Drake’s Oil Well Started a Revolution
The Colosseum was a fixture of Roman society and today is a world historical site. But in the Middle Ages, it was abandoned and forgotten so completely that herders grazed their sheep among the ruins.
At one point, the site of Drake’s Oil Well was like that. A couple decades after the discovery of petroleum in a stratum of rock 60 1/2 feet below the surface, the well ran dry, the pumping equipment was carted off to a better location, and scarcely anything remained.
“I’ve seen pictures of the site from the 1880s and 1890s, and the area was overgrown,” said Sarah Bell, curator at the Drake Well Museum and Park in Titusville, Pa. “It was just a pipe sticking up out of the ground. The locals still knew it was there, but nobody had taken any initiative to preserve the site.”
A man looks at the ruins of Drake's oil well in the 1920s. Credit: Library of Congress.
There was little indication that happened in 1859 at the site in northwest Pennsylvania, one mile south of the small city of Titusville, started an entirely new industry and transformed the economy of the world. In time, though, the site was recognized for its importance. The community built a museum on the site in 1934, and in 1979, ASME designated the Drake Oil Well as a mechanical engineering landmark.
Today, the oil industry is synonymous with petroleum, but in the 19th century, oil for lighting and soap-making purposes was gathered from whale blubber. By the 1850s, the U.S. consumed more than 10 million gallons of whale oil per year.
The oil was a considered a nuisance until 1849, when Samuel Kier started the first refining business in Pittsburgh to turn crude oil into kerosene for lamp fuel. Entrepreneurs realized that the contaminant from the salt wells in the Titusville area about 100 miles to the north had potential value. Rather than skim the oil from the surface of the brine or from Oil Creek, however, they wanted to drill a well directly to the source of the oil.
“They were finding it with salt well drillers, they knew it was on the surface of Oil Creek, they knew that it was bubbling up out of the ground and that the native Americans had dug oil pits,” Bell said. “They knew that with all these different elements going on, that oil was in the area. What they didn’t know is how deep they’d have to go.”
After a series of economic downturns and company reorganizations frustrated plans in the mid-1850s, the Seneca Oil Company formed in 1858 and dispatched Edwin L. Drake to the area to prospect and drill an oil well. Drake himself wasn’t a well driller, so he hired men who had experience drilling wells to extract brine.
The technology was superficially similar to today’s drilling operations, but had key technological differences.
An exhibit at Drake's Well Museum and Park as it appears today. Photo credit: Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Conress.
“Drake used basic percussion drill powered by steam engine, compared to today's drilling operations which use powerful rotary drill bits that can cut through rock more efficiently,” Bell said.
One key challenge was an inflow of water from the nearby creek, which caused the sides of the dug hole to collapse. To provide a more stable environment for drilling, Drake purchased 10-foot lengths of pipe and used a battering ram to drive them through the sand and clay.
“His method involved driving a single iron pipe in the ground to prevent the hole from collapsing,” Bell said. “Modern drillers use multiple sections of casing pipes, with cement to stabilize the well, bore at various depths.”
On August 27, 1859, the drilling team reached 69 ½ feet and then pulled the tools out of the well for the day. A driller visited the site the next day (a Sunday) and peered into the hole; a slick of dark fluid was clearly visible from the surface. The team had struck oil.
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“We tell our visitors that Drake was lucky,” Bell said. “If he had set up 20 feet to the left or right, he would have needed to drill a couple hundred feet down. Instead, he hit a pocket of oil-bearing rock.”
The discovery of oil at Titusville set off an oil rush similar to the gold rush in California a decade earlier. While very few sites offered oil as close to the surface as Titusville, the influx of drillers found enough oil raise the supply far higher than demand. The effect on the price of crude oil was enormous, dropping from $20 a barrel in 1859 to just 49 cents in 1861. Pennsylvania became the focus of the oil industry in the U.S., and its status is seen in old brand names such as Quaker State Oil and Pennzoil.
Titusville boomed, with its population soaring from 438 in the 1860 census to 8,639 ten years later. However, Drake’s well quickly ran dry, and the center of the industry moved on.
“The well only produced until about 1861.” Bell said. Within a couple of years, the Seneca Oil Company sold its assets. “The original derrick and engine house was transported to Philadelphia for the Centennial Exposition in 1876.”
Today, the museum sits near the bend in Oil Creek where the oil industry began. In fact, Bell said, the pipe from Drake’s well is still in place, more than 165 years later. Unlike the Colosseum in the Middle Ages, Drake’s achievement will be memorialized for generations to come.
Jeffrey Winters is editor in chief of Mechanical Engineering magazine.
At one point, the site of Drake’s Oil Well was like that. A couple decades after the discovery of petroleum in a stratum of rock 60 1/2 feet below the surface, the well ran dry, the pumping equipment was carted off to a better location, and scarcely anything remained.
