November 23, 1881 started out just like any other
day for the men drilling the No. 9 Well for Rial &
Co. The No. 9 Well was located on the top of Point
Bluff where it overlooks Franklin. Now, we don't
call it Point Bluff anymore, but I can tell you
where it is. As you drive down Routes 8 & 62, just
before you cross the bridge over French Creek into
Franklin, off to your right is a large hill, back
in the 1800's this hill was known as Point Bluff.
The men working for Edwin Rial of Franklin, PA had
been drilling this well for several weeks. During
the morning of the 23rd, just as they reached the
300-foot mark the string of tools dropped sudden
like. Well, this was only 22 years after Col.
Drake had made his strike up near Titusville, PA
and every man on the crew knew that Uncle Billy
Smith had had just such a drop the day before that
strike. This being the case, the rope choker let
the string play out slow like and they measured it
on the way down. Those tools went down another
eight feet before they bottomed out. Now remember,
back in those days, not much was known about the
science of drilling a well. Fact is, back then it
was more like an art. Anyway, they pulled the
string out of the well and when they got the bit
up it had a dark amber liquid on it.
This liquid caused a mighty consternation amoung
the crew. The reason being is that that liquid
just didn't look like oil, it didn't smell like
oil, and it didn't feel like oil. Fact is, it
looked, felt, and smelled exactly like a right
dark beer. The crew of that well didn't know what
to do. So it was decided to go and get the boss,
Edwin Rial, himself. When the boss finally got
there, he had them run the bailer down the well
and it came up full of this queer liquid.
The men, Rial included, still weren't sure what
this strange liquid was. Finally, they convinced
one of the young lads to taste it. The lad was
around twelve or so and was there to learn the
trade of oil well drilling. The older men on the
crew convinced him to try a mug of the liquid and
see what it tasted like. The lad took a small sip
and said it tasted like beer. Then he took another
longer draught and exclaimed that not only was it
beer, it was some of the finest tasting beer he
had ever drank. After the lad had pronounced it
beer, the other men soon joined in and began
enjoying themselves as well.
Very quietly, the crew of the No. 9 Well,
converted from drilling to pumping. They did not
want to arouse interest in their small piece of
luck, after all this was the first time anyone had
ever struck beer and they weren't about to
undermine their good fortune. After all, it might
turn out to be too good to be true. Fact of the
matter was, it was too good to be true as they
found out a couple of weeks later.
What happened and how they found out is as
follows. The Grossman Brewery of Franklin, PA had
several years earlier dug a large vault into the
base of Point Bluff back about 100 foot or so.
This was done to get an even temperature for aging
and fermenting the beer they brewed. Mechanical
Refrigeration was not used commercially on a large
scale until the early 20th century. Prior to this,
one had two choices, either snow and ice or a hole
in the ground. For large scale uses a hole in the
ground was cheaper and this is just what Phillip
Grossman, himself, decided as well.
Like the petroleum industry, the brewing industry
had young lads in their early teens working for
them in order to learn the trade. It was just such
a lad who happened upon the business end of Rial &
Company's No. 9 Well as he was checking the aging
vats. It was just perchance that the No. 9 Well
happened to be drilled right down, smack dab into
the middle of one of the largest aging vats of the
Grossman Brewery. When the lad who was working for
Grossman discovered that the level of beer was a
whole lot lower then it ought to be, it was
Phillip Grossman, himself, who thundered up Point
Bluff that day to see what was happening to his
beer. The last the men of the No. 9 crew saw of
him was as he headed off toward the offices of
Rial & Co. to give Edwin Rail a good piece of what
for.
Rial owned the lease on the mineral rights and was
within his legal rights to drill where he had.
Still, he had his men lay off the beer while
Phillip Grossman moved his vat and salvaged what
was left of his beer. They then continued drilling
about another 40 feet and struck oil at around 50
Barrels a day. For 1881, this was a fine producer.
Now at this point, most people are wondering if
they got to drink the beer for free.
The answer to that is an emphatic NO, they did
not. For you see,about a month after all this
haapened a bill arrived at the offices of Rial &
Co. The old-timer's tell that one day's production
from that well, at the then current prices, more
than paid for all the beer that was drunk from the
World's Only Producing Beer Well.
That, my friends, is a true story and we can
document it.
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