May 1, 1860 - Virginia’s petroleum industry begins when John Castelli ‘‘Cass’’ Rathbone strikes oil near a stream called Burning Springs Run in Wirt County, in what today is West Virginia. He uses cable-tool drilling techniques modeled after those of the pioneering 1859 Edwin Drake well at Titusville, Pennsylvania.

The Rathbone well reaches 303 feet and begins producing 100 barrels of oil a day. Cass partners with his brother John Valleau ‘‘Val’’ Rathbone as a major drilling boom begins – the first to take place outside Pennsylvania. By the end of 1860, more than 600 oil leases are registered in the county courthouse. Warehouses and a jetty are built along the Little Kanawha River, which flows into the Ohio River at Parkersburg, about 27 miles to the northwest.

“These events truly mark the beginnings of the oil and gas industry in the United States,” says one West Virginia historian, adding that the wealth created by petroleum will help bring statehood during the Civil War. Soon after Union forces occupy most of western Virginia, pro-Union residents in Wirt and 40 more other counties in October 1861 vote to break away from the Confederate state. In June 1863, West Virginia becomes America’s newest oil-producing state.

Photo courtesy West Virginia Humanities Council.

John Castelli Rathbone