![]() Unemployed, he and his family moved to Titusville, Pennsylvania. He developed a debilitating muscular condition and after eight years on the railroad, was forced to retire. He became a railroad conductor, running routes in New York and Pennsylvania. The Seneca Oil Company of Connecticut was founded to develop new techniques, and they hired retired Edwin Drake to lead the efforts in northwestern Pennsylvania. Drilling with traditional techniques used for water wells or brine wells (used to bring dissolved salt to the surface) failed to produce oil. The basic method was to gather it from pools on the ground where it seeped to the surface, a process that might yield a few quarts a day. Others discovered-maybe-that oil was an elixir that could cure a variety of ailments, including the dreaded “consumption” (now we call it tuberculosis).īut finding oil in commercial quantities was tough. People had been making kerosene for lamps from coal, but chemists had figured out how to make kerosene from oil, a far easier process than converting coal to a liquid. It oozed out of the ground in various places, including far northwestern Pennsylvania. Interest about oil had been growing for some time. This date, in 1859, is also when Edwin Drake drilled the first successful oil well in the world. It’s a pretty low-key affair, and I can’t find information about why the industry picked August 27-but I think I know the reason. Demand soon exceeded the nation's supply of petroleum, prompting the United States to increasingly rely on imported oil for fuel.August 27 is known in some circles as Oil and Gas Industry Appreciation Day. ![]() The advent of the automobile with its central role in the life of the twentieth-century United States made the oil industry even richer. The fuel was being used for lighting, heating, and lubrication (principally of machinery and tools). The second half of the 1800s saw an increase in the use of oil. oil production boomed: while only 2000 barrels of oil were produced in 1859, more than 64 million barrels were produced annually by the turn of the century. In 1901 the famous Spindletop field in eastern Texas provided the nation's first "gusher" (a site where oil literally shoots out of the earth.) During the next decade California and Oklahoma joined Texas as leaders of the nation's oil industry. During the 1880s the states of Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, and Indiana also produced oil. Petroleum soon replaced whale oil as a fluid for illumination. Wagons and river barges transported barrels to market, though later the railroad reached into the region and, by 1875, a pipeline was built to carry the oil directly to Pittsburgh. Soon others began prospecting for "rock oil" and western Pennsylvania became an important oil-producing region. ![]() (Kerosene is a clean-burning and easy-lighting fuel.)Īfter Drake's Titusville well produced shale oil the substance was analyzed for its properties and it was determined to be an excellent source of kerosene. A process for deriving kerosene from coal oil was not patented until 1854. Oil from animal tallow and whales were used as lubricants since colonial times. His drill was powered by an old steam engine. Drake (1819 –1880) drilled a well near Titusville, Pennsylvania. The oil industry in the United States began in 1859 when retired railroad conductor Edwin L. Black gold is an informal term for oil or petroleum -black because of its appearance when it comes out of the ground, and gold because it made everyone involved in the oil industry rich. ![]()
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