“I’ve seen pictures of the site from the 1880s and 1890s, and the area was overgrown,” said Sarah Bell, curator at the Drake Well Museum and Park in Titusville, Pa. “It was just a pipe sticking up out of the ground. The locals still knew it was there, but nobody had taken any initiative to preserve the site.”
A man looks at the ruins of Drake's oil well in the 1920s. Credit: Library of Congress.
Today, the oil industry is synonymous with petroleum, but in the 19th century, oil for lighting and soap-making purposes was gathered from whale blubber. By the 1850s, the U.S. consumed more than 10 million gallons of whale oil per year.
Birth of the oil industry
Whaling was a notoriously dangerous occupation, and entrepreneurs had long looked at oil seeps—locations where crude oil emerged from the ground and flowed into bodies of water—or other geologic formations for naturally occurring sources of petroleum, or “rock oil.” For instance, in western Pennsylvania, miners who had drilled wells to extract briny solutions to produce salt were running into contamination from petroleum. Meanwhile, a natural seep flowing from an oil spring prompted locals to name a nearby waterbody “Oil Creek.”The oil was a considered a nuisance until 1849, when Samuel Kier started the first refining business in Pittsburgh to turn crude oil into kerosene for lamp fuel. Entrepreneurs realized that the contaminant from the salt wells in the Titusville area about 100 miles to the north had potential value. Rather than skim the oil from the surface of the brine or from Oil Creek, however, they wanted to drill a well directly to the source of the oil.
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After a series of economic downturns and company reorganizations frustrated plans in the mid-1850s, the Seneca Oil Company formed in 1858 and dispatched Edwin L. Drake to the area to prospect and drill an oil well. Drake himself wasn’t a well driller, so he hired men who had experience drilling wells to extract brine.
The technology was superficially similar to today’s drilling operations, but had key technological differences.
An exhibit at Drake's Well Museum and Park as it appears today. Photo credit: Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Conress.
One key challenge was an inflow of water from the nearby creek, which caused the sides of the dug hole to collapse. To provide a more stable environment for drilling, Drake purchased 10-foot lengths of pipe and used a battering ram to drive them through the sand and clay.
“His method involved driving a single iron pipe in the ground to prevent the hole from collapsing,” Bell said. “Modern drillers use multiple sections of casing pipes, with cement to stabilize the well, bore at various depths.”
Slow Going
Even after Drake started his drilling operation, the going was slow. In fact, Seneca Oil lost confidence in the effort and ordered Drake to settle his outstanding bills and close operation. That would have been the end of the story had Drake not previously borrowed $500 (around $20,000 in today’s money) from a nearby bank. Drake used that extra cash to continue driving the drill bit further into the ground.On August 27, 1859, the drilling team reached 69 ½ feet and then pulled the tools out of the well for the day. A driller visited the site the next day (a Sunday) and peered into the hole; a slick of dark fluid was clearly visible from the surface. The team had struck oil.
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“We tell our visitors that Drake was lucky,” Bell said. “If he had set up 20 feet to the left or right, he would have needed to drill a couple hundred feet down. Instead, he hit a pocket of oil-bearing rock.”
The discovery of oil at Titusville set off an oil rush similar to the gold rush in California a decade earlier. While very few sites offered oil as close to the surface as Titusville, the influx of drillers found enough oil raise the supply far higher than demand. The effect on the price of crude oil was enormous, dropping from $20 a barrel in 1859 to just 49 cents in 1861. Pennsylvania became the focus of the oil industry in the U.S., and its status is seen in old brand names such as Quaker State Oil and Pennzoil.
Titusville boomed, with its population soaring from 438 in the 1860 census to 8,639 ten years later. However, Drake’s well quickly ran dry, and the center of the industry moved on.
“The well only produced until about 1861.” Bell said. Within a couple of years, the Seneca Oil Company sold its assets. “The original derrick and engine house was transported to Philadelphia for the Centennial Exposition in 1876.”
Saved from obscurity
A chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, a heritage group, acquired the well site and surrounding land and erected a monument in 1914. In anticipation of the 75th anniversary of Drake’s well, the American Petroleum Institute bought the site and more than 200 acres to build a museum and library, and purchased artefacts from local collectors. Once completed in 1934, the well site quickly became a national historical site, Bell said, and the operation of the museum was turned over to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.Today, the museum sits near the bend in Oil Creek where the oil industry began. In fact, Bell said, the pipe from Drake’s well is still in place, more than 165 years later. Unlike the Colosseum in the Middle Ages, Drake’s achievement will be memorialized for generations to come.
Jeffrey Winters is editor in chief of Mechanical Engineering magazine.
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