The crevice gives way, and Drake's drill strikes oil at 69.5 feet
For sixteen months, Edwin Drake had drilled on a small island in Oil Creek while locals jeered and called the project Drake's Folly. On August 27, 1859, his drill bit reached 69.5 feet and struck a crevice in the bedrock. Drake's driller, Billy Smith, went home for the night not knowing oil was rising behind him. The well soon produced 25 barrels a day, though Drake did not yet know he had started an American industry.
Drake's well launched the first oil boom in American history, and within a day drillers up and down Oil Creek were copying his methods. Boomtowns quickly appeared, turning rural Pennsylvania into the center of the country's new oil economy. The drive pipe that kept his borehole from collapsing became standard practice for oil drillers across the country.
