Smithsonian’s Hall of Petroleum
National Museum of American History once featured oil derricks, pump jacks, and other oilfield technologies.
The Smithsonian Institution’s “Hall of Petroleum” in Washington, D.C., opened in the summer of 1967 with an entire wing dedicated to the history of oilfield technology. The collection in the museum building’s west wing included cable-tool and rotary drilling rigs and many oilfield-related geology and engineering exhibits.
With a collection of more than three million artifacts, the National Museum of American History today features exhibits relating to the history of transportation, but offers few about the history or U.S. petroleum exploration and production — or the first U.S. well drilled for oil in 1859. It wasn’t always so.
