Historedia
Episode 2 of 4

Financial Struggle

When
April to August 1859
Where
Drake's drilling site
Part of
Edwin Drake drills the first US oil well at Titusville

Drake faced financial difficulties, taking a $500 loan in 1859 after his colleagues gave up on finding oil.

By 1859, Drake was running out of money. His colleagues in Connecticut gave up on finding oil by April 1859. After spending $2,500, Drake took out a $500 loan to keep the drilling operation going until he struck oil in August.

Sources

  1. Edwin Drake Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-27
  2. Drake Well Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-04

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.