Pennsylvania oil rush

Oil quickly became one of the most valuable commodities in the United States and railroads expanded into Western Pennsylvania to ship petroleum to the rest of the country.

Early European explorers discovered evidence of troughs dug alongside the creek where Native American tribes had collected oil for use as ointment, insect repellant, skin coloring and in religious ceremonies.

As the frontier expanded into Western Pennsylvania during the 18th century, the region became known for the oil beneath its surface, and maps of the era displayed the label “Petroleum.” With few uses for crude oil, the label served primarily to deter farmers who found the black soil inhospitable to their crops.

In 1854, Bissell commissioned a study from Yale chemist Benjamin Silliman, Jr. to assess the viability of harvesting oil in western Pennsylvania.

[5] In 1857, Bissell and Townsend hired Edwin Drake to travel to Titusville and drill for crude oil.

He and his assistant, blacksmith Billy Smith, endured fires, financial setbacks, and the ridicule of the local inhabitants.

[7] When the Seneca Oil Company gave up and decided to withdraw its funding, Drake obtained a personal line of credit to continue digging.

He never patented the drilling method he pioneered, and lost his modest earnings from the oil business speculating on Wall Street.

The oil boom in Pennsylvania paralleled in many ways the gold rush in California ten years earlier.

European, and especially British, factories began importing large quantities of cheap American oil during the 1860s.

[3] For decades, logs had been transported using man-made floods, known as pond freshets, created by successively breaking milldams along the length of the river.

[11] The new railroad brought more people into the Oil Creek Valley and provided a safer alternative to the freshets for transporting barrels of crude.

The patent on July 18, 1865, was an improvement made for a freight car that would transport petroleum and crude oil.

Three books mention his invention[13][14][15] Pipelines were laid from the oil fields directly to the rail line, ending horse-drawn transport.

[16] The following year, the Farmers Railroad extended the rail line 20 km south from Petroleum Center, Pennsylvania, to Oil City.

The rush to Pennsylvania created violent swings in the petroleum market for the first decade of the oil boom.

In response, producers in the region formed the Oil Creek Association to restrict output and maintain a minimum price of $4 a barrel.