In 1877, Murrysville brothers Michael and Obediah Haymaker built a wooden drilling derrick along Turtle Creek at the site of a natural gas seep used by a local farmer. After a year of pounding through hard sandstone to a depth of 1400 feet, the well blew in with a huge roar on November 3, 1878. Instead of oil, it had tapped a natural gas reservoir so enormous that it shook the ground and rattled windows in the area for months. Years later, the gas ignited into a 100-foot-high flame that burned for eighteen months. The well was eventually capped and piped to Pittsburgh, beginning an era of commercial natural gas operations around Murrysville.
