Drake Well Park - Titusville, PA
Posted by: 
Szuchie
N 41° 36.701 W 079° 39.448
17T E 611860 N 4607533
This marker designates this site as the location where Edwin Drake first struck oil in 1859 - the birth of the petroleum industry!
Waymark Code: WM3EAD
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Date Posted: 03/23/2008
Views: 34
This historical marker reads:
On this site "Col." Edwin Drake struck oil Aug. 27, 1859; the birth of the petroleum industry.
Oil was known to exist in the Oil Creek Valley of northwestern Pennsylvania, but there was no practical way to extract it. Its main use at that time was as medicine for both animals and humans. In the late 1850s Seneca Oil Company (formerly the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company) sent its manager, Colonel Edwin L. Drake, to start drilling on a piece of leased land just south of Titusville, a slow-growing and peaceful community. Lumber was the principal industry at the time, with at least 17 sawmills in the area. Drake hired a salt well driller, William A. Smith, in the summer of 1859. After many difficulties, they finally drilled a commercially successful well on August 27. Considered the birth of the oil industry, it was an event that changed the world.
On this site is the Drake Well Oil Museum. The Drake Well Museum is a museum that interprets the birth of the oil industry in 1859 by "Colonel" Edwin Drake along the banks of Oil Creek in Venango County, Pennsylvania in the United States. The museum collects and preserves related artifacts. Its Drake Oil Well demonstrates the first practical use of salt drilling techniques for the extraction of petroleum through an oil well.
Source: Wikipedia
Marker Name: Drake Well Park
County: Venango
Date Dedicated: 01/01/1948
Marker Type: Roadside
Location: At Drake Well Museum, SE of Titusville
Category: Business & Industry, Oil
Website: [Web Link]
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