Drake, Edwin Laurentine (1819-1880), an American pioneer of the petroleum industry, drilled the nation’s first commercially successful oil well. He invented the technique of lining a drill hole with a metal pipe to prevent dirt and clay from filling the hole. Using this technique, Drake struck oil near Titusville, in northeastern Pennsylvania, in 1859. He often went by the nickname “Colonel” Drake, a title he began using during his first visit to Titusville.
Drake was born on March 29, 1819, in Greenville, New York. From 1849 to 1857, he worked as a railroad conductor. In 1857, the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company hired Drake to visit Oil Creek, near Titusville, to finalize a land purchase. Investors from the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company formed the Seneca Oil Company in 1858. The Seneca Oil Company hired Drake to recover petroleum from the Oil Creek land. The company later appointed Drake as its president and a member of the board of directors.
In 1859, Drake hired William A. Smith, an American blacksmith and well driller, to begin drilling for oil using equipment designed for saltwater wells. Many historians doubt that Drake independently came up with the idea of drilling to recover petroleum. Some scholars credit the American industrialist George H. Bissel, a co-founder of the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company, with developing the idea a few years earlier. Other historians think that Drake got the idea from another investor. Drake’s team struck oil in August 1859 at a well depth of 691/2 feet (21.2 meters), launching a worldwide oil boom. Drake died in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on Nov. 8, 1880.
See also Pennsylvania (Industrial growth); Petroleum (Beginnings of the petroleum industry).
