
Edwin Drake - onetimemanytime
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Drake
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newguy1234
If you haven't seen the documentary on the oil industry "the prize" then it is
a must watch. You can watch all of it on youtube. Here is the scene were they
talk about drake's significance to the oil industry:

[https://youtu.be/H2hSATHD634?t=409](https://youtu.be/H2hSATHD634?t=409)

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jacobush
A true pioneer whose efforts for decades to come, spelled a relief for over-
hunted whales.

~~~
jweir
Until the Soviets started whaling

[https://www.hakaimagazine.com/news/industrial-whaling-of-
the...](https://www.hakaimagazine.com/news/industrial-whaling-of-the-20th-
century-was-worse-than-we-thought/)

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bpaddock
Drake's Well Museum:

[https://www.drakewell.org/about-us](https://www.drakewell.org/about-us)

I was there this summer. Well over a 100 years old and some of the original
equipment is still running. Sad that our modern equipment has little hope of
that.

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Merrill
Drake drilled the well to secure a greater supply for the Seneca oil company.
The drilling technology was not particularly revolutionary, since water wells
and wells to pump salt brine had been previously drilled.

The key technology was fractional distillation of petroleum into an array of
useful products, especially kerosene which could be used instead of whale oil
for illumination.

How Yale Launched the Oil Economy -
[http://archives.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2005_11/old_ya...](http://archives.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2005_11/old_yale.html)

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gregw2
What was the diameter of that first oil pipe? Drake clearly was repurposing a
technology that already existed... what was the pipe's original purpose?

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jacobush
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_Well](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_Well)
only says cast iron. Maybe sewer pipe, Pennsylvania was early using that:

[http://www.sewerhistory.org/photosgraphics/pipes-
ancientearl...](http://www.sewerhistory.org/photosgraphics/pipes-ancientearly-
types/)

~~~
bookofjoe
>Drake used copper pipe two or three inches in diameter and in sections 12 to
14 feet long.
[https://ethw.org/Beginnings_of_the_Oil_and_Gas_Industry](https://ethw.org/Beginnings_of_the_Oil_and_Gas_Industry)

~~~
jacobush
I'm not saying he _didn 't_ use copper pipe for the first well, but one could
imagine he used cast iron pipe in the first well. _If_ he did, my layman
understanding is that copper pipe must be much more less likely to break, than
cast iron pipe. (Cast iron is pretty brittle.)

