where was the first excavation of oil done
History of the petroleum industry in the United States On August 28, 1859, George Bissell and Edwin L. Drake made the first successful use of a drilling rig on a well drilled especially to produce oil, at a site on Oil Creek near Titusville, Pennsylvania. The Drake partners were encouraged by Benjamin Silliman (1779-1864), a chemistry professor at Yale, who tested a sample of the oil, and assured them that it could be distilled into useful products such as illuminating oil.