History, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
To research the history of oil is to encounter a race to be first. From the claims that three different men from three different nations invented kerosene -- all dubbed "the father of the petroleum industry"; to the first commercial oil well being either in Pennslvania or in Texas or perhaps, in Canada, or had it happened a decade before all that in Azerbaijan?; to the invention of the first automobile, decided not by innovation but by who secured the first patent; to the Cold War Space Race; the history of the petroleum fuel-powered world is confounded by the pride of nations and men.
A timeline is one of the best ways to present a complicated history. It allows the reader to see the progression of change and the relationships between time and events. The following timeline is meant to accompany a narrative version of the industry's history up to WWI: Oil Takes Over the World - Part One: Oil Booms and Goes to War. Both are by no means complete and are bound to be over-simplified, given my own biases and shortcomings as a researcher. But I have tried to distill a very complex and wide-ranging history, involving multiple industries and inventions, empires and individuals, into a more or less organized and straightforward presentation. I learned a great deal in the process -- that is my hope for the reader as well.
1859 - The first productive oil well for commercial use is drilled by Edwin L. Drake in Titusville, Pennsylvania. Dubbed "Drake's Folly," the well is only 69 feet deep and pulls a mere 20 barrels per day.
1862 - The Oil Creek Railroad Company is founded as part of the Pennsylvania Oil Boom.
1865 - Oil buyer Samuel Van Sykle builds the world's first successful oil pipeline, a two inch diameter, 5-1/2 mile long pipeline connecting Pithole, Pennsylvania to the Oil Creek Railroad. Steam-engine powered pumps moved some 80 barrels of oil per hour through the line.
1866 - a spate of fires burns several city blocks and 27 oil wells in Pithole, Pennsylvania. It would soon dwindle to no more than a ghost town and its town charter would be annulled in 1877.
Also in 1866 - First producing Texas well drilled at Melrose, Nacogdoches County, by Lynis T. Barrett. Barrett had started looking for oil on the Nacogdoches oil field in the mid-1850s, but his work was disrupted by the Civil War. Once completed, the well produced just 10 barrels of oil per day and floundered as Barrett's enterprise failed to return on his investment (and that of the wildcat bankers who had backed him).
1870 - Standard Oil Company is founded by John D. Rockefeller (photo).
1876 - German engineer Nicolaus Otto invents the first gas powered, four-stroke internal combustion engine.
Also in 1876 - The Petroleum Production Company Nobel Brothers, Limited (Branobel) is founded in Azerbaijan and goes public in 1879. By 1916, it was the largest oil company in Russia and one of the largest oil companies in the world.
1878 - The first successful oil tanker, the Zoroaster, is built in Sweden using a design by Ludwig Nobel of Branobel, and carries oil across the Caspian Sea.
1879 - German engineer Karl Benz is awarded a patent for his petroleum-fueled two-stroke engine. Within just a few years, Benz would also patent the speed regulation system, the ignition using sparks with battery, the spark plug, the carburetor, the clutch, the gear shift, and the water radiator.
Also in 1879 - The 109-mile-long Tidewater Pipeline is laid in secret to bypass Standard Oil's monopoly on oil transport by rail. When Standard Oil hears rumor of the pipeline, the company buys a thin strip of the right-of-way to stop Tidewater from moving further east. The pipeline is the first to pass over mountainous terrain, using 6 inch pipes and pumping 250 barrels of oil per hour from Coryville to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, where it intersected with the Reading Railroad.
1880 - Ontario refining companies merged to form Imperial Oil Company.
1882 - The Standard Oil Company Trust of John D. Rockefeller is begun when Rockefeller places his oil holdings inside it, to form Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (Jersey Standard) and the Standard Oil Company of New York (Socony). The two would eventually become ExxonMobil.
1883 - Alphonse Rothchild of the Rothchild banking family of France forms the Caspian and Black Sea Oil Company in Azerbaijan. By the turn of the century, Azerbaijan was producing more oil than any other country in the world.
Also in 1883 - tales of "tar springs" would take Pennsylvanian Mike Murphy west to drill Wyoming's first oil well.
1885 - German engineer Gottlieb Daimler attaches Otto's four-stroke engine to a wooden bicycle, inventing the first gas-powered motorcycle.
1886 - Karl Benz is awarded a patent for his Benz Patent Motorwagen. Though others were working on similar designs, such as Nichalas Otto and Gottlieb Daimler, Benz received the first patent for his "automobile fueled by gas."
Also in 1886 - The short-lived Peoples Natural Gas Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is founded by partners Joseph Newton Pew, Philip Pisano and Edward O. Emerson. Capitalizing on new oil discoveries in Pennsylvania and Ohio and on refining operations, four years later the company became Sun Oil in Ohio and then incorporated in New Jersey as Sun Company with oil interests in Texas. Pew's sons would take over the company after his death. The company would later become Sunoco.
