What was the name of the first commercial oil well in the United States?

The first commercial oil well in the United States was the Drake Well, drilled in Pennsylvania in 1859. Its success triggered America’s first major oil boom and established petroleum drilling as a commercial industry.

The well was drilled near Titusville along Oil Creek by Edwin Drake, working with blacksmith William A. Smith. Reaching about 69.5 feet, it used a driven-pipe method that helped prevent the loose ground from collapsing. The well initially produced only modest quantities, but it demonstrated that oil could be deliberately extracted rather than collected from natural seeps.

Drake Well was not the first place where people encountered oil. Oil Springs in Ontario produced oil in 1858, but that well had originally been intended to find salt brine. Earlier salt wells in the United States also yielded oil accidentally. Drake’s achievement was making petroleum production an intentional, repeatable commercial operation.

The discovery encouraged investment in drilling, refining, storage and transport. The original well site is now preserved at the Drake Well Museum in Cherrytree Township, Pennsylvania. Spindletop, another frequent answer, was a famous Texas oil discovery—but it came much later, in 1901.