Oil Springs is a village in
Lambton County
Lambton County is a county in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. It is bordered on the north by Lake Huron, which is drained by the St. Clair River, the county's western border and part of the Canada-United States border. To the south is Lake Saint Cla ...
,
Ontario
Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...
, Canada, located along
Former Provincial Highway 21 south of
Oil City. The village, an enclave within
Enniskillen Township, is the site of North America's first commercial
oil well
An oil well is a drillhole boring in Earth that is designed to bring petroleum oil hydrocarbons to the surface. Usually some natural gas is released as associated petroleum gas along with the oil. A well that is designed to produce only gas m ...
. It is home to the
Oil Museum of Canada.
History

Before the village was formed, the indigenous people already knew about the gum beds and used the sticky oil to waterproof their canoes.
The place, originally called Black Creek, became the site of North America's first commercial
oil well
An oil well is a drillhole boring in Earth that is designed to bring petroleum oil hydrocarbons to the surface. Usually some natural gas is released as associated petroleum gas along with the oil. A well that is designed to produce only gas m ...
when asphalt producer
James Miller Williams set out to dig a water well in September 1858 and found free oil instead.
[''New York Times'' 1866-03-2]
(JPG images)
Williams' discovery triggered North America's first oil rush and the village's name was changed to Oil Springs that same year.
Within a few years, Oil Springs was a bustling town with four thousand residents and in its peak days boasted paved roads, horse-drawn buses and street lamps.
John Henry Fairbank, a surveyor turned oil man who came to Oil Springs in 1861, bought some property and despite incurring debts and suffering family tragedies, Fairbank struck it rich, founding the successful Fairbank Oil Company that is now the oldest petroleum company in the world. He also invented the jerker line, a method used to pump oil to the surface from multiple wells using a shared
steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs Work (physics), mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a Cylinder (locomotive), cyl ...
. Jerker lines are still used to pump oil in Oil Springs today.
On January 16, 1862, John Shaw using a springboard to chip through rock, created Canada's first oil gusher (located on Gypsie Flats Road). It shot oil from over below ground to above the treetops at a rate of 3000 barrels per day. A year later, a plank road was built from Oil Springs to Wyoming
Wyoming ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States, Western United States. It borders Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho t ...
rail station.[
In 1865, the place separated from Enniskillen Township and was incorporated as a village. A year later, Bernard King struck oil at Petrolia, north of Oil Springs. Petrolia quickly replaced Oil Springs as Canada's oil capital, leaving Oil Springs almost abandoned.][
In 1881, more oil was discovered at a deeper level, resulting in another oil boom for Oil Springs. Two oil pipelines were built to Petrolia, and in 1886, a spur line of the Canada Southern Railway connected the village to Oil City (operating until 1960).][
In 1914, Charles Fairbank, son of John Henry, found a gas gusher in Oil Springs that was deemed the biggest gusher in Canada.][
In the 1930s, a fire destroyed all of the original oil rigs on William's property and by 1974, the last receiving station of Imperial Oil closed.][
In 2008, the 150th anniversary of Williams' discovery, ]Canada Post
Canada Post Corporation (, trading as Canada Post (), is a Canadian Crown corporation that functions as the primary postal operator in Canada.
Originally known as Royal Mail Canada (the operating name of the Post Office Department of the Can ...
issued a stamp commemorating this first commercial oil well, featuring portraits of Charles Tripp and Williams.
In 2014 the Heaven’s Wildlife Rescue Rehabilitation and Education Centre began a tradition of "Oil Springs Ollie" using a rescued groundhog to make Groundhog Day
Groundhog Day (, , , ; Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia, Lunenburg, Nova Scotia: Daks Day) is a tradition observed regionally in the United States and Canada on February 2 of every year. It derives from the Pennsylvania Dutch superstition that if ...
weather predictions in the spirit of Punxsutawney Phil and Wiarton Willie. Two groundhogs have served the role since 2014. Oil Spring Ollie has been scored the most reliable of the weather predicting groundhogs by a 2021 study by Lakehead University climatologists compared 530 predictions by 33 weather-predicting groundhogs to the onset of spring weather. While Groundhog Day predictions average only 50% accuracy, Oil Springs Ollie was right over 75% of the time."Broadscale Assessment of Groundhog (Marmota monax) Predictions of Spring Onset No Better than Chance", Alexander J. Ross, Ryan C. Grow, Lauren D. Hayhurst, Haley A. MacLeod, Graydon I. McKee, Kyle W. Stratton, Marissa E. Wegher, Michael D. Rennie, ''Weather, Climate, and Society'', Vol. 13, No. 3 (July 2021), p. 507, Accessed by JSTOR Feb. 2, 2025
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Demographics
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada
Statistics Canada (StatCan; ), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and culture. It is headquartered in ...
, Oil Springs had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.
References
External links
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{{Authority control
Villages in Ontario
Lower-tier municipalities in Ontario
Municipalities in Lambton County
Petroleum industry in Ontario
1865 establishments in Canada
History of the petroleum industry in Ontario