High Times in Oil Springs

1852 - Charles Tripp petitions to get his Oil Springs firm, International Mining and Manufacturing Company incorporated for commercially producing oil products.   1854 - December 18. Charles Tripp gets the approval for found North America’s first commercial oil company.   1855 - James Miller Williams, “The Father of Refining” takes over Tripp’s company in Oil Springs.   1858 - James Miller Williams produces oil from Oil Springs and refines it          -  The village of Black Creek is renamed Oil Springs.   1860 - Leonard Baldwin Vaughn has Oil Springs’ first “flowing well” (requiring no pump)   1861 - John Henry Fairbank, who later became Canada’s largest oil producer, arrives in Oil Springs and begins his first well   1862 - Canada’s first oil gusher is struck in Oil Springs by Hugh Nixon Shaw - A plank road is built from Oil Springs to Wyoming rail station   1863 - “Flowing wells” slow to a trickle but oil is still abundant in Oil Springs   1866 - A major oil find in Petrolia kicks off the town’s 40-year oil boom and Oil Springs is almost abandoned overnight   1881 - Oil Springs has a second boom because oil is found at a deeper level by W.S. Duggan of Excelsior Oil Company   1882 - A pipeline is built from Oil Springs to Petrolia   1883 - A second pipeline is built from Oil Springs to Petrolia   1886 - A spur line of Canada Southern Railway reaches Oil Springs from Oil City   1914 - Canada’s biggest gas gusher to date struck by Dr. Charles Fairbank in Oil Springs   1960 - Oil Museum of Canada opens in Oil Springs          - Railway to Oil Springs is closed    1974 - Imperial Oil’s last receiving station closes in Oil Springs   1997 - Four Oil Springs oil men are inducted to the new Canadian Petroleum Hall of Fame in Leduc, Alberta. The four men are John Henry Fairbank, James Miller Williams, Charles and Henry Tripp.