This past weekend I stole a few hours to work on a book that I'm writing about the evolution of the oil industry. I got some material on the oil industry from the 1890s from the sub-sub-basement of The Harvard Library. I was very struck to discover that in the 1890s, they also referred to frontier oil development. At that time the frontier was the Lima Field in Ohio and a wildcat well might cost $3,000. Times have changed. The frontier has gotten farther out; it's gotten deeper; and it's gotten much, much more expensive.

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