Timeline

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1832 Farmers digging for coal in Freedom Township (Cattaraugus County) note oil seepage in the pit.
1857 (Some say 1860) A well drilled near the Seneca Oil Spring produces nothing significant
1860 First recorded New York test well at Rushford shows little oil but substantial gas - useless in those days.
1865 Two wells near the Freedon coal pit fail to produce, but the 'Job Moses No. 1' well at Limestone (1,155 feet) starts producing 7 barrels per day. New York's first successful oil well.
1877 Big oil strike in the Four Mile Valley makes Rock City Mountain (southwest of Olean) the hub of New York's first major oil field. In Allegany County, the "Alma Wildcat Well" doesn't pay off.
1879 After two failed test wells, O.P. Taylor brings in "Triangle No.1" well east of Allentown in Allegany County. The boon town of Petrolia springs up and the southern portion of the county comes alive with oil fever.
1881 Richbury Hill: On a geologist's advice, a new investor group drills a well on the Reading farm. The "Richburg Discovery Well" brings in 70 barrels its first day, ignating an "oil boon" in the Bolivar-Richburg area that spreads outward.
1870's to 1920 The "first recovery era" sees the extent of the oil pools delineated by drilling hundreds of wells, but natural flow production steadily tapers off. Some "boon towns" wither into ghost towns.
1920's A productiuon enhancement technique called "water flooding' introduces hydrostatic pressure to drive more oil from the oil bearing strata.
1920's to 1960's "Secondary recovery" era, an economically strong one in the region, as production peaks again in the 1940's then enters a steady decline.
1970's to 1985 OPEC nations force oil to prices that induce new activity in the oil fields, using improved technologies of drilling and production.
With the 1986 collapse of oil prices worldwide, the region's production resumed its decline. many oil producers carry on with fair success, but a resurgence of the New York oil fields waits upon price increases and enhanced technology to produce the remaining (estimated 850 million barrels) crude oil reserves that the first century's techniques could not retrieve.