The Columbus Dispatch has an interesting - and overall, fair - report on the Ohio E&P industry today. A sample: "At one time, Ohio was an oil epicenter. One of the first, if not the first, wells in North America was drilled in 1814 in Noble County in southeastern Ohio. The state’s first commercial-scale well was drilled around 1860, according to the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, a trade group. *** The industry entered a two-decade boom in the 1880s with the discovery of large oil and gas reserves in the Lima and Findlay areas. Ohio rose to become the leading oil-producing state for the last few years of the 19th century. This helped nurture corporate giants such as John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil in Cleveland."
Read it for yourself.