Why American Oilmen Lowered Explosives Into Producing Wells — Oil-Well Torpedoes
Hidden Works
281 views
A weak oil well could be hundreds of feet deep, reach oil-bearing rock, and still produce almost nothing. In nineteenth-century America, producers sometimes lowered nitroglycerin-filled oil-well torpedoes into that narrow hole and detonated them beside the formation to fracture rock and open new routes for petroleum.
This documentary follows the forgotten business of well “shooting”: from Pennsylvania’s first oil boom and Edward Roberts’ patented submerged torpedo system to go-devils, patent detectives, moonlight crews, spring wagons carrying nitroglycerin, and the workers who carried the danger long before a charge reached the bottom of a well.
You’ll see why a blast could revive an abandoned well but also ruin a producing interval; how water above the charge confined its force; why a dramatic eruption above the derrick did not guarantee lasting production; and how the same problem—connecting a borehole to oil-bearing rock—eventually helped drive the rise of hydraulic fracturing. The story ends in Oil Creek, where machinery, hidden wells, and altered ground outlast the industry that made explosives a routine oilfield service.
00:00 Owner-Ordered Well Explosion
03:02 An Oil Boom Measured in Inches
06:33 The Torpedo Service Business
10:32 Underground Changes from Torpedoes
16:37 Ownership of Shooting Rights
19:54 The Dangerous Journey to the Well
24:35 The Factory Behind the Torpedo Specialist
28:06 Oil Without a Market Route
32:19 Well Safety Signals
36:04 Opening and Holding the Fracture
40:45 The Broken Torpedo Supply Chain
43:48 Work Beneath the Old Derrick
Sources:
Edward A. L. Roberts, U.S. Patent 59,936, Improvement in Method of Increasing Capacity of Oil-Wells
Edward A. L. Roberts, U.S. Patent 47,458, Improvement in Exploding Torpedoes in Artesian Wells
Petroleum History Institute, Powder; Robert’s First Shot; Composition of Roberts’ Torpedo; Nitroglycerin
Kansas Geological Survey, Oil and Gas Resources of Kansas
Princeton University Library, Walter B. Roberts and Roberts Petroleum Torpedo Company Correspondence
Charles E. Munroe, Notes on the Literature of Explosives
Oklahoma Historical Society, Nellie Johnstone Number One; Petroleum Industry
U.S. Geological Survey, Estimates of Hydraulic Fracturing Sand Production, Consumption, and Reserves in the United States
Drake Well Museum, Outdoor Exhibits
National Energy Technology Laboratory, Pennsylvania’s Oil Boom and the Environmental Legacy It Left Behind
Hidden Works explores the forgotten machines, industrial systems, and supply networks that made the modern world function.
Subscribe for more documentaries about forgotten machinery and industrial history. What dangerous industrial trade or oilfield machine should Hidden Works cover next?
#IndustrialHistory #ForgottenMachinery #OilHistory #Nitroglycerin #PetroleumHistory
Why American Oilmen Lowered Explosives Into Producing Wells — Oil-Well Torpedoes
Hidden Works
281 views
A weak oil well could be hundreds of feet deep, reach oil-bearing rock, and still produce almost nothing. In nineteenth-century America, producers sometimes lowered nitroglycerin-filled oil-well torpedoes into that narrow hole and detonated them beside the formation to fracture rock and open new routes for petroleum.
This documentary follows the forgotten business of well “shooting”: from Pennsylvania’s first oil boom and Edward Roberts’ patented submerged torpedo system to go-devils, patent detectives, moonlight crews, spring wagons carrying nitroglycerin, and the workers who carried the danger long before a charge reached the bottom of a well.
You’ll see why a blast could revive an abandoned well but also ruin a producing interval; how water above the charge confined its force; why a dramatic eruption above the derrick did not guarantee lasting production; and how the same problem—connecting a borehole to oil-bearing rock—eventually helped drive the rise of hydraulic fracturing. The story ends in Oil Creek, where machinery, hidden wells, and altered ground outlast the industry that made explosives a routine oilfield service.
00:00 Owner-Ordered Well Explosion
03:02 An Oil Boom Measured in Inches
06:33 The Torpedo Service Business
10:32 Underground Changes from Torpedoes
16:37 Ownership of Shooting Rights
19:54 The Dangerous Journey to the Well
24:35 The Factory Behind the Torpedo Specialist
28:06 Oil Without a Market Route
32:19 Well Safety Signals
36:04 Opening and Holding the Fracture
40:45 The Broken Torpedo Supply Chain
43:48 Work Beneath the Old Derrick
Sources:
Edward A. L. Roberts, U.S. Patent 59,936, Improvement in Method of Increasing Capacity of Oil-Wells
Edward A. L. Roberts, U.S. Patent 47,458, Improvement in Exploding Torpedoes in Artesian Wells
Petroleum History Institute, Powder; Robert’s First Shot; Composition of Roberts’ Torpedo; Nitroglycerin
Kansas Geological Survey, Oil and Gas Resources of Kansas
Princeton University Library, Walter B. Roberts and Roberts Petroleum Torpedo Company Correspondence
Charles E. Munroe, Notes on the Literature of Explosives
Oklahoma Historical Society, Nellie Johnstone Number One; Petroleum Industry
U.S. Geological Survey, Estimates of Hydraulic Fracturing Sand Production, Consumption, and Reserves in the United States
Drake Well Museum, Outdoor Exhibits
National Energy Technology Laboratory, Pennsylvania’s Oil Boom and the Environmental Legacy It Left Behind
Hidden Works explores the forgotten machines, industrial systems, and supply networks that made the modern world function.
Subscribe for more documentaries about forgotten machinery and industrial history. What dangerous industrial trade or oilfield machine should Hidden Works cover next?
#IndustrialHistory #ForgottenMachinery #OilHistory #Nitroglycerin #PetroleumHistory