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Then Colonel Drake – he had been given the title of
“colonel” by his employers to make him sound more important in
Titusville – decided to try a new method used by salt makers who,
instead of digging a large hole with pick and shovel drilled a very
small hole by pounding into the ground a length of steel pipe with
a sharp drill screwed to the end of it. He hired a salt-well digging
crew with their equipment and a six-horsepower steam engine to
run it. They set up their derrick and started drilling. The drill sank
rapidly through the soft surface earth until it hit bedrock and began
biting into it; then water began to rise until the hole was just a
mushy puddle. The driller stopped his engine and shrugged his
shoulders. There was no point in digging deeper, because as soon
as the drill was removed the hole would cave in.
Some stories have it that while Drake sat discouraged,
looking down sadly into his tall stovepipe hat, the shape of it gave
him the idea of making a casing for the well. One day he appeared
with a wagonload of iron pipe which he proposed to use instead of
the trunk of a hollow tree. With a battering ram made from a tree
trunk, his men drove lengths of pipe into the spongy ground until
their casing reached bedrock. Now the rock drilling could begin
once more, and the hole wouldn't cave in.
Drilling for this well had begun in the early months of the
year 1859. By Saturday night, August 28, the hole was sixty-nine
and one half feet deep, and still there was no sign of oil. Colonel
Drake s backers had dropped out; on that fateful night he had a
letter in his hand directing him to drop the project and return
home.
On Sunday morning, the driller was passing the silent drill
rig and locked down into the hole. What he saw made him reach
excitedly a dipper on a string and drop it hastily into the hole. Up it
came – dripping, running over with rich black petroleum!
Colonel Drake's idea had paid off! At last a way had been
found to bring up oil from the earth in large quantities. The
Colonel's Drake drill had gone down through layer after layer of

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