![]() Smith, originally a blacksmith, who had spent much of his life drilling salt wells, visited the well and looked into the pipe. The next day, the experienced driller, William A. “They had absolutely no idea that they had struck oil that late afternoon,” says Zolli. So they put away their tools and went home for the weekend, totally unaware that they were about to change the course of history. Nowadays, a drilling break would have alerted the crew, but the driller had, as can be easily understood, absolutely no experience in drilling into an oil reservoir. It was caused by the drillbit entering the porous sandstone reservoir that later proved to contain oil. Using drilling jargon, this much quoted historical account can be translated as a “drilling break”, a sudden increase in the rate of penetration. 1 m) a day on the average, the drill “dropped into a crevice and slipped down another six inches (15cm)”. On the afternoon of Saturday, August 27, after having drilled to 69.5 ft (21.2 m) below the ground, at 3 ft (ca. The Drake Well was spudded in the middle of August 1859 following a one year ordeal trying to get hold of a reliable driller and securing the necessary funds that were quickly running out. More important for the Drake Well, a number of salt and fresh water wells in the western Appalachian had encountered small quantities of liquid petroleum during the previous decades.ĭrake # 1 was thus a true wildcat, without a specific target, and without any kind of geological reasoning- simple surface observations were used to find the well location. Owen (AAPG Memoir 6, 1975), “it seems reasonable to credit priority to the phenomenal Baku field for the world’s first drilled oil well”. The reason for being a little cautious is that wells both finding and producing oil had been drilled in many other places around the world, long before the Drake # 1 well, and according to E.W. Zolli, director of the Drake Well Museum in Titusville, Pennsylvania, has no desire to take part in a competition over which is the world’s first oil well, which explains why she prefers phrasing it like this. As such, it launched the modern oil industry in 1859.”īarbara T. ![]() Other nearby markers.“The Drake Well was the first commercial well drilled for the purpose of finding oil. Marker is at or near this postal address: 333 Wyandotte Street, Bethlehem PA 18015, United States of America. Marker is adjacent to the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem office and about 200 feet SSW of the Episcopal Cathedral Church of the Nativity. Marker is on Wyandotte Street (Pennsylvania Route 378), on the right when traveling north. Marker is in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in Northampton County. A significant historical year for this entry is 1859. In addition, it is included in the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission series list. This historical marker is listed in these topic lists: Cemeteries & Burial Sites In 1902 his remains were moved from Bethlehem to memorial monument erected at Titusville.Įrected 1959 by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Lived at Bethlehem in this house for last seven years of his life, 1873-1880. It is in Bethlehem in Northampton County Pennsylvania Drilled first oil well in America in 1859 at Titusville, Pa. This historical marker was erected in 1959 by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. In 1902 his remains were moved from Bethlehem to memorial monument erected at Titusville. Drilled first oil well in America in 1859 at Titusville, Pa.
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