Long before the “Oil Boom” in the latter half of the nineteenth century crude oil was known to the natives and settlers of the new United States. It was not used for fuel, but rather as a medicine that was “good for what ails you”. The oil was usually gathered by skimming it off the top of places like Oil Creek in western Pennsylvania. In the mid-1800’s Samuel Kier invented a refining process to allow the crude oil to be burned without producing all the smoke and odor. The refined product was suitable to be used in lamps in place of whale oil.

The initial oil boom was triggered by Edwin Drake’s 1859 drilling of the world’s first successful commercial oil well, proving the new resource could be supplied in commercial quantities. The oil boom and industrial advance that began near Titusville, PA on August 27, 1859 gathered momentum so quickly the years that followed became known as the “Age Of Illumination”.

Once refined, Pennsylvania crude oil became “Carbon Oil” that was suitable to be burned indoors in a lamp. The timing of Drake’s Well was very fortunate. The well on the Oil Creek was able to produce oil in commercial quantities at a time when the whale oil commonly used in lamps was becoming ever more expensive.

Cheap, plentiful indoor lighting was fueling a revolution world-wide. Western Pennsylvania was supplying the fuel. The area around McKean County and Bradford, PA bristled with oil wells, the men that ran them, and their families.

Today, while not like it was during the oil boom, Bradford, PA and the surrounding area still supplies crude oil to industries, mostly for applications that call for clean, high grade oil, commonly known as “Pennsylvania light sweet crude”.