Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Petrolia: The Landscape of America's First Oil Boom

Petrolia: The Landscape of America's First Oil Boom

Black, Brian

Paperback

Series: Creating the North American Landscape

Technology & Engineering19th Century United States HistoryRegional: Middle Atlantic

ISBN10: 0801877326
ISBN13: 9780801877322
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: Nov 25 2003
Pages: 256
Weight: 0.88
Height: 0.63 Width: 6.08 Depth: 9.20
Language: English

Winner of the Paul H. Giddens Prize in Oil History from Oil Heritage Region, Inc.

In Petrolia, Brian Black offers a geographical and social history of a region that was not only the site of America's first oil boom but was also the world's largest oil producer between 1859 and 1873. Against the background of the growing demand for petroleum throughout and immediately following the Civil War, Black describes Oil Creek Valley's descent into environmental hell. Known as Petrolia, the region charged the popular imagination with its nearly overnight transition from agriculture to industry. But so unrestrained were these early efforts at oil drilling, Black writes, that the landscape came to be viewed only as an instrument out of which one could extract crude. In a very short time, Petrolia was a ruined place--environmentally, economically, and to some extent even culturally. Black gives historical detail and analysis to account for this transformation.

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