46
and his wife an annuity of $1500 per year for the duration of their lives. The wording of the Act noted that Drake was responsible for the “discovery of large quantities of petroleum in this Commonwealth which has greatly stimulated various
industries and has also added directly to the revenues of the Commonwealth more
than one million dollars since the discovery and which also continues to yield
directly to the said revenues a large sum annually.” The stipend of $125 a month is
paltry by today’s standards, but it was actually possible to live on this in the late
1800s. Still, considering the amount of money that Drake’s discovery added to state
tax coffers, it is more than a bit stingy. Edwin Drake died on November 8, 1880 at
the age of 61 (Brice 2009).
As noted in the citation by the state legislature, the Titusville well touched off an
explosion of activity in northwestern Pennsylvania that became the first oil boom in
the history of humanity. This was followed soon afterward by drilling at other
Appalachian sites, where oil seeps were present at the surface, or where brine drillers had found oil in their salt wells. The Appalachian basin was the leading oilproducing region in the United States through 1904.
The oil rush began in the valley of Oil Creek where Drake had drilled the first
Seneca Oil well. Titusville became a boomtown, and other towns such as Oil City
and Pithole sprang up out of nowhere. By 1866, the Reverend S. J. M. Eaton
observed that the population in Oil Creek valley was so dense that it was impossible
to distinguish the borders of one town from another (Black 1998).
The population of Titusville grew from 250 residents in 1860 to more than 10,000
by 1865. Ironworks were constructed to supply drilling tools, and eight oil refineries
were built between 1862 and 1868. The four log-cabin farmhouses making up the
settlement of Pithole became a bustling city with over 50 hotels within just 5 months
in 1865 (Hildegarde 1959). As unbelievable as this may seem, similar oil booms
have happened in more recent times, most notably the Bakken Shale boom in North
Dakota between 2006 and 2015 when the population of small towns such as Watson
City increased from 1500 to 15,000 in less than five years (Soeder and Borglum
2019). Natural resource booms from gold rushes to oil rushes seem to be a part of
the human condition, and are likely to continue as long as people discover new
resources. Future booms on the moon, Mars, and in the asteroid belt will be hightech versions of Titusville.
The production of U.S. domestic crude oil started at around 2000 barrels (320 m
3
)
per year in 1859, when Drake’s well was drilled. Ten years later, annual production
was up to four million barrels (640,000 m
3
), and reached ten million barrels (1.6
million m
3
) by 1873 (Toyoda 2003). This expansion was driven in a large part by the
ongoing industrial development of Europe. In the mid-1860s, U.S. manufacturing
capacity was tiny and the primary domestic market for U.S. petroleum was “illumination oil.” Europe, on the other hand, was moving full steam ahead into the
Industrial Revolution, and British factories in particular were importing large quantities of cheap American oil as fuel and lubricants. During the peak of this first oil
boom, Pennsylvania wells were producing one third of the world’s oil (Giddens 1938).
In the mid to late nineteenth century, getting the oil out of northwestern
Pennsylvania and to markets was no small challenge. Operators at first tried floating
3 The History of Oil & Gas Development in the U.S.
and his wife an annuity of $1500 per year for the duration of their lives. The wording of the Act noted that Drake was responsible for the “discovery of large quantities of petroleum in this Commonwealth which has greatly stimulated various
industries and has also added directly to the revenues of the Commonwealth more
than one million dollars since the discovery and which also continues to yield
directly to the said revenues a large sum annually.” The stipend of $125 a month is
paltry by today’s standards, but it was actually possible to live on this in the late
1800s. Still, considering the amount of money that Drake’s discovery added to state
tax coffers, it is more than a bit stingy. Edwin Drake died on November 8, 1880 at
the age of 61 (Brice 2009).
As noted in the citation by the state legislature, the Titusville well touched off an
explosion of activity in northwestern Pennsylvania that became the first oil boom in
the history of humanity. This was followed soon afterward by drilling at other
Appalachian sites, where oil seeps were present at the surface, or where brine drillers had found oil in their salt wells. The Appalachian basin was the leading oilproducing region in the United States through 1904.
The oil rush began in the valley of Oil Creek where Drake had drilled the first
Seneca Oil well. Titusville became a boomtown, and other towns such as Oil City
and Pithole sprang up out of nowhere. By 1866, the Reverend S. J. M. Eaton
observed that the population in Oil Creek valley was so dense that it was impossible
to distinguish the borders of one town from another (Black 1998).
The population of Titusville grew from 250 residents in 1860 to more than 10,000
by 1865. Ironworks were constructed to supply drilling tools, and eight oil refineries
were built between 1862 and 1868. The four log-cabin farmhouses making up the
settlement of Pithole became a bustling city with over 50 hotels within just 5 months
in 1865 (Hildegarde 1959). As unbelievable as this may seem, similar oil booms
have happened in more recent times, most notably the Bakken Shale boom in North
Dakota between 2006 and 2015 when the population of small towns such as Watson
City increased from 1500 to 15,000 in less than five years (Soeder and Borglum
2019). Natural resource booms from gold rushes to oil rushes seem to be a part of
the human condition, and are likely to continue as long as people discover new
resources. Future booms on the moon, Mars, and in the asteroid belt will be hightech versions of Titusville.
The production of U.S. domestic crude oil started at around 2000 barrels (320 m
3
)
per year in 1859, when Drake’s well was drilled. Ten years later, annual production
was up to four million barrels (640,000 m
3
), and reached ten million barrels (1.6
million m
3
) by 1873 (Toyoda 2003). This expansion was driven in a large part by the
ongoing industrial development of Europe. In the mid-1860s, U.S. manufacturing
capacity was tiny and the primary domestic market for U.S. petroleum was “illumination oil.” Europe, on the other hand, was moving full steam ahead into the
Industrial Revolution, and British factories in particular were importing large quantities of cheap American oil as fuel and lubricants. During the peak of this first oil
boom, Pennsylvania wells were producing one third of the world’s oil (Giddens 1938).
In the mid to late nineteenth century, getting the oil out of northwestern
Pennsylvania and to markets was no small challenge. Operators at first tried floating
3 The History of Oil & Gas Development in the U.S.