Exploring seismic waves is all about the vital earth science technology — reflection seismography — which revolutionized petroleum exploration in the 1920s. Seismic waves have led to oilfield discoveries worldwide and billions of barrels of oil.
Almost as soon as gasoline service stations appeared, inventors began experimenting with ways to make user-friendly pumps for consumers. The revenue possibilities of 24-hour self-service gasoline pumps prompted a number of innovators to develop coin-operated systems in the early 20th Century.
Self-measuring pumps once used to dispense kerosene were adapted for gasoline (see Wayne’s Self-Measuring Pump), even as inventors sought ways to automate payment at the pump.
Scientific American and Popular Mechanics featured some of the early designs for coin-operated gasoline pumps, noting that manufacturers had taken their cue from “the fortunes that have resulted from the harvest of pennies dropped into chewing gum slot machines.”
Trade magazines like Garage Dealer and Motor Age featured advertisements for coin-operated gas pump technologies of the 1920s.
But a coin-operated pump had risks, noted editors at Scientific American: “It is evident that a vending machine liable to hold fifty or a hundred half-dollars would be a magnet for thieves.”
The Anthony Liquid Vending Machine Company designed its “Anthony Automatic Salesman,” which the company marketed to garage owners. promising a savings of $5 in overhead costs for every dollar invested in the automatic, coin-operated pumps.
In Minnesota, William H. Fruen received the first U.S. patent for a coin-operated liquid dispensing apparatus in 1884. The inventor from Minneapolis designed an innovative “Automatic Liquid-Drawing Device,” according to Canadian historian K.J. Zeoli.
One of the better known coin-operated pump manufacturers originated with the Starkey Oil and Gas Company of Fort Collins, Colorado. Lewis P. Starkey, who first filed an application in October 1920, received his U.S. patent on November 29, 1927 (patent no. 1650882), which used electricity instead of a manual cranking system.
Patent drawing of “Self-Operating Filling Station,” the coin-operated gasoline pump invented by Lewis Starkey of Fort Collins, Colorado.
According to Zeoli, the L.P. Starkey Pump Company, which was later sold to Gas-O-Mat Inc. of Denver, produced two models of coin-operated pumps.
“Starkey and his wife ran a service station in Fort Collins. Starkey was constantly being awakened during the night by tourists who wanted gasoline. His wife actually came up with the idea of making a gas pump that would dispense gas without Starkey having to get out of bed and service the tourist. This gave Starkey the idea for the coin operated pump.”
“Unfortunately, Starkey allowed his patent to expire on one of the key components in his pumps,” Zeoli reported. The component, a “silent mercury switch” that prevented electrical circuits sparks, “went on to be used by thousands in the construction business.”
Although coin-operated pumps at gas service stations would prove impractical, there were notable attempts in the early 20th century, according to Zeoli. The October 18, 1913, issue of Popular Mechanics featured “The Gasoline Slot Machine,” reporting how an automatic pump did not require an attendant. Motorists could insert a half dollar coin into a slot and turn a crank.
The automatic pump was “touted as one of the first consumer friendly slot gas machines of the era,” Zeoli explains at the website Vintage Gas Pump & Oil History, adding, “The pump was so advanced, if a customer dropped a coin into an empty pump by mistake, the pump would return the coin after the first crank of the pump.”
Meanwhile, gasoline filling stations with uniformed attendants continued to expand nationwide following Gulf Oil’s example in Pittsburgh (see First Gas Pump and Service Station). Starkey Pump Company and other examples of the gas pump slot machines survive today in museums.
Gasoline dispensing automation seemed like a good idea simply lacking technology to make it work. Attempts continued as commercial names like Beacon, Gas-O-Mat, and others disappeared in a flurry of patents that could not overcome challenges of coin-operated pumps.
“You can sell gasoline 24-hours a day and 365-days a year, without effort on your part,” one company proclaimed, adding that paying was a simple process for consumers. “Drop the coin in the slot — a quarter, half-dollar, or a silver dollar, and Mr. Robot delivers the correct amount of gasoline.”
By 1915, an article in National Petroleum News reported a key drawback of unattended, coin-operated pumps: “One gasoline vending outfit tried out recently in a middle western city returned about $2 in real currency and $37 in lead slugs, buttons and counterfeit coins for its first 500 gallons of gasoline.”
Nonetheless, as a system for numbered highways was established, and U.S. 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles approved in 1926 (learn more in America On the Move), some coin-operated machines survived into the 1930s.
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please become an AOGHS annual supporter and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2024 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Coin Operated Gas Pumps.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/technology/coin-operated-gasoline-pumps. Last Updated: November 20, 2024. Original Published Date: July 11, 2018.
