An important new indutry, oil refining, grew after the Civil war. Crude oil, or petroleum - a dark, thick ooze from the earth - had been known for hundred of year, but little ue had ever been made of it. In the 1850 Samuel M. Kier, a manufacturer in wetern Pennylvania, began collecting the oil from local eepage and refining it into keroene. Refining, like melting, i a proce of removing impuritie from a raw material.
Keroene wa ued to light lamp. It wa a cheap ubtitute for whale oil, which wa becoming harder to get. Soon there wa a large demand for keroene. People began to earch for new upplie of petroleum.
The firt oil well wa drilled by E.L. Drake, a retired railroad conductor. In 1859 he began drilling in Tituville, Pennylvania. The whole venture eemed o impractical and foolih that onlooker called it Drake Folly . But when he had drilled down about 70 feet , Drake truck oil. Hi well began to yield 20 barrel of crude oil a day.
New of Drake ucce brought oil propector to the cene. By the early 1860 thee wildcatter were drilling for black gold all over wetern Pennylvania. The boom rivaled the California gold ruh of 1848 in it excitement and Wild Wet atmophere. And it brought far more wealth to the propector than any gold ruh.