1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:01,960 Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I 2 00:00:02,040 --> 00:00:14,040 Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class, 3 00:00:14,400 --> 00:00:17,720 Speaker 1: a show that taps the well of history seven days 4 00:00:17,760 --> 00:00:22,160 Speaker 1: a week. I'm Gay Bluesier and today we're looking at 5 00:00:22,200 --> 00:00:25,320 Speaker 1: a risky idea from the early days of the American 6 00:00:25,360 --> 00:00:29,680 Speaker 1: oil industry, blasting a well with torpedoes to get the 7 00:00:29,720 --> 00:00:42,280 Speaker 1: oil flowing. The day was January one, eighteen sixty five. 8 00:00:43,280 --> 00:00:47,840 Speaker 1: A Union Army colonel turned oil tycoon used a makeshift 9 00:00:47,880 --> 00:00:51,800 Speaker 1: torpedo to increase the flow of fossil fuels from a well. 10 00:00:52,800 --> 00:00:56,160 Speaker 1: The process, known as shooting the well, was an early 11 00:00:56,240 --> 00:01:01,680 Speaker 1: ancestor of today's hydraulic fracturing techniques, otherwise known as fracking. 12 00:01:02,600 --> 00:01:05,440 Speaker 1: The first use of the method occurred at the Ladies 13 00:01:05,520 --> 00:01:08,960 Speaker 1: Well on a stream called Oil Creek that flows near 14 00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:14,880 Speaker 1: Titusville in northwestern Pennsylvania. The process was a tremendous success, 15 00:01:14,959 --> 00:01:18,560 Speaker 1: greatly increasing the productivity of the well and ushering in 16 00:01:18,600 --> 00:01:23,120 Speaker 1: a new era of oil well shooting. The American oil 17 00:01:23,200 --> 00:01:26,680 Speaker 1: industry began in the eighteen fifties, when the very first 18 00:01:26,760 --> 00:01:31,120 Speaker 1: wells were drilled. By the early eighteen sixties, the demand 19 00:01:31,160 --> 00:01:34,560 Speaker 1: for petroleum had grown so large that new ways of 20 00:01:34,600 --> 00:01:39,600 Speaker 1: oil drilling and production were needed. Manually dug wells quickly 21 00:01:39,680 --> 00:01:44,199 Speaker 1: gave way to mechanical perforation and oil pumps, which produced thin, 22 00:01:44,440 --> 00:01:49,800 Speaker 1: but deep wells bored into oil rich sandstone. These wells 23 00:01:49,880 --> 00:01:52,640 Speaker 1: were just a few inches in diameter, and it was 24 00:01:52,680 --> 00:01:56,080 Speaker 1: common for them to become clogged with paraffin, a solid 25 00:01:56,120 --> 00:01:59,800 Speaker 1: component of crude oil. When this happened, the flow of 26 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:03,560 Speaker 1: oil would stop until the clog was cleared. There were 27 00:02:03,560 --> 00:02:07,000 Speaker 1: a few ways of doing this, including scraping the paraffin 28 00:02:07,040 --> 00:02:11,000 Speaker 1: out with tools, pouring chemicals in to melt the deposits, 29 00:02:11,360 --> 00:02:14,640 Speaker 1: or injecting streams of hot water and air to blow 30 00:02:14,680 --> 00:02:19,160 Speaker 1: the clog free. Unfortunately, none of these methods were all 31 00:02:19,200 --> 00:02:22,800 Speaker 1: that effective, and the need for a better solution eventually 32 00:02:22,880 --> 00:02:26,040 Speaker 1: led to the idea of breaking the petroleum well walls 33 00:02:26,240 --> 00:02:31,160 Speaker 1: with explosives. Between the years of eighteen sixty and eighteen 34 00:02:31,280 --> 00:02:35,560 Speaker 1: sixty five, roughly forty oil wells were detonated using a 35 00:02:35,680 --> 00:02:40,280 Speaker 1: variety of different explosives and triggers. The most common methods 36 00:02:40,320 --> 00:02:44,000 Speaker 1: were either to pack the bore holes with black powder 37 00:02:44,200 --> 00:02:46,920 Speaker 1: and ignite it with a fuse, or to drop sticks 38 00:02:46,919 --> 00:02:50,920 Speaker 1: of dynamite directly down the well. As you might imagine, 39 00:02:51,160 --> 00:02:56,639 Speaker 1: both methods often collapse the wells and ruined oil production. Finally, 40 00:02:56,800 --> 00:03:00,080 Speaker 1: in early eighteen sixty five, a veteran of the of 41 00:03:00,120 --> 00:03:04,400 Speaker 1: a War named Edward August Leonard Roberts hit upon the 42 00:03:04,440 --> 00:03:10,320 Speaker 1: novel idea of stimulating oil wells with torpedoes. Roberts had 43 00:03:10,360 --> 00:03:13,320 Speaker 1: been an artillery colonel in the Union Army and led 44 00:03:13,360 --> 00:03:16,720 Speaker 1: his own regiment at the Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia in 45 00:03:16,800 --> 00:03:21,840 Speaker 1: eighteen sixty two. During the fighting, he observed several Confederate 46 00:03:21,960 --> 00:03:26,160 Speaker 1: artillery rounds plunging into a narrow canal on the battlefield. 47 00:03:26,760 --> 00:03:29,960 Speaker 1: The rounds caused huge jets of water to shoot up 48 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:32,880 Speaker 1: into the air, and the sight of them gave Roberts 49 00:03:32,880 --> 00:03:37,400 Speaker 1: the basic idea for oil well shooting. Three years later, 50 00:03:37,640 --> 00:03:42,880 Speaker 1: on January one, eighteen sixty five, Roberts tested his idea 51 00:03:43,040 --> 00:03:46,640 Speaker 1: at the Ladies Well in Pennsylvania. He took a tin 52 00:03:46,800 --> 00:03:50,280 Speaker 1: container not much larger than a thermis, packed it with 53 00:03:50,440 --> 00:03:54,120 Speaker 1: eight pounds of black powder, and stuck a blasting cap 54 00:03:54,200 --> 00:03:58,040 Speaker 1: on top. Then he poured water into the well to 55 00:03:58,120 --> 00:04:02,120 Speaker 1: act as a cushion and lowered the container into it. Next, 56 00:04:02,280 --> 00:04:05,320 Speaker 1: he simply dropped a pointed weight into the well to 57 00:04:05,480 --> 00:04:10,040 Speaker 1: detonate the charge, and boom. The explosion broke apart the 58 00:04:10,120 --> 00:04:13,560 Speaker 1: rocks underground and allowed the petroleum to flow through the 59 00:04:13,600 --> 00:04:19,120 Speaker 1: seams instant oil. With the initial test to success, Roberts 60 00:04:19,200 --> 00:04:22,440 Speaker 1: quickly went into business with his brother Walter and formed 61 00:04:22,480 --> 00:04:28,880 Speaker 1: the Robert's Petroleum Torpedo Company. On January they shot sixteen 62 00:04:28,960 --> 00:04:32,520 Speaker 1: pounds of black powder into another derelict well, and the 63 00:04:32,640 --> 00:04:36,480 Speaker 1: very next day the well began producing sixty barrels of 64 00:04:36,520 --> 00:04:41,039 Speaker 1: oil per day. A month later, they shot another torpedo 65 00:04:41,160 --> 00:04:44,480 Speaker 1: into the same well and increased its production by another 66 00:04:44,600 --> 00:04:48,880 Speaker 1: twenty barrels per day. With these strong results, the brothers 67 00:04:48,960 --> 00:04:52,040 Speaker 1: had no trouble winning the business of other local oil 68 00:04:52,080 --> 00:04:55,480 Speaker 1: well owners, and pretty soon they had cornered the market 69 00:04:55,600 --> 00:05:00,200 Speaker 1: for oil well shooting. Imitators quickly tried to capitalize is 70 00:05:00,200 --> 00:05:04,720 Speaker 1: on the Robert's success, experimenting with their own explosives, containers, 71 00:05:04,760 --> 00:05:09,240 