Allegany County Democrat, Wellsville, Jan. 25, 1888
Enormous Oil Production
The northern oil basin, known as the Bradford field, which lies in the upper part of McKean county, Pennsylvania and a small portion of Cattaraugus county, New
York, has produced down to the close of 1887, 14-million barrels of crude petroleum, or 6,944,000,000 gallons.
The field commenced producing oil in 1868, when a few of the ventures of Job Moses, near Limestone, showed signs of success. Little was done in the way of
developments until 1875 when the Butts wells, near Tarport, marked the opening of the Bradford field. The production in the year 1872 was about 25,000 barrels. The next year it was
increased to 380,000 barrels, and in 1877 to 1,420,000 barrels. November 3d there weere but ten producing wells in the Bradford field; now there are 15,000.
The greatest yearly output was in 1881 with 23 million barrels. In 1886 it had dropped to 10 million, and last year the total was 7,700,000. The amount of capital
invested in the production of this field is placed at $100 million, which does not include the elaborate pipe line system or the iron tankage necessary to store the oil. But ten percent of
the wells in the field were unproductive.
The pipe line runs for the month just closed show that the wells in this great basin are averaging not over one barrel a day each indicating that its glory has
departed. This has been the richest petroleum field ever discovered and operators never expect to open up another to compare with it.
