America's First Commercial Oil Well Shepherd

Abstract

The first commercial oil well in North America was drilled with a spring pole rig in 1818 by Marcus Huling on the South Fork of the Cumberland River in McCreary County, Kentucky. The well was 200 feet deep and flowed at the surface. The discovery was reported in the fall of 1818 in the newspaper Argus of Western America, and in a letter written by Huling in 1820. Oil from the well was sold locally and also in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia. Two thousand gallons were exported to Europe. Comparison of early geologic and structure sections and maps with recent publications and field data indicates that, in contrast to previous interpretations, the accumulation, in the Big Lime, is stratigraphically controlled. Today oil can be sampled from a well at the site, now in a National River Recreation Area. Employing formal definitions, the Beatty well may become generally recognized as the first-documented comercial oil well in North America, even though it was originally drilled for salt.