by Bruce Wells | Dec 1, 2025 | This Week in Petroleum History
December 1, 1865 – Lady Macbeth arrives in Famed Boom Town –
Shakespearean tragedienne Miss Eloise Bridges starred as Lady Macbeth in Pithole, Pennsylvania — America’s first famously notorious oil boom town. A January 1865 oilfield discovery had launched the drilling frenzy that created Pithole, which within a year had 57 hotels, a daily newspaper, and the third busiest post office in Pennsylvania. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Nov 26, 2025 | Petroleum Companies
The gas that would not burn — and the professor who in 1905 extracted helium from a natural gas well.
Drilling for natural gas in May 1903, an exploratory well drilled by Gas, Oil and Developing Company found natural gas beneath William Greenwell’s farm near Dexter, Kansas. The discovery came as the company drilled into a geologic formation that produced “a howling gasser” that would not burn.
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