1888 - The Benz Patent Motorwagon becomes the first commercially available automobile in history. Karl Benz's wife, Bertha, takes the Motorwagon on a 106km trip from Mannheim to Pforzheim (obstensibly without her husband's knowledge), repairing various technical and mechanical problems along the way and inventing brake lining when she asks a shoemaker to nail rubber pads on the brake blocks. She arrives in Pforzheim by nightfall and sends her husband a telegram announcing her journey. The trip was an attempt to prove the Motorwagon's value for travel and to generate publicity. The event is still celebrated every two years in Germany with an antique automobile rally that follows her travel route (photo: Karl and Bertha Benz in the Benz Patent Motorwagon).
1889 - Rockefeller acquires Canada's Imperial Oil Company.
1890 - Royal Dutch Petroleum Company is formed to develop an oil field in Sumatra, in the middle of the Aceh War (1873-1903 - conflicts would continue through 1914), also called the "Dutch War" or the "Infidel War." In 1903 Sumatra would fall under control of the Dutch East Indies, eventually becoming a major supplier of rubber and oil.
Also in 1890 - Civil War veteran Philip Martin Shannon drills at the Salt Creek oil seeps in Wyoming, which would lead to a major oil discovery there in 1908.
Also in 1890 - Union Oil Company is founded in Southern California with its founders notable for their non-affiliation with Standard Oil.
1891 -Pennsylvania oil boom peaks and begins to decline. Although Pennsylvania would continue to produce oil and still does to this day, the 19th century oil boom would officially end when East Texas begins producing oil in 1901.
1892 - The first bulk oil tanker makes its maiden voyage through the Suez Canal, cutting costs and increasing volume of oil transport significantly. The tanker moved Russian oil controlled by the Rothchilds for a company owned by Marcus and Sam Samuels, which they initally named "The Tank Syndicate" but renamed "Shell Transport and Trading Company" in 1897, merging with Royal Dutch Petroleum in 1907.
1892 - Oil is discovered in Southern California with the first well drilled near present-day Los Angeles. By 1894, 80 wells were producing oil in the Los Angeles area; by 1897, there were over 500.
1894 - The Corsicana oil field in Texas is discovered accidentally when a water well company strikes oil while attempting to drill a water source for the town of Corsicana, Texas. With no local refining capabilities, the crude oil is simply dumped. The wasteful and polluting situation prompted the mayor of the town to invite Joseph S. Cullinan, who had worked for Standard Oil for several years and founded his own company, Petroleum Iron Works in Pennsylvania, to come develop refining capabilities there. by 1900, the J.S. Cullinan Company's facility was up and running, the first refinery of its type west of the Missisippi. [Photo ~ first rotary rig in the oil business, using mule power to drill through rock. Corsicana oil field, Texas, 1894]
1895 - The first United States patent for the automobile, #549160, is granted to George B. Selden for his two stroke automobile engine.
1897 - Oil is discovered in Indian territory for the first time on land leased from the Osage tribe, leading to rapid population growth near Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Lula M. Hefner, a full-blooded Cherokee woman who owned a millinery or hat store in Nowata, OK, became the first woman to drill for oil on her own property around that time.
1899 - Benz & Cie Company becomes the largest automobile manufacturer in the world, producing 572 Motorwagons that year.
1900 - Rudolf Diesel demonstrates the diesel engine in the 1900 Exposition Universelle (World's Fair, Paris) using peanut oil fuel.
1901 - The first major oil discovery in Texas occurs near Spindletop in Beaumont. Joseph S. Cullinan moves his interest there to establish the Texas Fuel Company with partner Arnold Schlaet. The company establishes an operation in Belgium, Continental Petroleum Co., in 1905 and moves its offices to Houston in 1913. In 1956 it would become Texaco Incorporated.
Also in 1901 - British businessman, William Knox D’Arcy, obtains a massive oil concession from the Shah of Persia, which covered much of modern day Iran. Nearly bankrupt and close to having operations terminated, D’Arcy finally discovers oil in 1908, eventually to be managed by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, predecessor to today’s BP (photo: Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar, Shah of Persia).
1902 - Drilling at the Katalla oil field in Alaska begins yielding small amounts of oil, not in sufficient quantity to justify transportation costs. A local refinery produces gasoline for local use for several years, but burns down in 1933 and is not rebuilt.
1903 - The first cross-country automobile trip in the United States is completed. The trip began in San Francisco on May 23 and ended in New York on August 1.
Also in 1903 - The Wright brothers, Wilbur and Orvillle, use both Jersey Standard fuel and Mobiloil lubricants for their historic first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
Also in 1903 - Americans William Harley and brothers Arthur and Walter Davidson launch the Harley-Davidson Motor Company.
1904 - George Getty moves from Minnesota to Oklahoma and within two years, amasses a fortune from his Minnehoma Oil Company. He moves his family to Los Angeles and lends his son Jean Paul money to invest in oil wells.
Also in 1904 - The first successful field tractor is invented by American Benjamin Holt, using a caterpillar track to spread the weight in heavy agricultural machinery.
