For years, many believed that oil and natural gas was under Sistersville, because natural gas and salt water had been bubbling up in Burning Springs since before 1836 (in what became Wirt County and development there became an oil boom beginning in 1860). However, the drill Philo Stocking used in 1865 became stuck before it reached oil, but he made sure to retain oil and gas rights to land he sold, which later made him rich. The large Sistersville Oil Field was only confirmed in 1891, with the "Joshua Russell Pole Cat No. 1", successfully drilled by Russell and Edward Paden near Pole Cat creek after they drained salt water for a year. The find proved one of the more productive wells in the field, still producing oil (some refined as gasoline) in 1925. The find occurred as the oil fields in Oil City, Pennsylvania (developed beginning 1861) were running dry and technology had progressed to drain the initial water cap above the oil. Within a few years, Sistersville had ballooned into a city of 15,000 people. In 1893, Sisterville (briefly) was the "oil capital of the world". Unlike some of the Pennsylvania boom towns which became ghost towns, Sistersville invested in infrastructure, and the railroad had arrived in 1884. A spur connected Sistersville to the county seat at Middlebourne.