Charles Tripp, James Miller Williams and Hugh Nixon Shaw were the key figures in the development of the fields at Oil Springs. Tripp, who established the world's first petroleum company, mined the gum beds to make asphalt. No known photograph of this pioneer exists. Williams, pictured on the left, was a systematic industrialist who set out to refine illuminating oil and succeeded. Shaw was the man who first bored through rock and found oil in great flowing quantities. Collectively, these three men established the Canadian petroleum industry. Another generation of oil men in Petrolia furthered the work of these three to the point that it became a national industry.
