Columbia Driller

There were five models of the Columbia driller listed in the 1904 catalog of Oil Well Supply Company.  All were wheel-mounted.  They had recommended drilling depth capacities of 150, 500, 1000, 1500, and 2500 feet and were steel and of the spudder type although they could be rigged to drill with the customary temper screw too.  The No. 1 or 150 foot driller was called the Columbia Junior and was used for drilling water wells. 

Oil Well built the Columbia driller from the H.S. and C.E. Glenn 1892 patent and from the Glenn drilling machine which was based on that patent.  No doubt Oil Well made several improvements or modifications, one having to do with the set-up of the double walking beams.  The Columbia machines were popular from the mid to late 1890's to 1925 at which time Oil Well discontinued the line.

The author has not seen a Columbia driller, but one ought to turn up around here someday.  After all, they were made in Oil City which is directly in America's first oil belt of Venango County, Pennsylvania.  The inventors, H.S. and C.E. Glenn, did their work on the prototype in adjacent Butler County which is also in the oil region.

This all-steel Columbia driller, made by Oil Well Supply Co., has a double walking beam and an A-frame mast (most of which can't be seen in the picture).  The picture shows a machine suspending the drill bit and auger stem above the top of the conductor pipe.  It was the buyer's option to have the boiler built on the wagon frame or separate, the latter being the case in the illustration.  Source is 1904 OWS catalog.