by Bruce Wells | Apr 3, 2026 | Petroleum Transportation
Densmore brothers advanced oil industry infrastructure — and helped create “QWERTY” typewriter keyboard.
As Northwestern Pennsylvania oil production skyrocketed following the Civil War, railroad oil tank cars fabricated by two brothers improved shipment volumes from oilfields to kerosene refineries. The tank car designed by James and Amos Densmore would not last, but more success followed when Amos invented a new keyboard arrangement for typewriters.
Flatbed railroad cars with two wooden oil tank cars became the latest advancement in oilfield infrastructure after the Densmore brothers patented their design on April 10, 1866.
The inventors from Meadville, Pennsylvania, had developed an “Improved Car for Transporting Petroleum” one year earlier in America’s booming oil regions. The first U.S. oil well had been drilled just seven years earlier along Oil Creek in Titusville.
The first practical petroleum railway tank car was invented in 1865 by James and Amos Densmore at the Miller Farm along Oil Creek, Titusville, Pennsylvania. Photo courtesy Drake Well Museum.
Using an Atlantic & Great Western Railroad flatcar, the brothers secured two tanks to ship oil in bulk. The patent (no. 53,794) described and illustrated the railroad car’s design.
The nature of our invention consists in combining two large, light tanks of iron or wood or other material with the platform of a common railway flat freight-car, making them practically part of the car, so as they carry the desired substance in bulk instead of in barrels, casks, or other vessels or packages, as is now universally done on railway cars.
The development of railroad tank cars came when traditional designs, including the flatcar, hopper, and boxcar, proved inadequate for large amounts of oil — often shipped in 42-gallon barrels.
New designs were born out of necessity, as the fledgling oil industry demanded a better car for the movement of its product, according to American-Rails.com.
“Before the car was developed, railroads used a combination of boxcars, flatcars, and gondolas to haul everything from lumber and coal to crude oil, molasses, and water (by use of barrels),” noted Adam Burns in 2022. “One of the most prolific car types you will find moving within a freight train today is the tank car.”
Although top heavy and prone to leaks, the Densmore tank cars provided a vital service — if only for a few years before single, horizontal tanks replaced them.
According to transportation historian John White Jr., the Densmore brothers’ oil tank design essentially consisted of a flat car with wooden vats attached. “The Central Pacific is known to have used such specialized cars to transport water,” he noted in his 1995 book, The American Railroad Freight Car.
“However, prior to the discovery of oil by Colonel Edward (sic) Drake near Titusville, Pennsylvania, on August 27, 1859, the tank car was virtually non-existent,” added White, a former curator of transportation at the Smithsonian Institution.
Dual Tank Design
The brothers further described the use of special bolts at the top and bottom of their tanks to act as braces and “to prevent any shock or jar to the tank from the swaying of the car while in motion.”
A Pennsylvania Historical Commission marker on U.S. 8 south of Titusville commemorates the Densmore brothers’ significant contribution to petroleum transportation technology. Dedicated in 2004, the marker notes:
The first functional railway oil tank car was invented and constructed in 1865 by James and Amos Densmore at nearby Miller Farm along Oil Creek. It consisted of two wooden tanks placed on a flat railway car; each tank held 40-45 barrels of oil. A successful test shipment was sent in September 1865 to New York City. By 1866, hundreds of tank cars were in use. The Densmore Tank Car revolutionized the bulk transportation of crude oil to market.
The benefit of such railroad cars to the early petroleum industry’s infrastructure was immense, especially as more Americans eagerly sought oil-refined kerosene for lamps.
Despite design limitations that would prove difficult to overcome, independent producers took advantage of the opportunity to transport large amounts of petroleum. Other transportation methods required teamsters hauling barrels to barges on Oil Creek and the Allegheny River to get to kerosene refineries in Pittsburgh.
Riveted cylindrical iron tank cars replaced the Densmore brothers’ dual wooden tanks — seen here discarded. Photo courtesy Drake Well Museum.
As larger refineries were constructed, it was found that it cost $170 less to ship 80 barrels of oil from Titusville to New York in a tank car instead of individual barrels. But the Densmore cars had flaws, notes the Pennsylvania Historical Commission.
They were unstable, top heavy, prone to leaks, and limited in capacity by the eight-foot width of the flatcar. Within a year, oil haulers shifted from the Densmore vertical vats to larger, horizontal riveted iron cylindrical tanks, which also demonstrated greater structural integrity during derailments or collisions.
A model railroad Densmore Oil Company tank car “laser-cut wood kit with plastic and lost-wax brass details.” Photo courtesy Model Railroader, May 2012.
The same basic cylindrical design for transporting petroleum can be seen as modern railroads load products from corn syrup to chemicals — all in a versatile tank car that got its start in the Pennsylvania oil industry.
