Drake Well

Coordinates: 41°36′39″N 79°39′27.7″W / 41.61083°N 79.657694°W / 41.61083; -79.657694
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Drake Oil Well
Replica engine house and derrick in June 2012
Drake Well is located in Pennsylvania
Drake Well
Drake Well is located in the United States
Drake Well
LocationCherrytree Township, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Nearest cityTitusville, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Coordinates41°36′39″N 79°39′27.7″W / 41.61083°N 79.657694°W / 41.61083; -79.657694
Built1859 (1859)
Built byEdwin Drake, William A. Smith
NRHP reference No.66000695[1]
Significant dates
Added to NRHPNovember 13, 1966
Designated NHLNovember 13, 1966

The Drake Well is a 69.5-foot-deep (21.2 m) oil well in Cherrytree Township, Pennsylvania, the success of which sparked the first oil boom in the United States. The well is the centerpiece of the Drake Well Museum located 3 miles (5 km) south of Titusville.

Drilled by

Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark in 1979. The well was designated a National Historic Chemical Landmark in 2009, on the sesquicentennial
of the strike.

The Drake Well is often referred to as the first commercial oil well, although that title is also claimed for wells in

Arabia, Sichuan and Poland
.

In the United States before the Drake Well, oil-producing wells were wells that were drilled for salt brine, and produced oil and gas only as accidental byproducts. An intended drinking water well at Oil Springs, Ontario found oil in 1858, a year before the Drake Well, but it had not been drilled for oil. Historians have noted that the importance of the Drake Well was not in being the first well to produce oil, but in attracting the first great wave of investment in oil drilling, refining, and marketing:

The importance of the Drake Well was in the fact that it caused prompt additional drilling, thus establishing a supply of petroleum in sufficient quantity to support business enterprises of magnitude.[2]

Location and geology

The Drake Well is located in

dike.[3]

Most of the oil produced in northwestern Pennsylvania was formed in

Mississippian and Devonian rock layers.[4] Over time, the oil migrated toward the surface, became trapped beneath an impervious layer of caprock, and formed a reservoir. The presence of upwards-curving folds in the caprock called anticlines, or sometimes an inversion of an anticline called a syncline, greatly varied the depth of the reservoirs, from around 4,000 feet (1,200 m) to just beneath the surface.[5]

History

Petroleum found along Oil Creek was known to

distilled the oil to make it more suitable in lamps by removing the odor and impurities that created soot when burned.[7] A sample of oil was brought to Dartmouth College by Francis B. Brewer from the Watson, Brewer and Company Farm on Oil Creek around 1853. The sample was acquired by George Bissell who, along with Jonathan G. Eveleth purchased the farm for $5,000.[7] Bissell and Eveleth took another sample of oil to Benjamin Silliman at Yale University in 1855 for further investigation. Silliman's report confirmed the quality of the petroleum and described the distillation processes needed to produce kerosene.[7] The Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company was incorporated and the farm transferred to the company.[8]

