The 19th century was a period of great change and rapid industrialization. The invention of the Spindletop geyser in 1901 drove huge growth within the refining industry. And oil became the dominant fuel of the 20th century and an integral part of the American economy.
Many of the first explorers of America encountered petroleum deposits in some form. They noted oil slicks off the coast of California within the sixteenth century. Louis Evans located deposits along the eastern seaboard on a 1775 map of English Middle Colonies.
The First Oil Corporation
On the water near Titusville, Pennsylvania was the Pennsylvania petroleum Company of Connecticut (later the Seneca Oil Company). George H. Bissell, a replacement York lawyer, and James Townsend, a replacement Haven businessman, took an interest when Dr. Benjamin Silliman of Yale University analyzed a bottle of the oil and said it might make a superb light. Bissell and a number of other friends purchased land as well as near Titusville and engaged Edwin L. Drake to locate the oil there.
Titusville and other towns within the area boomed. one among those that heard about the invention was John D. Rockefeller. due to his entrepreneurial instincts and his genius for organizing companies, Rockefeller became the number one figure within the U.S. refining industry. In 1859, he and a partner operated a commission firm in Cleveland. They soon sold it and built a little petroleum refinery. Rockefeller bought as well as out his partner and in 1866 opened an export office in NY City. the subsequent year he, his brother William, S. V. Harkness, and Henry M. Flagler created what was to become as well as the quality company. Flagler is taken into account by many to possess been nearly as important a figure within the oil industry like John D. himself.