Oil Derrick, Oil City near Waterton Lake, Alberta, circa 1905.
The site of Alberta's first oil boom, generated in 1902 by the Rocky Mountain Development Company, was at Oil City on Cameron Brook, west of Waterton Lake. About the time this photograph was taken, William Pearce, head of the Dominion Government Land Department, visited the site. He noted that the company was operating a small refinery producing some benzine, gasoline, lubricating oil and residual heavy oil used as a cattle dip by local ranchers for prevention of parasitic mange. Between 1905 and 1907, the company made further efforts to find oil at the Waterton site by drilling to depths of nearly 610 metres but did not meet with success. Other drilling companies such as Vancouver's Western Oil also drilled at Waterton Lake in 1902 but encountered drilling problems in the hard rock and gravel. After sinking several wells in the Waterton area with little success, Western Oil moved 32 kilometres north to Pincher Creek in 1907 where they struck natural gas but abandoned the well because of the absence of oil. Pincher Creek became a major natural gas field once it was developed by Canadian Gulf Oil in 1948, but Waterton never became a producing field even though it was persistently drilled for oil until the mid-1930s and to a depth of 762 metres.
