THE EVOLUTION OF BULK CARRIERS is not unlikely that the American petroleum industry would have developed sooner if the oil regions had been in less out-of-the-way places. In fact, recent years have frequently afforded the spectacle of localities in which expansion was not possible until the necessary means of communica tion were afforded. The American oilmen were the first to realize that the proper solution of the transportation problems meant not only access to the most remote of the world 's markets, but the practical control of the most important. This real ization and the clear vision of the solution, it is true, came only as the result of experience in the early years of the industry ; yet when the realiza tion did come, the evolution of the modern trans portation system was rapid.
The first shipments from Oil Creek to Pittsburg are said to have been made in five-gallon cans slung on the back of a pack horse. As soon as the im portant developments on Oil Creek were begun, however, overland shipment of the oil was no longer adequate or practicable. The natural solu tion was to ship by water down the creek to Oil City, or from Oil City, as a starting point, down the Allegheny River to Pittsburg, the nearest and most convenient distributing center. Thus there grew up an extensive system of transportation by wagons from the wells to the river, and by boats or barges down the river.
Within a short time hundreds of wagons, carry ing from five to seven barrels each, were traversing the streets of the shipping points daily. The roads of the oil region originally were none too good, and now their condition became indescribable. Inces sant traffic turned the soft alluvial soil of the river "bottoms" into unfathomable mud, through which the horses could barely struggle. Broken wagons and oil barrels lined the roads, and "Oil Creek mud" became a byword. Yet as slow, expensive, and unsatisfactory as it was, wagon transportation continued to monopolize the land carriage for some time At the shipping points along the creek the oil was transferred to flat-bottomed boats and barges in which it was conveyed to Pittsburg for distribu tion. Boats of all sorts and sizes were pressed into
use, from the smallest wooden flatboat carrying a score of barrels up to big barges carrying a thou sand barrels. On account of the shallow water in Oil Creek it was necessary to make use of the "pond freshet," as it was called, to float the loaded barges down the creek to the deeper waters of the Allegheny at Oil City. These artificial freshets had originated with the logging crews and con sisted mainly in gathering the logs behind a tem porary dam, which, when removed, caused a small flood wave lasting a few hours to run downstream. In this way the logs, keeping pace with the crest of the flood, could be carried successfully across the shallow portions down to the deep water of the main stream. The oilmen borrowed this idea bod ily from the lumbermen, the oil barges replacing the log drive.
It was, however, necessary for the oilmen to make previous arrangements with the mill owners, who controlled the water privileges, to let them have enough water for the freshet, several hundred dollars sometimes being paid for this accommoda tion. Public notice of each freshet was always given, so that as many boats as possible might be ready to take advantage of it. Sometimes as much as 20,000 barrels went down Oil Creek on a single flood wave. "Freshet Days" were regarded as general holidays by the people along the creek; everyone who could accompanied the boats to Oil City, and the gay crowds gave a decidedly festive appearance to that place. From the standpoint of the shipper, however, this method was far from satisfactory, for the freshets were almost always accompanied by accidents. Boats ran aground and others jammed behind them, the smaller ones be ing overridden and crushed by the larger, the losses in some cases amounting to thousands of bar rels of oil.