The field shares part of its extent with the Peter J. Pitchess Detention Center, which includes a maximum-security prison.

To the northeast, the San Gabriel Fault closes the structure, trapping hydrocarbons with an approximate 500-foot offset, placing impermeable rock units adjacent to the petroleum-bearing Modelo formation.

The Southeast Area of the field, the portion used since 1975 as a gas storage reservoir, contains one large pool – the Wayside 13 – at a depth of 9,000 to 11,000 feet below ground surface.

[6] The field takes its name from the Wayside Honor Rancho, a former minimum-security prison founded in 1938, where inmates were rehabilitated in an outdoor, ranch and farming environment.

Texaco spudded the Honor Rancho discovery well in August 1950, finding oil at 6,000 feet below ground surface.

It was the fourth such facility for the utility, after La Goleta near Santa Barbara, Playa del Rey in Los Angeles, and Aliso Canyon north of the San Fernando Valley, and the third which had been an oil field.

The Honor Rancho field was the first storage facility acquired by SoCalGas where they also owned the rights to the oil produced.

[13] In the current gas field, wells are connected to processing, storage, and transmission facilities by about 12 miles (19 km) of pipelines, both above and below ground.

[15] Similarly, Steve Knight, the congressional representative for California's 25th District, toured the facility, and told his constituents that the field "is checked constantly.