First Commercial Oil Field National Historic Site of Canada

First Commercial Oil Field was designated a national historic site of Canada in 1925 because:

• the site is a rare industrial landscape possessing a large number of vestiges directly related to the beginning and to the evolution of the oil industry in the latter half of the 19th century in Canada;
• the site contains the first commercial oil well in the world, the first drilled well in Canada, the first gumbeds that were commercially used in the world, and the first gas gusher in Canada;
• the site, where the mining, refining and marketing of petroleum products once took place, had major impacts both financially and technologically not only in Canada but on the development of the oil industry in other countries.

The location of gumbeds in this area of Ontario had long been known to local inhabitants. The first commercial exploitation of the gumbeds was the extraction of bitumen for asphalt paving. Further study of the qualities of the oil revealed its technical applicability to numerous uses, while advances in drilling, refining and transportation techniques made the exploitation of these oil fields economically viable. The work undertaken here had significant impacts from both technological and financial aspects, on the development of the oil refining industry both in Canada and abroad.