Construction and operation

Drake (right) in front of the well

Edwin Drake, a former conductor for the New York and New Haven Railroad, invested $200, his entire savings, into the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company.[9] Drake became more involved in the company and traveled to Titusville, Pennsylvania and the Brewer and Watson Farm in December 1857. His report prompted Bissell and Eveleth to organize the Seneca Oil Company in Connecticut in March 1858 and to place Drake in charge of producing petroleum.[7][9] Because Drake decided that drilling in the manner of salt wells would yield more petroleum than conventional digging, he hired William A. Smith, a Tarentum, Pennsylvania, blacksmith and salt-well driller, to aid in the endeavor.[7] An engine house and derrick were constructed, and Drake purchased a 6-horsepower (4.5 kW), horizontal steam engine. The steam engine was used to ram the drill through the soil until it reached bedrock 32 feet (10 m) down. After it was found that groundwater would cause the walls of the hole to collapse, Drake acquired 50 feet (20 m) of cast iron pipe to stabilize the hole.[9] After reaching bedrock, Drake and Smith were able to drill at a rate of 3 feet (1 m) per day.[7] Drake's colleagues back in Connecticut gave up on finding any oil by April 1859 and after spending $2,500, Drake took out a $500 loan to keep the operation going.[10] The drill reached its maximum depth of 69.5 feet (21.2 m) on August 27, 1859. Smith visited the well the next day and found oil visible on top of the water 5 inches (13 cm) from the top of the well.[9] The original structures at the well caught fire in October 1859 and were rebuilt by Drake a month later. The well produced 12 to 20 barrels (2 to 3 m3) a day, but, after the price of oil plummeted from the resulting boom, it was never profitable.[10] The well stopped producing in 1861 and the Seneca Oil Company sold the property in 1864. The derrick was moved in 1876 to the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.[11]

Preservation

Recirculated petroleum is pumped from the well by a replica steam engine

The well remained abandoned until 1889, when David Emery of Titusville bought the site, erected a derrick and cleaned out the well. Emery was able to obtain a small quantity of petroleum from the well and attempted to sell it as souvenirs to raise funds "to perpetuate the site", but died before he was able to do so.

Diamond Jubilee of Drake Well in 1934, it was to be made a state park.[10] The Drake Well State Park remained under the control of the Department of Forestry and Waters, the precursor to the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, until 1943 when it was transferred along with the Cornwall Iron Furnace in Lebanon County to the Pennsylvania Historical Commission.[13]

Since at least the late-1890s, the only artifacts remaining from the original well were the drilling tools and drivepipe, much to the disappointment of visitors to Drake Well.

Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in October 1979.[17] Authentic reproductions of the steam engine and boiler were purchased in Erie and installed in 1986.[11] The American Chemical Society designated the Drake Well a National Historic Chemical Landmark on August 27, 2009, the 150th anniversary of the strike.[18]

Museum

Main article: Drake Well Museum

The Drake Well Museum encompasses 22 acres (9 ha) of land that surrounds the well. The museum was accredited by the American Alliance of Museums in 1983 and reaccredited in 1995.[19] [20] The museum has a station on the Oil Creek and Titusville Railroad.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "NPS Focus". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. Retrieved July 7, 2011.
  2. ^ Edgar Wesley Owen (1975) Trek of the Oil Finders, Tulsa, Okla.: American Association of Petroleum Geologists, p.12.
  3. ^ a b Pees 1998, p. 14.
  4. ^ a b Caplinger 1997, p. 6.
  5. ^ Caplinger 1997, pp. 4, 6.
  6. ^ Caplinger 1997, p. 12.
  7. ^ a b c d e f Caplinger 1997, p. 13.
  8. ^ Bell 1890, p. 310.
  9. ^ a b c d McKithan 1978, § 8, p. 1.
  10. ^ a b c d "When First Oil Flowed". The New York Times. July 22, 1934. p. XX-12.
  11. ^ a b Sherman 2002, p. 34.
  12. ^ Sherman 2002, p. 23.
  13. ^ Nichols 1967, p. 26.
  14. ^ Sherman 2002, pp. 23 24.
  15. ^ Sherman 2002, p. 24.
  16. ^ "List of National Historic Landmarks by State" (PDF). National Historic Landmarks Program. National Park Service. May 2013. p. 82. Retrieved June 5, 2013.
  17. ^ "#40 Drake Oil Well (1859)". American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Archived from the original on October 11, 2011. Retrieved July 8, 2011.
  18. ^ "The Development of the Pennsylvania Oil Industry". American Chemical Society. Retrieved July 9, 2011.
  19. ^ "Alliance Accredited Institutions" (PDF). American Alliance of Museums. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 17, 2013. Retrieved April 6, 2013.
  20. ^ Sherman 2002, p. 27.

Bibliography

External links

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