Speaker 1: and means of detonation. However, nothing worked quite as well 72 00:05:09,279 --> 00:05:13,080 Speaker 1: as Robert's torpedoes, and thanks to his patent, no other 73 00:05:13,160 --> 00:05:17,240 Speaker 1: company had the right to use them. Roberts charged anywhere 74 00:05:17,320 --> 00:05:21,400 Speaker 1: from one hundred to two hundred dollars per torpedo, plus 75 00:05:21,400 --> 00:05:25,159 Speaker 1: a royalty of one fifteen of the increased oil flow 76 00:05:25,240 --> 00:05:29,599 Speaker 1: that he produced. Some oilmen tried to avoid these steep 77 00:05:29,720 --> 00:05:34,160 Speaker 1: costs by hiring unlicensed well shooters to produce their own 78 00:05:34,200 --> 00:05:37,400 Speaker 1: torpedoes and then use them under the cover of night, 79 00:05:38,040 --> 00:05:42,680 Speaker 1: a practice from which we get the term moonlighting. Roberts 80 00:05:42,800 --> 00:05:46,159 Speaker 1: was furious when he heard about the moonlighters and actually 81 00:05:46,240 --> 00:05:49,920 Speaker 1: hired Pinkerton detectives and a team of lawyers to help 82 00:05:49,960 --> 00:05:53,640 Speaker 1: protect his patent. In the end, he spent more than 83 00:05:53,680 --> 00:05:57,279 Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty thousand dollars trying to stop the 84 00:05:57,320 --> 00:06:00,800 Speaker 1: illegal well shooters, and his belief to have launched more 85 00:06:00,960 --> 00:06:04,760 Speaker 1: civil litigation in defense of a patent than anyone else 86 00:06:04,800 --> 00:06:10,000 Speaker 1: in US history. Despite his mounting legal fees and revenue losses, 87 00:06:10,440 --> 00:06:14,080 Speaker 1: Edward Roberts still made plenty of money off his monopoly 88 00:06:14,360 --> 00:06:19,600 Speaker 1: and died a very rich man in His patent expired 89 00:06:19,680 --> 00:06:23,720 Speaker 1: two years later, and Congress refused to renew it, likely 90 00:06:23,839 --> 00:06:26,120 Speaker 1: because of the constant strain it had put on the 91 00:06:26,200 --> 00:06:31,200 Speaker 1: legal system. Roberts heirs sold the family company to its employees, 92 00:06:31,400 --> 00:06:35,640 Speaker 1: who continued to run it as the Independent Explosives Company. 93 00:06:35,720 --> 00:06:39,360 Speaker 1: By that point, the well shooting technology was free game 94 00:06:39,680 --> 00:06:42,960 Speaker 1: and was being used by the oil industry all over 95 00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:49,120 Speaker 1: the world, for better or worse. I'm Gay Bluesier and 96 00:06:49,279 --> 00:06:52,840 Speaker 1: hopefully you now know a little more about history today 97 00:06:52,960 --> 00:06:56,400 Speaker 1: and you did yesterday. You can learn even more about 98 00:06:56,480 --> 00:07:00,480 Speaker 1: history by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at 99 00:07:00,520 --> 00:07:04,000 Speaker 1: t d i HC Show, and if you have any 100 00:07:04,040 --> 00:07:07,200 Speaker 1: comments or suggestions, you can send them my way at 101 00:07:07,279 --> 00:07:11,080 Speaker 1: this Day at I heart media dot com. Thanks to 102 00:07:11,160 --> 00:07:14,600 Speaker 1: Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thank you for listening. 103 00:07:15,120 --> 00:07:18,160 Speaker 1: I'll see you back here again tomorrow for another Day 104 00:07:18,360 --> 00:07:28,239 Speaker 1: in History class. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, 105 00:07:28,400 --> 00:07:30,960 Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 106 00:07:31,040 --> 00:07:32,160 Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.