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Oil Springs attracted people hoping for
their own discovery.

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On January sixteenth, eighteen sixty-two,
John Shaw brought in the

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field's celebrated gusher.

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Oil rose above the ground under its own
pressure.

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The museum's account describes a struggle
to contain the flow and oil

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escaping into Black Creek.

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The well's performance did not last. By
early eighteen sixty-three, the

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initial flowing boom was fading. The museum
reports that Shaw continued

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trying to make a living and that his
eighteen seventy-one obituary

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described him dying in poverty.

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One major early business opportunity was
light. A useful lamp fuel could

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extend the working day and illuminate a
home.

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Asphalt could have a market, too. The
challenge was to turn a

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troublesome substance in the ground into
something people would buy.

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The petroleum did not first become known
when a company put its name on

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the land. The Oil Museum of Canada credits
Anishinaabeg people with

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harvesting bitumen in the Oil Springs area
before commercial

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development.

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Another part of the story was unfolding
farther east.

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Abraham Gesner, a physician and geologist
from Nova Scotia, worked on

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making illuminating fuel from materials
including coal, shale and

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bitumen. In eighteen forty-six, he
demonstrated his lamp fuel in

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Charlottetown. The fuel would become known
as kerosene.

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In eighteen fifty-four, Charles Nelson
Tripp, his brother Henry, and

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their investors incorporated the
International Mining and Manufacturing

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Company.

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The brothers were interested in the gum
beds of Enniskillen Township, in

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what is now southwestern Ontario. They
worked with surface bitumen and

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pursued products including asphalt. Their
asphalt earned recognition at

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the Paris exhibition in eighteen
fifty-five.

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Yet recognition did not create a good road
to the property, put enough

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money in the accounts, or bring distant
customers closer.

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Provincial and museum histories describe
the practical difficulties of

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transport and finance. The venture
struggled.

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In the middle of the eighteen fifties,
James Miller Williams acquired

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the Tripp interests. Accounts differ on the
exact transfer year, but the

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larger change is clear. The brothers had
demonstrated commercial

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possibilities without building an enduring
operation of their own.

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Williams came from a manufacturing
background, building carriages and

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railway cars. He brought a practical
businessman's interest to the gum

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beds.

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In eighteen fifty-eight, his hand-dug well
at Oil Springs yielded

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petroleum. The location was then in Canada
West, before Confederation

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created the Dominion of Canada. Today it is
in Ontario.

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That excavation is recognized as Canada's
first commercial oil well.

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The word hand-dug matters. A shallow
excavation and a drilled hole

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through rock are different things, and
different kinds of first are

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often mixed together in retellings.

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Williams's achievement extended beyond the
well. The Dictionary of

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Canadian Biography places his refining
activity at Oil Springs by

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eighteen fifty-seven and a Hamilton
refinery by eighteen sixty.

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His enterprise became associated with the
Canadian Oil Company name.

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Here was a workable connection between
resource, processing and

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customers. Crude oil had to become a usable
product, and the product had

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to leave the field.

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Williams became a successful businessman.
He sold the oil business to

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his son in eighteen seventy-nine. A
University of Calgary Press history

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records the company's sale to Imperial Oil
in eighteen ninety-one.

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John Henry Fairbank began his Oil Springs
operation in eighteen

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sixty-one. His family's business became an
example of endurance on a

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very different scale from the later
national corporations.

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One of the most revealing parts of that
history is the jerker-line

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pumping system, dated by Fairbank's company
to eighteen sixty-three.

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Picture a central source of power sending a
reciprocating motion through

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long lines to pumps at several wells.
Instead of assigning a separate

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engine to every small producer, the
operator could share power across a

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group of wells.

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Fairbank also worked on the route to
market.

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He helped organize the railway connection
from Petrolia to Wyoming in

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eighteen sixty-six. The rail link was
another part of making oil worth

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producing.

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The Oil Museum describes the Fairbank
operation continuing across four

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generations. Its achievement is measured in
longevity and workable

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production, rather than national size.

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As the initial excitement moved on,
machinery could keep moving on a

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quieter property. Fairbank's place in the
story reminds us that a

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successful oil business does not have to be
the loudest one in the

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field.

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In eighteen eighty, sixteen southwestern
Ontario refiners formed the

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Imperial Oil Company in London, Ontario.

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Its early strength lay in processing and
distribution.

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By eighteen ninety-three, its own corporate
history records twenty-three

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branch offices reaching from Halifax to
Victoria.

