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Soon the company owned a majority of the lines, which provided cheap, efficient transportation for oil. When Rockefeller observed this, he began to acquire pipelines for Standard. Samuel Van Syckel had built a four-mile pipeline from Pithole, Pennsylvania, to the nearest railroad. Pipelines early became a major consideration in Standard’s drive to gain business and profits. phrased it, their purpose was “to unite our skill and capital.” By 1870 Standard had become the dominant oil refining firm in Pennsylvania. himself.Īdditional discoveries near the Drake well had led to the creation of numerous firms and the Rockefeller company quickly began to buy out or combine with its competitors. Flagler is considered by many to have been nearly as important a figure in the oil business as John D.

Flagler created what was to become the Standard Oil Company. The next year he, his brother William, S. Rockefeller bought out his partner and in 1866 opened an export office in New York City. They soon sold it and built a small oil refinery. In 1859, he and a partner operated a commission firm in Cleveland. Because of his entrepreneurial instincts and his genius for organizing companies, Rockefeller became a leading figure in the U.S. One of those who heard about the discovery was John D. Titusville and other towns in the area boomed. So far as is known, this was the first time that oil was tapped at its source, using a drill. Drake employed William Smith, an expert salt driller, to supervise drilling operations and on August 27, 1859, they struck oil at a depth of sixty-nine feet. Bissell and several friends purchased land near Titusville and engaged Edwin L. Benjamin Silliman of Yale University analyzed a bottle of the oil and said it would make an excellent light. Bissell, a New York lawyer, and James Townsend, a New Haven businessman, became interested when Dr.

The first oil corporation, which was created to develop oil found floating on water near Titusville, Pennsylvania, was the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company of Connecticut (later the Seneca Oil Company). As oil production and refining increased, prices collapsed, which became characteristic of the industry. Samuel Downer, Jr., an early entrepreneur, patented “Kerosene” as a trade name in 1859 and licensed its usage. rock oil industry boomed as whale oil increased in price owing to the growing scarcity of that mammal. While traveling in Austria, John Austin, a New York merchant, observed an effective, cheap oil lamp and made a model that upgraded kerosene lamps. Rock oil distilled from shale became available as kerosene even before the Industrial Revolution began. Settlers used oil as an illuminant for medicine, and as grease for wagons and tools. Louis Evans located deposits along the eastern seaboard on a 1775 map of the English Middle Colonies.ĭid you know? In 1933, Standard Oil secured the first contract to drill for oil in Saudia Arabia. They noted oil slicks off the coast of California in the sixteenth century.

Many of the early explorers of America encountered petroleum deposits in some form. Within a year, more than 1,500 oil companies had been chartered, and oil became the dominant fuel of the 20th century and an integral part of the American economy.

The discovery of the Spindletop geyser in 1901 drove huge growth in the oil industry. The iron and steel industry spawned new construction materials, the railroads connected the country and the discovery of oil provided a new source of fuel. The 19th century was a period of great change and rapid industrialization.