Boomtown Legacy

Ryan Hilton, Engineer

The Phillips and Woodford Wells on Tarr Farm, north of Oil City, Pennsylvania, in 1873.

Booming Wells: Hyde & Egbert Farm’s 1860s Oil Strikes

The Hyde and Egbert Farm

The Venango Spectator, March 8, 1865

A hand-colored stereographic image of the Maple Shade wells along the banks of Oil Creek. A man stands on a flatboat looking onward.
Maple Shade wells [hand-colored view], c. 1863–1870. NYPL.

A correspondent of the Pittsburgh Commercial gives the following list of flowing wells that have been struck on the “Hyde and Egbert farm” of forty acres, since its possession by its present owners.

He purchased the farm in the winter of 1860–1861. In a few months, when Mr. Charles Hyde was associated with him in the ownership, the wells began to develop [see timeline below].

In addition to these sixteen flowing wells, there are sixteen pumping wells yielding 300 barrels per day.

View of the Coquette well on Egbert Farm in the oil region of Pennsylvania, circa 1864–1870. Derricks dot the hill in the background.
Coquette Well on Egbert Farm, Oil Creek, PA, c. 1865–1870. NYPL.

Timeline

1861

July
  • Graff & Hasson Well: 300 barrels per day.

1863

August
  • Maple Shade Well: 900 barrels per day.
September
  • Keystone No. 1 Well: 40 barrels per day.
October
  • Keystone No. 2 Well: 40 barrels per day.
  • Yankee Well: 60 barrels per day.
  • Turtle Well: 75 barrels per day.
November
  • Eagle Well: 100 barrels per day.
December
  • Rhinoceros Well: 60 barrels per day.

1864

February
  • Eagle No. 2 Well: 33 barrels per day.
  • Porcupine Well: 24 barrels per day.
June
  • Kepler Well: 100 barrels per day.
  • Jersey Well: 300 barrels per day.
October
  • Olive Branch Well: 40 barrels per day.
November
  • Keystone No. 4: 50 barrels per day.
  • Coquette Well: 800 barrels per day.

by

Ryan Hilton

—

in

Looking for more?

Delve deeper into the chronicles of Pennsylvania’s oil past.
Explore more daily oil news sourced from the front pages of the boomtown era.

Let’s go