Edwin Drake

Edwin Drake tugged his boot out of the mud.

Squelch.

He looked into the hole.

Water. Again.

The men had worked hard to dig it. Now water was seeping in, and the loose sides were falling down. It was as if the ground were erasing their work.

Edwin rubbed his forehead.

How are we ever going to get through?

It was 1859, in Pennsylvania. Edwin was looking for oil. People already collected small amounts where it seeped to the surface. Oil could be turned into fuel for lamps, giving people light to read and work after sunset.

Edwin wanted to reach the oil underground.

First, he had to get past this stubborn, soggy hole.

Beside him stood William Smith, a blacksmith and experienced driller whom people called Uncle Billy. Edwin had worked on railroads. When he needed skills he didn’t have, he had hired someone who knew about drilling.

Now they had a problem to solve together.

They tried pumping the water out.

More came in.

Edwin’s shoulders drooped. They had put so much work into this.

Have you ever felt that way? You try something, really try, and it still doesn’t work?

Edwin watched the water entering the hole.

“What if we could keep it from getting in?” he wondered.

The sides needed something strong to hold them in place. Something the drill could fit inside.

A pipe.

An iron pipe!

Picture a sturdy sleeve around your arm. The pipe would surround the drilling tools in much the same way, protecting their path through the wet, loose ground.

Edwin and Billy brought in iron pipe and a heavy wooden ram.

Lift.

THUMP.

Lift.

THUMP.

The ram drove the pipe farther into the earth. At last, it reached solid rock.

Now Billy could lower his tools through the pipe and drill deeper.

Their new approach was working.

The drilling was still slow—about three feet a day. People laughed at the project. Money grew scarce.

Yet the men had made real progress: they had found a way through the troublesome ground.

On a Sunday in late August, Billy returned to check the well. A dark liquid was visible inside.

Oil.

He gathered it into containers. When Edwin arrived on Monday, barrels, tubs, and jars held the thing they had worked so hard to reach.

Imagine Edwin looking from those containers to the pipe sticking out of the ground.

That pipe had begun as an idea—a different way to tackle the problem.

He had needed Billy’s skills, his own careful thinking, and the willingness to change their plan.

The next time your drawing, puzzle, or project leaves you stuck, you can pause and take a closer look, too.

What part isn’t working? What could I change? Who could help me learn?

You don’t have to know every step when you begin.

You can learn your way to the next one.