Edwin Drake drilled Pennsylvania’s first commercial oil well in 1859.
Known as the Drake Well, it was drilled along Oil Creek near Titusville, Pennsylvania, for the Seneca Oil Company. Drake and his driller, William A. Smith, used a steam-powered cable-tool method rather than simply digging a shallow pit. The well reached roughly 69.5 feet and helped launch the first major oil boom in the United States.
Drake’s achievement was not necessarily the world’s first oil-producing well. Earlier wells in places including Azerbaijan, Poland, and Ontario have competing claims, and oil had sometimes appeared as an accidental by-product of salt or water wells. Drake’s importance was demonstrating a repeatable method for deliberately drilling for petroleum and encouraging investment in production, refining, and distribution.
The year 1859 is therefore the canonical answer when the question specifies Drake, Pennsylvania, and the first commercial oil well in the United States. The Drake Well site is now preserved as the Drake Well Museum and Park.