Edwin Drake drilled the first US oil well in 1859, lost his savings by 1866, and lived on a Pennsylvania state pension

Edwin Drake was born in New York on 29 March 1819. He worked as a railroad conductor until 1857, when poor health made him retire. He put his savings, about $200, into the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company, which sent him to Titusville. In 1858 he set up a derrick and drove iron pipe into the ground to keep the hole from collapsing. The company's officers had spent $2,500 without finding oil and ordered him to stop. He had already borrowed $500 from a bank in Meadville and kept drilling. On Saturday 27 August 1859 the drill reached 69.5 feet. The next day the driller saw oil five inches from the top of the pipe. The world's first oil boom followed. The Seneca Oil Company removed Drake as president in March 1860. In 1863 he went to New York and invested his life savings of $16,000; by 1866 he had lost everything. In 1869 Titusville acquaintances raised $4,000 for him, and Pennsylvania voted him a pension of $1,500 a year. The US Energy Information Administration dates the pension to 1876. He lived in Bethlehem until he died in 1880. His body was brought back to Titusville and placed in a tomb with bronze sculpture. The well site was deeded to Pennsylvania on 2 December 1932, and the state runs it as a park and museum.