The Northern Appalachian Basin, particularly Pennsylvania, has a very rich history in oil and gas's commercial beginnings.
1831 At Erie, Pennsylvania natural gas was piped from a spring through wooden pipes and burned to illuminate a lighthouse.
1859 On August 27, a day that was to change the world, Edwin Drake and "Uncle" Billy Smith struck oil at a depth of 69 feet along Oil Creek, just south of Titusville, Pennsylvania. This was the first well able to produce oil at commercial quantities through drilling. This discovery of a method for extracting large quantities of oil generated the worlds first oil boom.
1860 Pennsylvania's first gas field was discovered in Erie County at shallow depths along Lake Erie.
1860-1862 Pipelines were built to bring gas to the newly found oilfields along Oil Creek to fire boilers to pump oil wells.
1867 D.G. Stillwell drilled a gas well within what is now the limits of Oil City and piped gas to a number of homes where it was used for cooking and heating purposes.
1872 Newton gas well is struck and piped 5 miles to Titusville, PA where it furnished fuel and light to about 250 customers. The first application of natural gas to iron making was made by Rogers& Birchfield in their furnaces in Leechburgh , PA
1877 A well drilled within the Bradford oil field in McKean County flowed gas at a rate of 24,000 MCF per day but was vented to the atmosphere until oil started flowing nearly 5 years later. (Most early Bradford gas discoveries were considered a nuisance to oil exploration and the gas was not gathered.)
Pennsylvania was the center of the world oil industry during the late 1800s, a nd the leading oil producer until 1895. It was not until the late 1880s that a market for natural gas evolved sufficient to encourage development of the Bradford formations gas reserves.
1950-1951 Gas is discovered in the Oriskany Sandstone at Leidy, Clinton County, PA. The record for the largest gauged initial production of gas for both Pennsylvania and the Appalachian Basin is held by the New York State Natural Gas Finnefrock No.1 well in the Leidy field, Clinton County, PA. The well flowed 145,000 MCF per day from the Oriskany sandstone at a depth of 6,339 feet.
1985 The deepest producing well in Pennsylvania is the Texaco/Marathon USA #1 Comm. Of Pa. tract 289 at 13,168 feet in Lycoming county.