The history of the petroleum industry in the United States goes back to the early 19th century, although the indigenous peoples, like many ancient societies, have used petroleum seeps since prehistoric times; where found, these seeps signaled the growth of the industry from the earliest discoveries to the more recent.
Sarnia is a city in Lambton County, Ontario, Canada. It had a 2021 population of 72,047, and is the largest city on Lake Huron. Sarnia is located on the eastern bank of the junction between the Upper and Lower Great Lakes where Lake Huron flows into the St. Clair River in the Southwestern Ontario region, which forms the Canada–United States border, directly across from Port Huron, Michigan. The site's natural harbour first attracted the French explorer La Salle. He named the site "The Rapids" on 23 August 1679, when he had horses and men pull his 45-ton barque Le Griffon north against the nearly four-knot current of the St. Clair River.
Lambton County is a county in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. It is bordered on the north by Lake Huron, which is drained by the St. Clair River, the county's western border and part of the Canada-United States border. To the south is Lake Saint Clair and Chatham-Kent. Lambton County's northeastern border follows the Ausable River and Parkhill Creek north until it reaches Lake Huron at the beach community of Grand Bend. The county seat is in the Town of Plympton-Wyoming.
Petrolia is a town in southwestern Ontario, Canada. It is part of Lambton County and is surrounded by Enniskillen Township. It is billed as "Canada's Victorian Oil Town" and is often credited with starting the oil industry in North America, a claim shared with the nearby town of Oil Springs.
The petroleum industry, also known as the oil industry or the oil patch, includes the global processes of exploration, extraction, refining, transportation, and marketing of petroleum products. The largest volume products of the industry are fuel oil and gasoline (petrol). Petroleum is also the raw material for many chemical products, including pharmaceuticals, solvents, fertilizers, pesticides, synthetic fragrances, and plastics. The industry is usually divided into three major components: upstream, midstream, and downstream. Upstream regards exploration and extraction of crude oil, midstream encompasses transportation and storage of crude, and downstream concerns refining crude oil into various end products.
The Drake Well Museum and Park is a museum that interprets the birth of the American oil industry in 1859 by "Colonel" Edwin Drake along the banks of Oil Creek in Cherrytree Township, Venango County, Pennsylvania in the United States. The museum collects and preserves related artifacts. The reconstructed Drake Well demonstrates the first practical use of salt drilling techniques for the extraction of petroleum through an oil well. A historic site, the museum is located in Cherrytree Township, 3 miles (4.8 km) south of Titusville on Drake Well Road, situated between Pennsylvania Routes 8 and 27. The museum is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.
The St. Clair Parkway, historically referred to as the River Road, is a scenic parkway in the Canadian province of Ontario. It travels alongside the St. Clair River from west of Wallaceburg to Sarnia, a distance of 41.8 kilometres (26.0 mi). It formed a portion of the route of Highway 40 until it was bypassed by an inland route that opened in the mid-1970s. The St. Clair River Parkway Commission maintained the route from 1966 until 2006, when it was disbanded and responsibility over the parkway transferred to Chatham-Kent and Lambton County, both of which designate the route as County Road 33. The communities of Port Lambton, Sombra, Courtright, Mooretown, Corunna and Froomfield are located along the parkway, all early settlements of the 19th century.
James Miller Williams was a Canadian-American businessman and politician. Williams is best known for establishing the first commercially successful oil well in 1858 and igniting the first oil boom in North America. Williams is commonly viewed as the father of the petroleum industry in Canada.
King's Highway 40, commonly referred to as Highway 40, is a provincially maintained highway in the southwestern portion of the Canadian province of Ontario. The 91.4-kilometre (56.8 mi) route links Chatham and Sarnia via Wallaceburg, following close to the St. Clair River. The southern terminus is at Highway 401 south of Chatham, while the northern terminus is at Highway 402 in Sarnia. The portion of Highway 40 between Highway 401 and north of Wallaceburg is within the municipality of Chatham-Kent, while the portion north of there is within Lambton County.
Oil Springs is a village in Lambton County, Ontario, Canada, located along Former Provincial Highway 21 south of Oil City. The village, an enclave within Enniskillen Township, is the site of North America's first commercial oil well. It is home to the Oil Museum of Canada.
The Canadian petroleum industry arose in parallel with that of the United States. Because of Canada's unique geography, geology, resources and patterns of settlement, however, it developed in different ways. The evolution of the petroleum sector has been a key factor in the history of Canada, and helps illustrate how the country became quite distinct from her neighbour to the south.
While the local use of oil goes back many centuries, the modern petroleum industry along with its outputs and modern applications are of a recent origin. Petroleum's status as a key component of politics, society, and technology has its roots in the coal and kerosene industry of the late 19th century. One of the earliest instances of this is the refining of paraffin from crude oil. Abraham Gesner, developed a process to refine a liquid fuel from coal, bitumen and oil shale, it burned more cleanly and was cheaper than whale oil. James Young in 1847 noticed a natural petroleum seepage when he distilled a light thin oil suitable for use as lamp oil, at the same time obtaining a thicker oil suitable for lubricating machinery. The world's first refineries and modern oil wells were established in the mid-19th century.
John Henry Fairbank was variously a surveyor, oilman, inventor, banker, politician and fire chief in Lambton County, Ontario. Fairbank is best known for his invention of the jerker-line pumping system, which quickly spread across the world its introduction in the mid-1860s. Fairbank Oil, established by Fairbank in 1861, is the oldest continually operating petroleum company, and the company's property, known as the "First Commercial Oil Field," is included in the List of National Historic Sites of Canada in Ontario.
Well No. 4, Pico Canyon Oilfield, located about seven miles (11 km) west of Newhall, California, in the Santa Susana Mountains, was the first commercially successful oil well in the Western United States and is considered the birthplace of California's oil industry. Drilled in 1876, it turned nearby Newhall into a boomtown and also spawned a smaller boomtown called Mentryville adjacent to the drilling site. Well No. 4 continued in operation for 114 years until it was capped in 1990. The site was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966, and the Mentryville ghost town is now open to the public as a historic park.
The Drake Well is a 69.5-foot-deep (21.2 m) oil well in Cherrytree Township, Venango County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, the success of which sparked the first oil boom in the United States. The well is the centerpiece of the Drake Well Museum located 3 miles (5 km) south of Titusville.
William Henry McGarvey was a Canadian business magnate, entrepreneur and politician. McGarvey is best known for his exploits in Galicia, where he operated a highly successful petroleum company. McGarvey was one of the most successful "foreign drillers" of Petrolia, becoming a multimillionaire before the outbreak of the First World War destroyed his business.
SCITS or Sarnia Collegiate Institute & Technical School was a public secondary school located in Sarnia, Ontario, managed by the Lambton Kent District School Board. It had approximately 550 full-time students in 2015–2016. Their teams were called the Blue Bombers, and in November 2015 the school was designated for closure in 2017.
John Shaw was an American oil driller, businessman and photographer. Shaw is best known for striking Canada's first oil gusher at Oil Springs on January 16, 1862. Shaw's oil gusher marked the beginning of the first oil boom in Enniskillen Township, as speculators rushed to Oil Springs seeking similar fortunes.
The International Drillers is the name given to the more than 500 drillers from Lambton County who worked in oil fields across the world between December 1873 to the mid-1940s. Many of the International Drillers grew up learning the oil business in Enniskillen County and provided the skilled labour, expertise and technology necessary for the development of the global petroleum industry.
