August 27, 1859 Black Gold!
(this "Good Morning" offering was originally broadcast on Aug 27 2005. It has been enhanced to include new material and has been formatted to fit your screen)
147 years ago today, Edwin Drake's primitive well came in when it struck oil at 69 feet near Titusville in Crawford County in the northwest corner of the Quaker State --and in so doing, became the driller of the world's first successful oil well.
Edwin Drake was an unemployed train conductor when the Seneca Oil Company hired him - at $85.00 a month - to prospect their property in western Pennsylvania. What that meant in those days was simply wandering around the countryside looking for pools of oil that had percolated to the surface.
Drake had a novel idea, he decided to try drilling for oil near Titusville, Pennsylvania - an original concept at the time - and struck a veritable ocean of the black gold. Within months, fortunes were being made by those savvy enough to exploit the new "Oildorado."
Edwin Drake
Drake was not one of them. Drake's discovery fueled revolutions in transportation and industry - and made billionaires out of men like J. Paul Gettyand John D. Rockefeller- but the oil industry refused to give Drake even the most meager pension.
Drake's well and his roughnecks
Drake chose not to seek a US patent for his critical invention -- the pipe casing for the bore hole, which would have ensured his financial well-being. He did so out of loyalty to his former employer Seneca Oil, reasoning it wouldn't be ethical for him to patent an item he developed on the job while in their employ.
To make Drake's fortunes worse, the ever increasing supply of oil drove the price down. When Drakes well hit, crude was selling at $22bbl. Two years later, it was down to .52bbl.The market became so volatile, Drake left the oil business. He later lost everything in bad oil stock investments he made NYC.
Drake then drifted around for several years, suffering from injuries he sustained in the Pennsylvania oil patch.
The State of Pennsylvania eventually took pity on him and awarded him a meager $1500.00 annuity in 1870 in the last decade of his life. He died in relative poverty in 1880 in Bethlehem PA, after years of crippling illnesses.
Little Titusville PA is still proud of their community's role in the development of a ginormous international industry.
A quarter century after Drake's death, the big oil companies dug up his corpse and enshrined it in a gaudy tomb. They paid more for Drake's headstone than they ever paid Drake when he was alive.
Ed's well in the Pennsylvania woods, painting from an original photo.
This source of crude oil, or petroleum, opened up a new inexpensive source of power and quickly replaced whale oil in lamps -- it also took a lot of pressure off the giant marine mammals which were getting quite scarce, especially the sperm and right whales which were the most hunted oil-bearing whale species. Your correspondent has no idea why "sperm" whales are called that, but right whales are called "right" whales precisely because they were the "right" whale to hunt being particularly rich in the valuable whale oil.
Unfortunately, despite the fact right whales are no longer hunted for their oil for use in lamps, our Japanese friends like to eat them, and they are just about gone.
Not much has changed in the mechanics of oil wells, although they go much deeper than Ed's 69 foot well nowadays. Of course, Ed couldn't possibly have imagined off shore drilling and the fact one day, we'd go back to the sea for oil, but not to chase whales.
Within a few decades of Drake's discovery, oil drilling was widespread in the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and the East Indies. However, it was the development of the automobile that catapulted petroleum into a position of paramount importance, for petroleum is the primary source of gasoline. Asphalt, also derived from petroleum, is used to surface roads and highways.
When the price of a barrel of crude goes up, of course, so does everything that depends on the various products derived from that barrel.
Just about everyone agrees human civilization needs to do something to lessen our dependence on petroleum products, the problem is, there just aren't any feasible, suitable and acceptable alternatives out there right now.
Originally Posted by Okla-Homey