The largest tank car ever placed into regular service was Union Tank Car Company’s UTLX 83699, rated at 50,000 gallons in 1963 and used for more than 20 years. A 1965 experimental car built by General American Transportation, the 60,000-gallon “Whale Belly,” GATX 96500, is now on display at the National Museum of Transportation in Saint Louis.
1863 Tank Car Patents
Although not manufactured, other inventors came up with new ways for transporting oil from booming oilfields. John Scott of Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, on January 20, 1863, patented (No. 37,461) a rectangular design for his “car for carrying petroleum, etc.”
John Clark of Canandaigua, New York, on November 3, 1863, was awarded a patent (No. 40,458) for another “improvement in cars for carrying petroleum.” His design put a long and flat sheet-metal tank under an ordinary freight car.
Finally, a “petroleum car” design with a cylindrical shape similar to modern railroad tank cars was patented (No. 38,765) on June 2, 1863, by Samuel J. Seely of Brooklyn, New York. The Seely patent might be the first design for a petroleum car shaped like those in use today.
Oil Tanks to Typewriters
Although the Densmore brothers left the oil region by 1867 — their inventiveness was far from over. In 1875, Amos Densmore assisted Christopher Sholes in rearranging the “type writing machine” keyboard so that commonly used letters no longer collided and got stuck. The “QWERTY” arrangement vastly improved Shole’s original 1868 invention.
Amos Densmore helped invent an efficient typewriter.
Following his brother’s work with Sholes, inventor of the first practical typewriter, James Densmore’s oilfield financial success helped the brothers establish the Densmore Typewriter Company, which produced its first model in 1891. Few historians have made the oil patch to typewriter keyboard connection — including Densmore biographers.
The Pennsylvania Historical Commission reported that biographies of the Densmore brothers — and their personal papers at the Milwaukee Public Museum — all refer to their innovative typewriters, “but make no mention of their pioneering accomplishment in railroad tank car design.”
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Recommended Reading: The American Railroad Freight Car (1995); Early Days of Oil: A Pictorial History of the Beginnings of the Industry in Pennsylvania
(2000); Story of the Typewriter, 1873-1923 (2019); Myth, Legend, Reality: Edwin Laurentine Drake and the Early Oil Industry
(2009). Your Amazon purchase benefits the American Oil & Gas Historical Society. As an Amazon Associate, AOGHS earns a commission from qualifying purchases.
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please support this energy education website, subscribe to our monthly email newsletter, and help expand historical research. Contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2026 Bruce A. Wells.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Densmore Oil Tank Cars.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/transportation/densmore-oil-tank-car. Last Updated: April 1, 2026. Original Published Date: April 7, 2013.
by Bruce Wells | Mar 20, 2026 | Petroleum Transportation
“No one anticipated any unusual problems as the Exxon Valdez left the Alyeska Pipeline Terminal at 9:12 p.m., Alaska Standard Time,” an account by the Alaska Oil Spill Commission would later report about the March 24, 1989, offshore disaster.
After nearly a dozen years of routine daily passages through Prince William Sound, Alaska, an oil tanker ran aground, rupturing the hull. Supertanker Exxon Valdez hit Bligh Reef and spilled more than 260,000 barrels of oil, affecting hundreds of miles of coastline. Some consider the spill amount used by Alaska’s Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council as too conservative.
Field studies continue to examine the effects of the Exxon supertanker’s disastrous grounding on Bligh Reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989. Photo courtesy Erik Hill, Anchorage Daily News.
A General Complacency
When the 987-foot tanker hit the reef shortly after midnight, “the system designed to carry two million barrels of North Slope oil to West Coast and Gulf Coast markets daily had worked perhaps too well,” according to the Alaska Oil Spill Commission’s initial report.
“At least partly because of the success of the Valdez tanker trade, a general complacency had come to permeate the operation and oversight of the entire system,” the commission noted. Complacency about giant oil tankers ended on March 24, 1989, when the Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef.
“The vessel came to rest facing roughly southwest, perched across its middle on a pinnacle of Bligh Reef,” added the commission’s report. “Eight of 11 cargo tanks were punctured. Computations aboard the Exxon Valdez showed that 5.8 million gallons had gushed out of the tanker in the first three and a quarter hours.”
“Eight of 11 cargo tanks were punctured. Computations aboard the Exxon Valdez showed that 5.8 million gallons had gushed out of the tanker in the first three and a quarter hours.”
Tankers carrying North Slope crude oil had safely transited Prince William Sound more than 8,700 times during the previous 12 years. Improved shipbuilding technologies resulted in supersized vessels.
“Whereas tankers in the 1950s carried a crew of 40 to 42 to manage about 6.3 million gallons of oil…the Exxon Valdez carried a crew of 19 to transport 53 million gallons of oil,” the report explained.
