624 M. L. FULLER APPALACHIAN OIL FIELD 



very low for many years and only readied 50,000 barrels per annum in 

 1883-1884. After 1885, following the revived activity in Pennsylvania 

 and West Virginia, new pools were opened along the eastern border of 

 the State west of the pools of the States named, including the Macksburg, 

 Sistersville, and Eureka districts, and production mounted rapidly to 

 several million barrels per annum. For the last 15 years the annual pro- 

 duction has maintained itself at a surprisingly constant level, mainly be- 

 4,800,000 barrels. The later Clinton sand developments do not belong 

 properly to the Appalachian field. 



DEVELOPMENT OF OIL IN KENTUCKY 



Beginning about 1806-1807, wells were bored for salt at several points 

 along Big Sandy River and its tributaries, many of which yielded enough 

 petroleum to be troublesome. One, known as the Beatty v/ell, bored for 

 brine about 1819, in Wayne County, was abandoned for 40 years on ac- 

 count of petroleum, but was reopened about 1860, and produced oil for 

 many years. The American well, sunk in 1829, estimated to produce 

 1,000 barrels a day at the start, was unutilized except for medicinal oils. 



Much prospecting has been done, especially in Pulaski, Wayne, Russell, 

 Clinton, Wolf, Cumberland, and Barren counties, but the pools have been 

 small. The maximum production was 1,217,000 barrels in 1905, largely 

 from Barren, Wayne, and Wolf counties, after which date the output de- 

 clined to 500,000 barrels in 1914. In 1915 and 1916 there was renewed 

 activity in drilling and some promising pools were opened up. 



DEVELOPMENT OF OIL IN TENNESSEE 



Oil was known in the brine wells in the first decade of the nineteenth 

 century. The oil of one well on the line between Clay and Pickett coun- 

 ties flowed out on the river in 1820, giving a considerable conflagration 

 when ignited. A large flow from another near-by salt well was reported 

 in 1837. 



Owing to the Civil War, prospecting did not actively begin until 1865- 

 1866, when Northerners who had noticed the oil seepages, etcetera, while 

 with the Federal armies returned and started drilling. Prospecting ha^- 

 continued intermittently ever since, but only a few small pools have been 

 developed, chiefly along the northeastern edge of the Tennessee dome of 

 the Cincinnati anticline, in Overton and Pickett counties. Production on 

 a commercial scale was reported from 1893 to 1907, but the output has 

 never exceeded a few thousand barrels per annum. 



