<P> Salt was a valuable commodity, and an industry developed near salt springs in the Ohio River Valley, producing salt by evaporating brine from the springs . Salt wells were sunk at the salt springs to increase the supply of brine for evaporation . Some of the wells were hand - dug, but salt producers also learned to drill wells by percussion (cable tool) methods . In a number of locations in western Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky, oil and natural gas came up the wells along with the brine . The oil was mostly a nuisance, but some salt producers saved it and sold it as illuminating oil or medicine . In some locations, enough natural gas was produced to be used as fuel for the salt evaporating pans . Early salt brine wells that produced byproduct oil included the Thorla - McKee Well of Ohio in 1814, a well near Burkesville, Kentucky, in 1828, and wells at Burning Springs, West Virginia, by 1836 . </P> <P> The US natural gas industry started in 1821 at Fredonia, Chautauqua County, New York, when William Hart dug a well to a depth of 27 feet (8.2 m) into gas - bearing shale, then drilled a borehole 43 feet (13 m) further, and piped the natural gas to a nearby inn where it was burned for illumination . Soon many gas wells were drilled in the area, and the gas - lit streets of Fredonia became a tourist attraction . </P> <P> On August 28, 1859, George Bissell and Edwin L. Drake made the first successful use of a drilling rig on a well drilled especially to produce oil, at a site on Oil Creek near Titusville, Pennsylvania . The Drake partners were encouraged by Benjamin Silliman (1779 - 1864), a chemistry professor at Yale, who tested a sample of the oil, and assured them that it could be distilled into useful products such as illuminating oil . </P> <P> The Drake well is often referred to as the "first" commercial oil well, although that title is also claimed for wells in Azerbaijan, Ontario, West Virginia, and Poland, among others . However, before the Drake well, oil - producing wells in the United States were wells that were drilled for salt brine, and produced oil and gas only as accidental byproducts . An intended drinking water well at Oil Springs, Ontario found oil in 1858, a year before the Drake well, but it had not been drilled for oil . Historians have noted that the importance of the Drake well was not in being the first well to produce oil, but in attracting the first great wave of investment in oil drilling, refining, and marketing: </P>

Where was the first excavation of oil done