Though he drilled only three oil wells in his lifetime, Edwin Drake (1819-1880) is known as the "Father of the Petroleum Industry" because the technology he devised to drill the first commercial oil well in the United States revolutionized how crude oil was produced and launched the large-scale petroleum industry.

Edwin Laurentine Drake, born on March 11, 1819, in Greenville County, New York, grew up on family farms in New York and Vermont. He left home at age 19, having received a common school education, and wandered the Midwest and East, working at various jobs. In 1850 he settled in New Haven, Connecticut, and became a railway conductor for the New York and New Haven Railroad. Ill health forced his retirement in 1857, but it also opened a new opportunity for him.

The opportunity occurred while Drake was staying in the same hotel as George H. Bissell and Jonathan G. Eveleth, founders of...