Small amounts of oil found in 1892 at Neodesha in eastern Kansas would be called the first commercial oil discovery west of the Mississippi River — although the driller had been searching for natural gas. The search for the Sunflower State’s petroleum resources began decades earlier.
In 1860, George Brown, a newspaperman in Kansas Territory, recalled stories about an oil spring in Lykins County. Brown, who had arrived a few years earlier from the Pennsylvania oil regions, gathered a few partners and drilled three shallow wells one mile east of Paola. (more…)
As the Civil War ended, oil discoveries at Pithole Creek in Pennsylvania created a headline-making boom town for the young U.S. petroleum industry. As wells drilled deeper into geological formations, the first gushers arrived — adding to “black gold” fever sweeping the country.
America’s oil production began in 1859 with Edwin L. Drake’s historic first commercial oil well drilled along a creek at Titusville. Drilled near natural oil seeps, his oilfield discovery at a depth of 69.5 feet led to a rush of exploration in the remote Allegheny River Valley.
The new petroleum industry’s transportation infrastructure struggled as oil tanks crowded Pithole, Pennsylvania. In 1865, the first oil pipeline linked an oil well to a railroad station about five miles away. Photo courtesy Drake Well Museum.
In 1864, businessman Ian Frazier found oil at Cherry Creek. After making a quick $250,000, Frazier looked for another opportunity in the hills and valleys providing oil to new Pittsburgh refineries making kerosene for lamps.
Frazier hired a diviner to search along Pithole Creek, which smelled like “sulfur and brimstone,” according to historian Douglas Wayne Houck. “He went to the creek and followed the diviner around until the forked twig dipped, pointing to a specific spot on the ground,” Houck noted in 2014.
Exploration techniques would improve, but with the science of petroleum geology still in the future, the oil industry (soon natural gas) already had begun drilling the first “dry holes.”
Although Ian Frazier’s United States Oil Company’s steam powered, cable-tool derrick first drilled a dry hole, a second well erupted spectacularly on January 7, 1865, producing 650 barrels of oil a day. The Frazier well, proclaimed by Houck as the first U.S. oil gusher, brought a flood of drillers and speculators to Pithole Creek.
Two more wells erupted black geysers on January 17 and January 19, each flowing at about 800 barrels of oil a day (invention of a practical blowout preventer was still half a century away). United States Oil Company subdivided its property and began selling lots for $3,000 per half-acre plot.
The Titusville Herald proclaimed Pithole as having “probably the most productive wells in the oil region of Pennsylvania, Houck explained in his Energy & Light in Nineteenth-Century Western New York.
Fortunes were being made and lost in the oil regions — see the cautionary tale of the Legend of “Coal Oil Johnny.”
As the news spread through Venango County, “everyone came to the Pithole area to try their luck,” noted one reporter. Many were Confederate and Union war veterans. And as more successful wells came in, about 3,000 teamsters rushed to Pithole to haul out the barrels of oil. It was hard to keep up.
Managed by the Drake Well Museum, the Pithole Visitors Center includes a diorama of the vanished town. Photo by Bruce Wells.
There were many reasons behind the Pithole oil boom, including a flood of paper money at the end of the Civil War. Many returning Union veterans had currency and were eager to invest — especially after reading newspaper articles about oil gushers and boom towns. Thousands of veterans also wanted jobs after long months on army pay.
By May 1865, the town was home to 57 hotels, many shops, and its own daily newspaper. It had the third busiest post office in Pennsylvania — handling 5,500 pieces of mail a day.
In December 1865, Shakespearean tragedienne Miss Eloise Bridges appeared as Lady Macbeth in America’s first famously notorious oil boom town.
Shakespearean tragedienne Eloise Bridges appeared on the Pithole stage in 1865.
Bridges appeared at Murphy’s Theater, the biggest building in a town of more than 30,000 teamsters, coopers, lease-traders, roughnecks, and merchants. Three-stories high, the building had 1,100 seats, a 40-foot stage, an orchestra, and chandelier lighting by Tiffany.
Bridges was the acclaimed darling of the Pithole stage. Eight months after she departed for new engagements in Ohio, the oilfield at Pithole ran dry; the most famous U.S. boom town collapsed into empty streets and abandoned buildings.
Pennsylvania oil region visitors today walk the grass streets of the first oil boom ghost town.
As Pithole oil tanks overflowed (and tank fires from accidents and lightening strikes increased), oil shipper Samuel Van Syckel conceived an infrastructure solution that became an engineering milestone.
In 1865, his newly formed Oil Transportation Association put into service a two-inch iron line linking the Frazier well to the Miller Farm Oil Creek Railroad Station, about five miles away.
