# When did crude oil become a valuable commodity? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 1, 2012, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-crude-oil-become-a-valuable-commodity/608027 "2012-01-01T10:10:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2012, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-crude-oil-become-a-valuable-commodity/608027/21 "2012-04-09T15:51:31Z")
Well, the large demand for _gasoline_ came about with the automobile, but the demand for _oil_ was already huge prior to the first auto being built. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2012, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-crude-oil-become-a-valuable-commodity/608027/22 "2012-04-09T15:53:43Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > So, to answer your question: Oil was a valuable commodity, but it wasn’t available in the “Old West” until early in the 20th century, long after it stopped being the “Old West.” Interesting. I’m currently reading “Around the World in 80 Days” (written in 1873), and it mentions “petroleum warehouses” in San Francisco. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2012, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-crude-oil-become-a-valuable-commodity/608027/23 "2012-04-09T15:59:10Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > Interesting. I’m currently reading “Around the World in 80 Days” (written in 1873), and it mentions “petroleum warehouses” in San Francisco. Correct, but the petroleum came from Pennsylvania. There was no American oil production west of the Mississippi until the 1890s. Worldwide, 1870s oil production was limited to Pennsylvania, Borneo, and the Baku regions. I should have used “produced” instead of “available” in the above quote, true. ---
**Author:** ![SeldomSeen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ba0ec/32.png) [@SeldomSeen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeldomSeen)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2012, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-crude-oil-become-a-valuable-commodity/608027/24 "2012-04-09T16:37:17Z")
The “Lone Ranger” story is not as far-fetched as one might think. The value of petroleum was recognized at a fairly early date, and commercial uses were discovered at least as early as the time of the Civil War. Some of the first were lighting (as a substitute for whale oil), lubrication and various patent medicines. The first commercial production in California began in 1865 ([cite](http://www.priweb.org/ed/pgws/history/signal_hill/signal_hill.html)) in the Central Valley, although one suspects the La Brea tar pits may have seen some commercial extraction much earlier. Gilsonite (Uintahite) and Grahamite, asphaltic hydrocarbons with numerous industrial uses, were in commercial production by the mid-1880’s. Louis L’amour, the western writer (who actually did back up his horse operas with a fair amount of historical research) set one of his stories in 1880’s-era Wyoming around the concept of a rancher whose range had surface oil seeps, attempting to forestall takeover by an unscrupulous speculator who wished to exploit the oil. SS ---
**Author:** ![Bemused](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/46a35a/32.png) [@Bemused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bemused)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2012, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-crude-oil-become-a-valuable-commodity/608027/25 "2012-04-09T19:10:37Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > In the real world, the plot doesn’t make any sense in the timeline you give: US oil production in the 1870’s was based in Pennsylvania and Lima, OH… that’s it. Texas didn’t even become a player in the US market until Spindletop, in 1901. The earliest discovery of oil in TX took place 7 years earlier, in 1894. > > Oil wasn’t even discovered W. of the Mississippi river until the 1890s - Kansas, Oklahoma, California, and Texas fields were discovered in that decade. > > So, to answer your question: Oil was a valuable commodity, but it wasn’t available in the “Old West” until early in the 20th century, long after it stopped being the “Old West.” Of course oil was available in the West. There were oil seeps in some locations, and oil was therefore found on the surface. The most famous example of this is the La Brea tar pits. Oil was used for various things starting in the early 19th century. Liquid crude was used as a lubricant and the more solid tars were used for waterproofing. Native Americans were known to be using tar to waterproof canoes throughout their history. By the mid 19th century, fuel oil was coming into use as was asphalt. According to Wikipedia, oil production started in the LA basin in 1880, and the first California well was drilled in 1865 in Humboldt County CA. The first oil well in Colorado was drilled in 1862 near Canon City. > **[History of the petroleum industry in the United States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_petroleum_industry_in_the_United_States)** > > Employment > The history of the petroleum industry in the United States goes back to the early 19th century, although the indigenous peoples, like many ancient societies, have used petroleum seeps since prehistoric times; where found, these seeps signaled the growth of the industry from the earliest discoveries to the more recent. > Petroleum became a major industry following the oil discovery at Oil Creek, Pennsylvania, in 1859. For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, the US was the largest oi... ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2012, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-crude-oil-become-a-valuable-commodity/608027/26 "2012-04-09T20:00:46Z")
I was reading Roald Amunden’s book “Northwest Passage”-in it he recounts his ship (the “Gjoa”) overwintering at Herschel Island (Alaska) in the winter of 1906-07. There were 12 whaling ships there, so whale oil was still used at that late date. Given that fact that kerosene was being made from crude oil (and was much cheaper than the whale oil), was was there still a market for the whale oil? Kerosene must have been a nasty way to light your home-it was smelly and gave off soot. ---
**Author:** ![Notassmartasithought](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c0e974/32.png) [@Notassmartasithought](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Notassmartasithought)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2012, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-crude-oil-become-a-valuable-commodity/608027/27 "2012-04-09T22:25:30Z")
The coincidence of the development of electricity for lighting and the internal combustion engine for locomotion is interesting to me. Had the former not occurred would there have been any effect on the lattter? Was, for instance, oil-powered horsepower more convenient and less expensive than horse-powered horsepower (sorry, I couldn’t resist that turn of phrase) because electricity was lowering the demand (and thus the price) of oil? Or was there a difference in the costs of refining gasoline or deisel as opposed to kerosene and other oils used for lighting? Reading Ron Chernow’s wonderful biography John D. Rockefeller impressed on me how fortunate Rockefeller and his fellow oilmen were that a new use for oil arose just as electricity was replacing it as the source of lighting. Had that not occurred, the value of oil and the profits of the industry would have decreased significantly. Somewhere in that mix one needs to add the shift in central heating from coal to oil to natural gas. It also seems that the oil guys got back at the electricity folks as deisel power replaced electric power in many inter-urban railways and especially (and intentionally) in the shift from electric streetcars to deisel buses in the 40s and 50s. And, as already cited, the shift from coal to oil of the naval and shipping fleets. So this is a transition that took decades. Probably need to reread Dan Yergin’s “The Prize,” and hope his “The Quest” comes out in paper soon. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-crude-oil-become-a-valuable-commodity/608027.md?page=1)