“We have no language at our command by which to convey to the minds of our readers any adequate idea of the agitated state at the time we saw [the well]. The gas from below was forcing up immense quantities of oil in a fearful manner and attended with noise that was terrifying… When the gas subsided for a few seconds, the oil rushed back down the pipe with a hollow, gurgling sound, so much resembling the struggle and suffocating breathings of a dying man, as to make one feel as though the earth were a huge giant seized with the pains of death and in its spasmodic efforts to retain a hold on life was throwing all nature into convulsions.”
Jim Burchfield, editor, Titusville Gazette, on seeing one of the first wells ever sunk

And so, with a series of scenes like this following the sinking of Edwin Drake’s first well, the age of oil began. It was 1859, exactly 150 years ago Thursday, that Drake’s great success occurred.

Drake, working with a local, simply pounded a hole in the ground with a heavy piece of metal attached to a rope threaded through a pulley to a steam engine. It took weeks of “chipping” to go the 59 feet where they struck oil. It would have happened without the narrative-friendly character of Drake, but it hadn’t, and the world hasn’t been the same since.

A western Pennsylvania river valley seems an unlikely place to go looking for momentous change, but the historical fact is that the Oil Creek valley, about 100 miles north of Pittsburgh, was the world’s very first oil field. From 1859 to 1873, this was the largest oil field in the world. During that time, 56 million barrels of oil came out of the ground.

Take note of the description of the stereograph above: “Source of the world’s most gigantic fortunes — pumping wells in the oil country — western Pennsylvania.” It took a few years to really get going and really only produced near capacity for half a decade, but it made millionaires. In just the six years from 1859-1865, $17 million was made in this backwater part of the country.

But as quickly as it flowed onto the world scene, Oil Creek valley went dry and everyone packed up and went home. Or to Texas.

Oil didn’t send cars zooming around or get turned into plastics back then. We just burned it in lamps as a replacement for a set of illumination alternatives that weren’t quite right for the task.

There was whale oil, but that was getting tougher to find. Whalers spent more and more months farther and farther away from population centers to fill up their barrels with bounty from the most majestic creatures in the world. And even if you killed a hundred whales, you were only bringing back a few hundred barrels of oil.

There was pig-derived oil, too, and gas made from coal. Brian Black, in his book, Petrolia from which the top quote comes, notes that there were already 56 coal-to-gas plants operating by 1850.

New lamps introduced in the 50s allowed allowed consumers to burn pretty much anything they wanted, decreasing the cost of switching fuels.

“Each illuminant helped bring light to darkness,” Black wrote. “However, each product left dramatic room for improvement. While each development functioned to lay groundwork for the rapid acceptance of petroleum upon its ‘discovery,’ the coal oil industry, which grew significantly in the United States during the 1850s, achieved a national distribution network that could be shifted most easily to other fluid energy commodities.”

So, there was a market and ecosystem awaiting the product that could fulfill “the divine potential of increasing time in the day.” Some people had discovered that “rock oil” could be distilled, just like whale oil, but it was too much of a pain in the ass to collect where it seeped up to the surface. People sometimes skimmed the crude from the surface of the waters where it naturally got stuck or sopped it up with blankets. (Some even used it as a tonic. They “drank freely of the water, which, by and by, ‘operated as a gentle purge.’”) Not exactly the way to go from rags to riches.

Drake’s well then, with its flowing petroleum, changed everything. It pumped money out of the ground.

While the Civil War raged, the development of the area was basically stalled, but as soldiers returned from the front lines, they went to rural Pennsylvania to hunt fortune. Instant towns popped up all over Petrolia: Titusville, Oil City, and especially Pithole. Distribution systems sprung up, too. Teamsters drove horse-carts lousy with barrels. Barges were loaded up to float down the rivers. Tank services arose.

Petroleum, long just a curiosity became, with admirable simplicity, money.

The stereographs below — taken over the couple decades after 1859 — show many of these events in progress. There are shots of new hotels and the tanks and the derricks, even the basic refineries. An incredible set of pictures testifies to the prevalence of “shooting a well.” This was and is the practice of putting explosives in a borehole to stimulate oil production by fracturing the rock down there. Word was, it let the oil flow more easily.

“A gentleman who has just called on us from Tarr farm, tells us that an experiment was made on the 21st, with one of Roberts’ Torpedoes in the ‘Bakery Well’ which has formerly pumped from 7 to 8 barrels per day. The production has continually increased. On the 27th it produced 60 barrels and yesterday the production was 100 barrels,” proclaimed the July 2, 1866 edition of the Titusville Morning Herald. “We wonder how the owners feel at the great difference in their balance sheet!”

The technique was pioneered by Colonel E.A.L. Roberts, whose corporate descendant wrote a stunning short history of its use in the Oil Creek valley. Apparently, it was quite a high-drama technology. You see, Roberts had patented it (as in the drawing) and anyone caught “moonlighting” by blasting their wells without paying the Roberts Petroleum Torpedo Company (!) was in serious trouble with its private police force.

Enjoy the stereographs below. They’re beautiful. The thumbnails will open each one in your main browser window; sorry about that, I’m just getting this Wordpress gallery thing down.

All of them are courtesy of the Robert Dennis Collection of Stereoscopic Views.

"Going to Petroleum Centre"

What Was a Farm is Now a (Oil) Field

Up Oil Creek Without a Paddle

Not All Roads Are Made Equal

An Instant Hotel, Like Mardi Gras Without the Parades

Oil City, Pennsylvania

A Railroad Bridge Supported by Derricks

Big Derricks, Little Man

Derricks Downslope

The Derrick Forest

Pumping, Close-Up

Filling a Shell with Nitroglycerine

Shooting a Well

That's A Lot of Barrels

Barrels Everywhere

Men Standing on Oil Tanks

A Lotta Oil Tanks

Cameraderie Among the Tanks

A Barge on Oil Creek

The Original Oil Tankers

The "Great" Western Refinery

What Looks Like a Fire

A Huge Smoking tank

Instant Towns Ain't Pretty