“The day that the Van Syckel pipe-line began to run oil a revolution began in the business. After the Drake well it is the most important event in the history of the Oil Regions,” declared Ida Tarbell about the technology in her 1904 book, History of the Standard Oil Company.
Visitors walk the grassy paths of Pithole’s former streets and see artifacts, including antique steam boilers. Volunteers “mow the streets.” Photo by Bruce Wells.
With 15-foot welded joints and three 10-horsepower Reed and Cogswell steam pumps, the pipeline transported 80 barrels of oil per hour — the equivalent of 300 teamster wagons working for 10 hours. Convinced their livelihood was threatened, teamsters attempted to sabotage the oil pipeline until armed guards intervened.
Unfortunately for Van Syckel, Pithole oil storage tanks continued to catch fire even as the Frazier well production began to decline. Other wells were beginning to run dry when in 1866, fires spread out of control and burned 30 buildings, 30 oil wells and 20,000 barrels of oil.
“Pithole’s days were numbered,” concluded historian Houck about the fire, which was documented by early oilfield photographer John H. Mather. “Buildings were taken down and carted off. A few people hung around until 1867.”
The American Petroleum Institute in 1959 dedicated a plaque on the grounds of the Drake Well Museum as part of the U.S. oil centennial.
From beginning to end, America’s famous oil boom town had lasted about 500 days. Pithole was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 20, 1973.
A visitors’ center added in 1975 has been maintained by the Drake Well Museum. The center contains exhibits, including a scale model of the city at its peak and a small theater. Volunteers “mow the streets” on the hillside so that tourists can stroll where the petroleum boom town once flourished.
Among the Pennsylvania oil region’s earliest — and most infamous — investors was the actor John Wilkes Booth (see the Dramatic Oil Company).
During the late 19th century, “bird’s-eye views” became a widely popular way to map U.S. cities and towns. Cartographer Thaddeus Mortimer Fowler created many of the best panoramic maps that he also called “aero views.”
The wealthy Pennsylvania oil regions attracted the attention of Fowler, who in 1885 moved his family to Morrisville, where he worked for the next 25 years.
An 1896 Pennsylvania “aero view” map by Thaddeus M. Fowler, courtesy Library of Congress.
Fowler drew maps of Titusville, Oil City, and many petroleum-related boom towns in West Virginia, Ohio — and Texas, where he created dozens of views of cities from 1890 to 1891.
But by far, most of the Fowler maps feature Pennsylvania cities between 1872 and 1922. There are 250 examples of his work in the collection of the Library of Congress. Learn more in Oil Town “Aero Views.”
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Recommended Reading: Energy & Light in Nineteenth-Century Western New York (2014); Cherry Run Valley: Plumer, Pithole, and Oil City, Pennsylvania, Images of America
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please become an AOGHS annual supporter and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. © 2024 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Oil Boom at Pithole Creek.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/petroleum-pioneers/pithole-creek/. Last Updated: November 19, 2024. Original Published Date: March 15, 2014.
The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History has educated millions of visitors about the history of U.S. transportation since “America on the Move” opened in November 2003 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
Today’s first-floor exhibits in the General Motors Hall of Transportation include the 1903 Winton (the first automobile to drive across the country), bicycles, carriages, antique automobiles, and a 1959 Chicago Transit Authority “L” mass transit car. A 260-ton locomotive built in 1926 is featured near exhibits about the “People’s Highway,” U.S. Route 66.
“America on the Move” also displays a red, 1931 Ford truck representing a typical oilfield service company.
An exhibit about the history of Route 66 — commissioned in 1926 and fully paved by the late 1930s — is part of the Transportation Hall at the National Museum of American History. Photo by Bruce Wells.
The $22 million Transportation Hall encompasses 26,000 square feet and displays more than 340 historic objects. The space features 19 historic settings in chronological order reflecting the nation’s relationship with great and small roadways.
“America on the Move replaces exhibits of road and rail transportation and civil engineering installed when the National Museum of American History opened as the Museum of History and Technology in 1964,” notes the American on the Move website page.
“We would not do an exhibit about cars and trains, or even a transportation history exhibit. It would be an exhibit about transportation in American history,” the site adds.
Visitors to the Hall of Transportation learn how and why the U.S. interstate highway system began in the 1950s. Photo by Bruce Wells.
“America on the Move” features the Smithsonian’s extensive transportation collection using multimedia technology — and a large displays, including PS-4 class steam locomotive (No. 1401) built in 1926. The exhibition educates visitors about the history of U.S. transportation infrastructure, and “reveals America’s fascination with life on the road.” (more…)
