Textbook
John A. Garraty, The Story of America (Austin: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1994), 664.
The first oil well was drilled by E. L. Drake, a retired railroad conductor. In 1859 he began drilling in Titusville, Pennsylvania. The whole venture seemed so impractical and foolish that onlookers called it "Drake's Folly." But when he had drilled won about 70 feet, Drake struck oil. His well began to yield 20 barrels of crude oil a day. News of Drake's success brought oil prospectors to the scene. By the early 1860s these wildcatters were drilling for "black gold" all over western Pennsylvania. The boom rivaled the California gold rush of 1848 in its excitement and Wild West atmosphere. And it brought far more wealth to the prospectors than any gold rush.