Natural Resources (C) Cameron Pratt

Natural resources are a major part in the United States’ success. In the 1850s and 1860s the United States had large amounts of timber, coal, iron, and copper. They could obtain these resources easily and didn’t have to pay large amounts of money to have them imported. Most of these resources were located in the West. Around the late 1850s the need for petroleum was increasing, so the need for oil rigs was also increasing. The first oil well was made in 1859 by Edwin Drake in Titusville, Pennsylvania. By 1900 oil wells were drilled from Pennsylvania to Texas. While oil production rose, it led to economic expansion. The natural resources helped accelerate the industrialization of the United States.