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In eighteen ninety-eight, seeking expansion
capital, Imperial sold a

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majority interest to the Standard Oil group
in the United States.

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The business gained access to a larger
organization while control

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changed.

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Its major producing interests developed
later. A federal competition

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inquiry dates its move backward into
exploration and production to

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nineteen fourteen. The Imperial that
eventually found oil at Norman

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Wells and Leduc had grown through decades
of refining, selling and

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organizing capital.

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There is a trap in the company names.

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Williams's Canadian Oil Company and the
later Canadian Oil group

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associated with White Rose were separate
enterprises.

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The later story includes a Canadian Oil
Refining Company established in

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Petrolia in nineteen oh one, followed by
combinations and

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reorganizations during the early nineteen
hundreds.

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White Rose became the familiar name at the
customer end of that

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business. Its history takes us from the
nineteenth-century refinery

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district toward the twentieth-century
service station.

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Shell's takeover unfolded in nineteen
sixty-two and nineteen

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sixty-three. Power Corporation's history
records the takeover bid in

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nineteen sixty-two. Shell dates its
purchase of Canadian Oil's Sarnia

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refinery to nineteen sixty-three.

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That refinery had been built by Canadian
Oil in nineteen fifty-two.

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The physical plant helps us see what a
corporate transaction can mean:

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useful facilities, commercial relationships
and operating activity can

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continue after the sign changes.

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Near Waterton, the Rocky Mountain
Development Company began drilling in

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nineteen oh one and encountered oil in
nineteen oh two.

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The well encouraged speculation, but its
production was short-lived.

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By nineteen oh four, the hoped-for lasting
success had largely faded.

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Turner Valley was a more consequential
development. Calgary Petroleum

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Products brought together William Stewart
Herron's prospect and an

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investment group involving Archibald
Dingman. Drilling began in nineteen

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thirteen.

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On May fourteenth, nineteen fourteen,
Dingman Number One produced wet

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gas with valuable liquid hydrocarbons.

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A destructive plant fire followed in
nineteen twenty.

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Imperial took over the interests in
nineteen twenty-one and created

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Royalite to run the operation.

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Then came further stages. Royalite Number
Four opened deeper reserves in

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nineteen twenty-four. In nineteen
thirty-six, Turner Valley Royalties

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Number One, drilled by a separate company,
demonstrated the important

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crude-oil pool.

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Imperial's northern discovery came in
nineteen twenty, at the place that

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became Norman Wells on the Mackenzie River.

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The company's account acknowledges that
Sahtú people knew the area's

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natural seepage long before the commercial
well. Again, industrial

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development followed earlier knowledge of
petroleum.

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Farther south, Leduc Number One came into
production on February

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thirteenth, nineteen forty-seven.

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The discovery helped transform the scale of
Alberta's industry.

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It encouraged a much wider search and the
investment needed to develop

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and move the oil that followed.

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Sun entered Canada in nineteen seventeen,
supplying lubricating oils,

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kerosene and other products to war plants
around Montreal.

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Once again, a business that would later be
associated with enormous

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producing operations had an early Canadian
history in supplying

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customers.

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The Sun-backed Great Canadian Oil Sands
plant began commercial

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operations in nineteen sixty-seven, near
Fort McMurray.

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In nineteen seventy-nine, Sun's Canadian
operations and Great Canadian

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Oil Sands were amalgamated as Suncor.

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The Petro-Canada Act established the Crown
corporation in nineteen

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seventy-five. It began operations on
January first, nineteen

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seventy-six.

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Decades later, the Suncor and Petro-Canada
histories joined.

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Their merger became effective on August
first, two thousand nine.

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The combined business brought together
production, refining and the

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Petro-Canada retail network. The
Petro-Canada name continued where

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customers could recognize it.

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The pattern we can draw from them is that
useful technology, access to

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money, manageable costs and a route to
customers helped turn petroleum

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into a lasting enterprise. None guaranteed
success. Reservoirs declined,

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markets changed, operations failed and
ownership moved.

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Business endurance also tells only part of
the history.

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Indigenous knowledge and communities, the
work of crews, and the effects

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of extraction on land and water belong in
the larger account.

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A surviving company name does not settle
every question about its

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legacy.

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Canada's oil industry began with people
finding ways to make known

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hydrocarbons useful, then learning how to
produce them commercially.

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The first oilfield chapter was written
around Oil Springs and Petrolia.

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Alberta would later change its scale.

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The well made the discovery visible. The
continuing work around it built

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the industry.