George H. Bissell, a businessman, was responsible for the beginnings of oil industry in United States five days before the Civil War. Bissell was former professor of Latin and Greek at Dartmouth, who had long search for a practical way to extract ‘rock oil’ form the earth, realized that oil might be bored out of soil.
Bissell hired Edwin L. Drake to drill a well with the same equipment for drilling deep wells of salt production.
In August 1859, Drake brought in America’s first oil well. Several weeks later, another two additional wells confirmed the accessibility of petroleum. It set off the frost oil boom in America in western Pennsylvania.
John D. Rockefeller was engaged oil refining as early as 1863, but it was not until seven years later that the Standard Oil Company was formed.
The company purchased other refiners, pipelines and marketing companies and by 1875 the large refiners had joined the Standard Oil group. By 1882 John D Rockefeller had gained control 0f over 90 percent of the national’s refineries.
In 1913, William Burton of the Standard Oil Company of Indiana patented a thermal cracking process that saw later widespread use.
Oil fueled the engines of 20th century enterprise, transportation, and war.
The beginning of American oil industries
