![]() ![]() The Drake well is often referred to as the first "commercial oil well." Before the Drake well, oil-producing wells in the United States were wells that were drilled for salt brine, and produced oil and gas only as accidental byproducts. ![]() The Drake partners were encouraged by Benjamin Silliman (1779-1864), a chemistry professor at Yale, who tested a sample of the oil, and assured them that it could be distilled into useful products such as kerosene for lamps. Drake made the first successful use of a drilling rig on a well drilled especially to produce oil, at a site on Oil Creek near Titusville, Pennsylvania. On August 27, 1859, George Bissell and Edwin L. Soon many gas wells were drilled in the area, and the gas-lit streets of Fredonia became a tourist attraction.ĭrake well, Titusville, Pennsylvania The US natural gas industry started in 1821 at Fredonia, Chautauqua County, New York, when William Hart dug a well to a depth of 27 feet (8.2 m) into gas-bearing shale, then drilled a borehole 43 feet (13 m) further, and piped the natural gas to a nearby inn where it was burned for illumination. Early salt brine wells that produced byproduct oil included the Thorla-McKee Well of Ohio in 1814, a well near Burkesville, Kentucky, in 1828, and wells at Burning Springs, West Virginia, by 1836. In some locations, enough natural gas was produced to be used as fuel for the salt evaporating pans. The oil was mostly a nuisance, but some salt producers saved it and sold it as illuminating oil or medicine. In a number of locations in western Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky, oil and natural gas came up the wells along with the brine. Some of the wells were hand-dug, but salt producers also learned to drill wells by percussion (cable tool) methods. Salt wells were sunk at the salt springs to increase the supply of brine for evaporation. Salt was a valuable commodity, and an industry developed near salt springs in the Ohio River Valley, producing salt by evaporating brine from the springs. It is, moreover, so oily, that all our Savages use it to anoint and grease their heads and their bodies. ![]() Interest grew substantially in the mid-1850s as scientists reported on the potential to manufacture kerosene from crude oil, if a sufficiently large oil supply could be found.Īs one approaches nearer to the country of the Cats, one finds heavy and thick water, which ignites like brandy, and boils up in bubbles of flame when fire is applied to it. Early European explorers noted seeps of oil and natural gas in western Pennsylvania and New York. Native Americans had known of the oil in western Pennsylvania, and had made some use of it for many years before the mid-19th century. US regained the position of the largest oil producing country in the world in 2018 and has it kept every year since as of 2022. For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, the US was the largest oil producing country in the world. Petroleum became a major industry following the oil discovery at Oil Creek, Pennsylvania, in 1859. The history of the petroleum industry in the United States goes back to the early 19th century, although the indigenous peoples, like many ancient societies, have used petroleum seeps since prehistoric times where found, these seeps signaled the growth of the industry from the earliest discoveries to the more recent. Natural oil seeps such as this in the McKittrick area of California were used by the Native Americans and later mined by settlers. ![]()
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