings in tents. With Stewart’s money, preachers and singers took to the streets in horse-drawn “gospel wagons,” offering food, clothing and salvation.

From its first home on North Main Street, the site of today’s City Hall, the organization eventually took up residence on South Main, where it remained for 80 years. In 1994, it moved to a five-story building in the heart of skid row.

“He cared about people, especially the downtrodden,” said Carol Hawkins, a Biola board member who is Stewart’s great-great-niece.

“His oil wealth helped him support what he loved so much,” Hawkins said in a recent interview.

Under Stewart’s leadership, Union Oil thrived, with profits growing from $10 million in 1900 to $50 million in 1908, according to Biola’s account.

In 1900, Stewart moved Union Oil’s headquarters to Los Angeles, a town he referred to as “that great city of the future.”

By then a leading Protestant fundamentalist and Los Angeles resident, he shared his company’s profits with many organizations, including the YMCA and the California Landmarks Club, founded to preserve and restore Catholic missions.

In 1908, he took over a Main Street pool hall for prayer meetings and soon turned the upstairs rooms into Bible classes. Three years later, the Bible Institute of Los Angeles -- more commonly known as Biola -- graduated its first class of six.

That same year, in 1911, for a price that the Los Angeles Times quoted as $170,000, the school acquired land at 6th and Hope streets downtown for its school and the Church of the Open Door.

Designed by architects Albert R. Walker and John T. Vawter in the Renaissance Revival style, the building that sheltered the institute featured a 4,000-seat auditorium and 250-seat choir loft. Two attached 13-story dormitory towers housed the students. Eleven bronze bells in the north tower -- one inscribed with the words “Praise the Lord” -- chimed hymns every morning. Five of the remaining bells are rung to this day, three times a day, at Biola’s current campus in La Mirada.

On Easter Sunday, 1915, the school moved into its grandiose campus. Six months later, with the help of famous evangelist Reuben Archer Torrey, Stewart launched the Church of the Open Door.

“I’m an Episcopresbygationalaptist,” Torrey joked about his own affiliation -- a melange of the Episcopal, Presbyterian, Congregationalist and Baptist denominations.

For Biola students and faculty members, Stewart hosted picnics, tennis matches and social gatherings at his sandstone and brick mansion, now the site of Good Samaritan Hospital. When he died in 1923, at 83, he left a good deal of money to Biola.

During the Great Depression, the school turned one of its dorms into a hotel. In 1935, it put the huge neon “Jesus Saves” sign atop its north dormitory, and later added an identical sign facing south.

The Church of the Open Door helped grow its congregation by broadcasting services over its radio station. One radio congregant donated her engagement ring, explaining in an accompanying note that she could not afford to give money but wanted to help.

World War II brought more recognition to the church, as many of its congregants became soldiers and preached the Gospel around the world. In 1943, the Navy launched the Liberty ship SS Lyman Stewart in honor of the oilman evangelist.

At the end of the war, the School of Missionary Medicine was established, and enrollment at Biola jumped from 400 to 900 students. Eventually the school evolved into a Bible-centered liberal arts college and a graduate theological seminary was added.

But soon the chimes that echoed favorite church songs could barely be heard over downtown traffic. And in 1959, Biola moved to La Mirada.

In June 1985, the Church of the Open Door held its final service. Participants opened a time capsule that had been placed behind the cornerstone by Stewart 72 years earlier. It contained, among other items, a Scofield Reference Bible, Union Oil brochures and the six Los Angeles newspapers from that day in 1913.

The church reopened its doors on land it bought in Glendora after selling its downtown church to televangelist Gene Scott. That deal later fell through amid court battles. The old building was demolished in 1988, making way for a high-rise office tower.

Today, the two “Jesus Saves” signs sit atop the historic United Artists Theater a few blocks away, at Broadway and Olympic, a building that now houses the Los Angeles University Cathedral.

In April, in honor of Biola’s 100th anniversary, the university will host a new-shoes giveaway at the Union Rescue Mission. “Steps From Hope” will feature a block party for skid row children and their families.

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cecilia.rasmussen@latimes.com

To donate new shoes or volunteer, e-mail 100years@biola.edu or call (888) 378-1908.