Edwin L. Drake Post Office Building

Floor Speech

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Mr. KELLY of Pennsylvania. 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.

This immediately launched the Pennsylvania oil rush, sparking a massive economic boom in western Pennsylvania. Drake's discovery changed the economies beyond western Pennsylvania and across the world.

Titusville quickly became a boomtown, and oil wells popped up all over the place. It is reported that these wells produced up to 4,500 barrels in just the first year. By 1866, the population of Titusville had risen to over 10,000 residents, compared to just 250 people when Drake first arrived.

By 1873, Pennsylvania was producing 10 million barrels of oil per year, an incredible amount that nobody could have possibly imagined. Drake would dig two other wells in the months following his invention, but he left the industry the next year due to his declining health, and he became a justice of the peace in 1860.

Unfortunately, Drake never patented his invention, and he lost most of his savings in the stock market in the following years.

Pennsylvania, though, would never be the same, as people rushed to the Commonwealth, much like the gold rush of California.

Drake passed away in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on November 9, 1880, at just 61 years old. He was moved to Titusville, where he remains today. The original tools are on display in Titusville at the Drake Well Museum, on the same site as his initial discovery.

Oil continues to be a massive industry in Pennsylvania and across our country.

By naming a post office after him in Titusville, this would be a small step in recognizing the man who made it all possible. I urge my colleagues to support this bill to recognize Edwin Drake's contribution to the country by naming the post office facility in Titusville after him.

Mr. Speaker, Drake died broke. He had nothing, but he created an industry in America, in Pennsylvania, that has continued to flourish. I would urge my colleagues to please support the naming of the post office for Edwin Drake.

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