1907 - Royal Dutch Petroleum forms a single-unit partnership with Shell Transport and Trading Company of Great Britain to become Royal Dutch Shell Group, in a move to help better compete with Standard Oil. Royal Dutch Petroleum would handle production and manufacture and take 60% of earnings, and a new British company would be formed, Anglo-Saxon Petroleum, to manage transport and storage taking 40% of earnings.
Also in 1907 - Gulf Oil Company is formed principally by William Larimer Mellon, Sr. through an amalgamation of several oil companies, including the J.M. Guffey and Gulf Petroleum companies of Texas. Gulf Oil builds a pipeline to transport crude oil from Oklahoma to Port Arthur, Texas in the same year. Gulf would give Mellon Financial a solid base for oil investment.
Also in 1907 - A schooner named for copper baron Thomas W. Lawson, a Boston millionaire, stock-broker and President of the Boston-based Bay State Gas Co., is destroyed in a storm off the uninhabited island of Annet, in the Isles of Scilly off the southwestern tip of the Cornish peninsula of Great Britain, killing all but two of her eighteen crew. Her cargo of 58,000 barrels of light paraffin oil caused perhaps the first large marine oil spill.
1908 - The first passenger flight on a plane occurs when Wilbur Wright escorts Charles W. Furnas in the Wright Flyer III at Huffman Prairie Flying Field in Dayton, Ohio (photo: the "Wright Military Flyer" transported via wagon to Fort Myer, Virginia; 1908).
Also in 1908 - The first production Model T is built at the Ford plant in Detroit, Michigan.
Also in 1908 - The U.S. Bureau of Public Roads completes an initial two mile macadam surface through Cumberland Gap as part of an Object Lesson Road, one of the first efforts to test a hardened road.
1909 - A federal court rules in the matter of Standard Oil of New Jersey v United States, finding John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Trust to be an unreasonable monopoly, and orders the dissolution of the company. The case would be taken up by the Supreme Court for resolution.
1910 – an out-of-control eruption from a pressurized oil well in the Midway-Sunset oil field of Kern County, California spews 9 million barrels of crude oil over 18 months from “Lakeview Gusher Number One.”
Also in 1910 - Union Oil forms an alliance with Independent Producers Agency to build pipelines from the Kern County, California oil fields to Union Oil refineries on the Pacific Coast. The move allows producers an alternative to selling to Standard Oil and bypasses the high transport costs by rail. The 2007 movie "There Will Be Blood" is based on Union Oil's Kern County pipeline deals.
Also in 1910 - The first flight to carry freight departs from Dayton, Ohio and delivers its cargo to Columbus, Ohio.
Also in 1910 - The United States Army begins acquiring fixed-wing aircraft. During WWI, the Army's air fleet would grow from a few dozen to over 11,000 planes.
Also in 1910 - Mexico's Panuco-Ebano and Faja de Oro oil fields, located near the central Gulf of Mexico coast town of Tuxpán, are successfully drilled. Mexico begins exporting in 1911.
1911 - Standard Oil is declared an unreasonable monopoly by the United States Supreme Court and ordered dissolved under the powers of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Standard Oil breaks up into 34 unrelated companies, including Jersey Standard, Socony and Vacuum Oil (these three ultimately to become ExxonMobil.)
Also in 1911 - For the first time, Jersey Standard's sales of kerosene are surpassed by gasoline.
Also in 1911 - Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiraltry, calls for the conversion of the British Navy from coal to oil.
Also in 1911 - Turkish Petroleum, later to become Iraq Petroleum Company which held a monopoly over oil exploration and production in Iraq, is founded.
Also in 1911 - Royal Dutch Shell acquires the Rothchild's Caspian and Black Sea Oil Industry and Trade Society.
Also in 1911 - The first transcontinental airline flight is begun on September 17 in New York by C.P. Rodgers. It would complete its journey to Pasadena, California on November 5 after numerous stops, taking a total of 82 hours and 4 minutes in the air.
Also in 1911 - Ray Marmon, a retired engineer with the Marmon Motor Car Company, comes out of retirement to run and win the first Indy 500 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
1913 - The first moving assembly line is introduced and adopted for mass production by the Ford Motor Company, allowing automobile construction time to decrease by almost 10 hours per vehicle.
1914 - WWI begins, the first truly mechanized war, including use of oil-fueled tanks, trucks, motorcycles, airplanes, submarines and ocean tanker fleets
1916 - George and Jean Paul Getty incorporate Getty Oil Company.
1918 - Baron von Richthofen, "the Red Baron" is killed in an air dog-fight. He becomes an icon of allied superior air power in the air arms race and is used as incentive for American and allied pilot recruitment.
1919 - A United States Navy seaplane begins the first transatlantic flight, making stops in Newfoundland and the Azores before touching ground in continental Europe in Lisbon, Portugal.
Also in 1919 - WWI ends with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.
(photo: No Man's Land at Flanders Field, France).