How Big Oil started in 1854, in America they learned that far away, in some Galicia, the Pole Loksiewicz was making oil from oil and selling it to fill the lamps he invented, and it was damn profitable. There was oil in America, in Pennsylvania it even came to the surface, but it was not clear how suitable it was for making oil. And an active pool of cash-strapped investors, led by lawyer Bissell and banker Townsend, hires Professor Yale Sullivan to give an opinion on its suitability. Sullivan finds the oil excellent and demands the agreed amount of $526.08, but the investors don't pay: Bissell just ran out of money, and Townsend is hiding - he is sure that if his clients find out what stupid things the banker is doing, his reputation as a serious person will be irreparably lost and his business will collapse. The report was hardly bought by side loans, but it helped attract real and big money to the "oil of the earth" for the "lamps". The investors, on the other hand, came slowly - the business was new and untested, and only in 1859 did Townsend send an expedition to Pennsylvania to find out if it was possible to produce oil there on an industrial scale. In such matters, the main thing is to find the right person, and Edwin Drake seemed to Townshend to be such a person - cheerful, friendly and talkative. The choice fell on him by chance: this retired train conductor was a regular at the bar, which Townsend also frequented, and seemed to the latter to be a reasonable man; In addition, among his drinking buddies he was known as an employee in every profession. And (Townsend was thrifty) his railroad background gave him a free ride to the search site. Townsend knew human nature: when he sent Drake on his way, he sent a number of telegrams addressed to "Is. Drake, Colonel" to Titusville, the town that became the center of the search. The colonel is an important bird for the outback, and this cunning ensured that Drake, who had never served in the army, was universally favored.

How Big Oil started in 1854, in America they learned that far away, in some Galicia, the Pole Loksiewicz was making oil from oil and selling it to fill the lamps he invented, and it was damn profitable. There was oil in America, in Pennsylvania it even came to the surface, but it was not clear how suitable it was for making oil. And an active pool of cash-strapped investors, led by lawyer Bissell and banker Townsend, hires Professor Yale Sullivan to give an opinion on its suitability. Sullivan finds the oil excellent and demands the agreed amount of $526.08, but the investors don't pay: Bissell just ran out of money, and Townsend is hiding - he is sure that if his clients find out what stupid things the banker is doing, his reputation as a serious person will be irreparably lost and his business will collapse. The report was hardly bought by side loans, but it helped attract real and big money to the "oil of the earth" for the "lamps". The investors, on the other hand, came slowly - the business was new and untested, and only in 1859 did Townsend send an expedition to Pennsylvania to find out if it was possible to produce oil there on an industrial scale. In such matters, the main thing is to find the right person, and Edwin Drake seemed to Townshend to be such a person - cheerful, friendly and talkative. The choice fell on him by chance: this retired train conductor was a regular at the bar, which Townsend also frequented, and seemed to the latter to be a reasonable man; In addition, among his drinking buddies he was known as an employee in every profession. And (Townsend was thrifty) his railroad background gave him a free ride to the search site. Townsend knew human nature: when he sent Drake on his way, he sent a number of telegrams addressed to "Is. Drake, Colonel" to Titusville, the town that became the center of the search. The colonel is an important bird for the outback, and this cunning ensured that Drake, who had never served in the army, was universally favored.