Alaskan weather conditions — 33 degrees with a light rain — and the remote location added to the 1989 disaster, the report continues. With the captain not present, the third mate made a navigation error, according to another 1990 investigation by the National Transportation and Safety Board, Practices that relate to the Exxon Valdez.
“The third mate failed to properly maneuver the vessel, possibly due to fatigue or excessive workload,” the Safety Board concluded.
Containing Oil Spills
At the time, spill response capabilities to deal with the spreading oil were found to be unexpectedly slow and inadequate, according to the Oil Spill Commission.
“The worldwide capabilities of Exxon Corporation would mobilize huge quantities of equipment and personnel to respond to the spill — but not in the crucial first few hours and days when containment and cleanup efforts are at a premium,” the commission’s report explained.
At 987 feet long and 166 feet wide, the Exxon Valdez — delivered to Exxon in December 1986 — was the largest ship ever built on the West Coast.
The commission added that the U.S. Coast Guard “would demonstrate its prowess at ship salvage, protecting crews and lightering operations, but prove utterly incapable of oil spill containment and response.”
Spill Cleanup Lessons
Exxon began a cleanup effort that included thousands of Exxon and contractor personnel, according to ExxonMobil. More than 11,000 Alaska residents and volunteers rushed to the coastline to assist.
“Because Prince William Sound contained many rocky coves where the oil collected, the decision was made to displace it with high-pressure hot water,” noted a 2001 study for the American Academy of Underwater Sciences.
“However, this also displaced and destroyed the microbial populations on the shoreline; many of these organisms (e.g. plankton) are the basis of the coastal marine food chain, and others (e.g. certain bacteria and fungi) are capable of facilitating the biodegradation of oil,” explained scientific diving expert Stephen Jewett, professor emeritus of environmental studies at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
“At the time, both scientific advice and public pressure was to clean everything, but since then, a much greater understanding of natural and facilitated remediation processes has developed, due somewhat in part to the opportunity presented for study by the Exxon Valdez spill,” Jewett added.
His academic paper, “Scuba techniques used to assess the effects of the Exxon Valdez oil spill,” brought insights into mitigating the impact of the Alaskan oil spill — which had expedited passage of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration photo from 2014 study, “Twenty-Five Years After the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill: NOAA’s Scientific Support, Monitoring, and Research.”
According to ExxonMobil, the company spent $4.3 billion as a result of the accident, “including compensatory payments, cleanup payments, settlements and fines. The company voluntarily compensated more than 11,000 Alaskans and businesses within a year of the spill.”
A separate study by the Alaska Oil Spill Commission resulted in the February 1990 report, “Details about the Accident.” Scientists monitoring effects of the grounding have reported the ecosystem of Prince William Sound continues to recover, but it is healthy.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 2014 published the 78-page “Twenty-Five Years After the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill: NOAA’s Scientific Support, Monitoring, and Research” further examining the response.
In California two decades before the Exxon Valdez, the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill from a Union Oil platform six miles off the coast led to the modern environmental movement — and establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) a year later. Learn more in Oil Seeps and Santa Barbara Spill.
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Recommended Reading: The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, Perspectives on Modern World History
(2011); Slick Policy: Environmental and Science Policy in the Aftermath of the Santa Barbara Oil Spill
(2018); Amazing Pipeline Stories: How Building the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Transformed Life in America’s Last Frontier
(1997). Your Amazon purchase benefits the American Oil & Gas Historical Society. As an Amazon Associate, AOGHS earns a commission from qualifying purchases.
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please support this energy education website, subscribe to our monthly email newsletter, and help expand historical research. Contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2026 Bruce A. Wells.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/transportation/exxon-valdez-oil-spill. Last Updated: March 21, 2026. Original Published Date: March 24, 2009.
by Bruce Wells | Jan 10, 2026 | Petroleum Transportation
Skilled 19th-century coopers made barrels of many capacities: hogsheads, puncheons, tierces, butts, and tuns.
Soon after America’s first commercial oil well of 1859, a small group met in northwestern Pennsylvania and decided a 42-gallon wooden barrel was best for transporting their oil.
When filled with oil instead of fish or other commodities, a 42-gallon “tierce” weighed 300 pounds. The 42-gallon oil barrel was officially adopted in 1866. Today, a barrel’s refined products include about 20 gallons of gasoline, 12 gallons of diesel, and four gallons of jet fuel (and rocket fuel) and other products, including asphalt.
By the 1860s, barges floated barrels of oil down the Allegheny River to Pittsburgh to be refined into a highly demanded product — kerosene for lamps. Image from an early oil company stock certificate.
In August 1866 a handful of America’s earliest independent oil producers met in Titusville, Pennsylvania, and agreed that henceforth, 42 gallons would constitute a barrel of oil. Pennsylvania led the world in oil production as demand soared for kerosene lamp fuel. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Nov 15, 2025 | Petroleum Transportation
The Elizabeth Watts shipped hundreds of barrels of petroleum from Philadelphia to London during the Civil War.
