Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, this bill would designate the post office facility located at 135 West Spring Street in Titusville, Pennsylvania, as the Edwin Drake Post Office Building. Born March 29 in 1819, Edwin Drake was the first person to successfully drill for oil in the United States. Drake was sent to Titusville on behalf of the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company, where oil had been gathering from ground-level seepages. He said: There must be a way to somehow get to more volume. The answer was, send Drake. In an attempt to lure local Titusville businesses into investing, the executives sent letters to local businessmen and referred to Drake as Colonel Drake. In July of 1858, he journeyed to Titusville to begin but struggled for nearly a year until he invented the drive pipe. He continued his attempts with many setbacks and refusal from the oil company to provide any more investment. Now, despite many of these failed attempts and the shortage of money, he persisted in his efforts, leading some of the locals and executives to begin calling him Crazy Drake. Finally, on August 27 of 1859, he found success in extracting oil, which was 70 feet beneath the Earth's surface. It had never been done before. Quickly, his well began to produce between 20 and 40 barrels a day, and they ended up using all the whiskey barrels in Titusville to put the oil in.…”