On this day, in the town of Titusville in the far eastern corner of Crawford County, Pennsylvania, Edwin Drake drilled the first commercially successful oil well and effectively give birth to the American oil industry. Drake was sent to Titusville by the Seneca Oil Company in the late 1850s to start drilling on a piece of leased land near to what is now Oil Creek State Park. Drake hired a salt well driller, William A. Smith, and after many difficulties they finally drilled a well with oil that could be marketed. Titusville grew from 250 residents to 10,000 almost overnight and in 1871, the first oil exchange in the United States was established there. The first oil millionaire was Jonathan Watson, a resident of Titusville who owned the land where Drake’s well was drilled, and at one time it was said that Titusville had more millionaires per capita than anywhere else in the world.
