1/12/2024 0 Comments Edwin l drake invention![]() ![]() By the 1860s, Philadelphia as a city of more than 600,000 inhabitants was a major industrial site and port with a multitude of different manufacturers. Building on its long history as a port city, its emergence as a rail center, and its early transportation connections to western Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, soon caught up, initially as home to a large group of oil investors.įrom the earliest days of the oil industry, Philadelphia developed into one of the major storage and refining sites for petroleum, constantly competing with other east coast oil ports, notably New York, but also Baltimore, Boston, and Portland, Maine. Cleveland, with the advantage of access to the Great Lakes, rapidly overtook Pennsylvania’s Titusville area in the volume of oil refined. Within a few years, however, they were established in transportation hubs such as port cities. Rockefeller, who based his fortune on the control of refineries and railways rather than oil sources. Companies initially built refineries close to the sites of production. ![]() Once oil had been found, the main challenge was transportation to appropriate sites for refining horsecarts, ships, trains, and pipelines all played a role starting in the early years of the industry.ĭuring the industry’s first ten years, a large number of oil interests battled each other. The production of oil increased from some 4,450 barrels in the first year, to 220,000 barrels in 1860 and 2,114,000 barrels in 1861, almost a 500-fold increase in two years. As consumers discovered new uses of petroleum- in particular, it was quickly replacing whale oil for lighting- new businesses rapidly expanded storage, refining, and shipping capacities. The American oil story began in western Pennsylvania, where Edwin Drake (1819-80) drilled for oil in 1859, but the natural resource had to be transported elsewhere to be refined and ultimately consumed. In this photo-illustration, Drake is depicted wearing a top hat and coattails. The American oil story began in western Pennsylvania, where Edwin Drake drilled for oil in 1859. Once consolidation of the refineries on a handful of sites, notably on the Schuylkill, was complete, the oil industry presence continued to influence spatial decisions into the twenty-first century. ![]() Extensive construction of refineries, storage tanks, pipelines, and railway lines began in the 1860s. As an industrialized port city with global networks and extensive unbuilt land available on the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers, the city offered the necessary rail and water infrastructure as well as access to water for the new industry. Philadelphia emerged as a petroleum hub in the second half of the nineteenth century. Philadelphia, the Place that Loves You BackĮssay Philadelphia’s oil refineries, shown here in a 1980 photograph taken from the Passyunk Street Bridge, were a staple of industrial Philadelphia. ![]()
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