The impetus given by these developments along Oil Creek inflated the values of land far and near in every district suspected of being an oil-bearing locality. To the farmers of Venango County, many of whom for years had been wringing noth ing more than a bare living from the soil, the oil speculations brought a golden harvest. Many a poor man found himself suddenly raised to un dreamed-of wealth by the sale of a which a short time before would not have found a pur chaser at any price. Land in favorable locations sold readily as high as six to seven thousand dollars an acre, and single farms brought from $500,000 to $1,000,000 with additional royalties on the pro duction of the wells.
Speculation of every possible sort among all classes went on to such an unbridled extent that it amounted to little less than sheer madness. Land speculations especially were colossal. Properties that were bought or leased were divided to be re sold and sublet, oftentimes over and over again, and always at a profit, a small part of a tract not infrequently fetching a price greater than what was originally paid for the whole lot. A plot of two acres, bearing a productive well, sold for over half a million dollars, and a farm of fifty acres, traded originally for a yoke of oxen, was bought for $3,500, and within a year its new owners re fused $4,000,000 for the same tract.
During the first years of the industry hundreds of wells were put down by poor men who, tempted by rosy visions of wealth, banded together in small parties or "associations," pooling what few dollars they possessed, or could borrow, to bear the ex pense of a small lease and the sinking of wells. Their total capital was often insufficient to secure a decent lease, but, urged on by their vain hopes of a lucky strike, they secured pitifully small frag ments of land along the river front by agreeing to pay exorbitant royalties, even as high as one-half of all the oil found. Their story is the same sad tale found in the records of every great mining boom in history, except that much of the tragedy of frozen trails and sun-parched deserts is here mercifully lacking. Without means enough to se cure adequate apparatus, these poor men were forced to adopt the most primitive devices, chiefly the method known as "kicking down," to sink their wells. This method, depending as it did entirely on man power, was utterly useless except in shal low workings and, as most localities yielded oil only at considerable depth, the scanty means pos sessed by the associations soon vanished, work had to be suspended, and the leases forfeited. Many a
modest home found itself contemplating poverty and distress as a result of the irresistible lure of the oil fields and the unscrupulous, merciless deal ings of the land speculators.
Drake's original well had begun to yield oil at a depth of only seventy feet, and many of the others which immediately followed it were of moderate depth, small quantities of oil being obtained by pumping. In the course of a year or two, however, the insatiable greed for oil was more and more leading the operators to the belief that, as the oil seemed to come from a depth greater than yet reached by the wells, deeper drilling would tap the main source of supply and would yield larger quantities. This theory was put to practical test in the spring of 1861, when a well was drilled to a depth of four hundred to five hundred feet to the so-called "third sand," where the greatest supply has since been found. The result was unlike any thing ever before witnessed in the oil regions. Without warning the drilling tools were hurled high above the derrick, followed by a stream of oil gushing out with such force that it could not be controlled for several days. When finally subdued the well continued to discharge at the rate of hun dreds of barrels a day for several months.
The effect of this first "gusher" was startling. Drake's well had created a sensation, but the strik ing of a well yielding daily hundreds of barrels of oil without pumping was little short of a miracle. Everybody wanted a flowing well, and a fever of deep drilling raged through the region. Other flowing wells were struck soon after, some of them producing as high as four thousand barrels a day, or more than the earlier wells yielded in a whole year. This sudden increase in the production of oil caused the prices of oil to slump so. rapidly that many owners of small pumping wells were obliged to stop all operations because they could no longer produce at a profit. But at the same time it gave a great stimulus to new ventures by holding out the prospect of still more marvelous strikes.