The 19th-century U.S. petroleum industry launched many new industries for producing, refining, and transporting the highly prized resource. With oil demand rapidly growing worldwide, America exported oil (and kerosene) during the Civil War when a small Union brig sailed across the Atlantic.
Soon after Edwin L. Drake drilled the first American oil well in 1859 along a creek in northwestern Pennsylvania, entrepreneurs swept in, and wooden derricks sprang up in Venango and Crawford counties. (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Nov 13, 2025 | Petroleum Transportation
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. Nearby, a A 260-ton locomotive built in 1926 is featured across from exhibits about Route 66 — the “People’s Highway.” (more…)
by Bruce Wells | Nov 5, 2025 | Petroleum Transportation
President Woodrow Wilson in 1914 opened a maritime project to support petrochemicals.
The Houston Ship Channel, the “port that built a city,” opened for ocean-going vessels on November 10, 1914, making Texas home to a world-class commercial port. President Woodrow Wilson saluted the occasion from his desk in the White House by pushing an ivory button wired to a cannon in Houston.
The Houston Ship Channel opened on November 10, 1914, as an ocean-vessel waterway linking Houston, the San Jacinto River, and Galveston Bay. 1950 postcard courtesy Boston Public Library.
The National Anthem played from a barge in the center of the Turning Basin as Sue Campbell, daughter of Houston Mayor Ben Campbell, sprinkled white roses into the water, according to a Port of Houston historian.
An 1915 image of the Houston Ship Channel that had been dredged to a depth of 25 feet. Photo courtesy Fort Bend Museum, Richmond, Texas.
“I christen thee Port of Houston; hither the boats of all nations may come and receive a hearty welcome,” Campbell proclaimed.
The bayou had been used to ship goods to the Gulf of Mexico as early as the 1830s. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) described the original waterway — known as Buffalo Bayou — as “swampy, marshy and overgrown with dense vegetation.”
“Steamboats and shallow-draft vessels were the only boats able to navigate the complicated channel,” noted ASCE, adding that in 1909, Harris County citizens formed a navigation district (an autonomous governmental body for supervising the port) and issued bonds to fund half the cost of dredging the channel.
Army engineers dredge and maintain the Houston Ship channel for deepwater shipping. It terminates about four miles east of downtown Houston. Photo courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
According to the Port of Houston Authority of Harris County, in 1937 the steamship Laura traveled from Galveston Bay up Buffalo Bayou to what is now Houston.
The steamship Laura’s trip — in water no deeper than six feet — proved the bayou was navigable by “sizable vessels” and established a commercial link between Houston and ports around the world
A bird’s eye view of Houston in 1891. Today’s Port of Houston is ranked first in foreign cargo and among the largest ports in the world. Map image courtesy Library of Congress Panoramic Maps.
“With the discovery of oil at Spindletop in 1901 and crops such as rice beginning to rival the dominant export crop of cotton, Houston’s ship channel needed the capacity to handle newer and larger vessels,” reported the Port Authority, administrator of the channel.
Harris County voters in January 1910 overwhelmingly approved dredging their ship channel to a depth of 25 feet for $1.25 million. The U.S. Congress provided matching funds. As work began in 1912, similar giant maritime projects included construction of the Panama Canal and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.
An oil museum in Beaumont, Texas, includes petroleum science and refinery exhibits for educating young people about the Port of Houston. Photo courtesy Texas Energy Museum.
By 1930, eight refineries were operating along the deep water channel, ASCE notes. The area eventually supported massive petrochemical complexes along the shoreline of processing facilities and oil refineries, including ExxonMobil’s Baytown Refinery.
Under continuous development since its original construction, the Houston Ship Channel has been extended to reach 52 miles with a depth of 45 feet and a width of up to 530 feet. It travels from the Gulf through Galveston Bay and up the San Jacinto River, ending four miles east of downtown Houston.
Although the dredging vessel Texas first signaled by whistle the channel’s completion on September 7, 1914, the official opening date has remained when Sue Campbell sprinkled her white roses and President Wilson remotely fired his cannon.
With refineries and expanded liquefied terminals for exporting natural gas (LNG), the Texas waterway has grown into one of the largest petrochemical facilities in the world.
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Recommended Reading: Sheer Will: The Story of the Port of Houston and the Houston Ship Channel 
(2014). Your Amazon purchase benefits the American Oil & Gas Historical Society. As an Amazon Associate, AOGHS earns a commission from qualifying purchases.
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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 © 2025 – Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
Citation Information: Article Title – “Houston Ship Channel of 1914.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/transportation/houston-ship-channel. Last Updated: November 7, 2025. Original Published Date: November 25, 2014.
