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Archie Dingman Made Famous by the Discovery Well

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AW Dingman

AW Dingman

Calgary Petroleum Products Company was drilling a well 100 years ago, and it discovered Western Canada’s First Commercial Oilfield just southwest of Calgary on May 14, 1914.

So why does everyone call it the Dingman No. 1 well?

A.W. Dingman – Archie – was “the grand old man of the Alberta oil industry” according to the Calgary Herald, when he died in March, 1936 – aged 85.

He brought “into being the greatest oil field in Canada” and gave the discovery well his name.

Archie was quite a character.

He installed the first electricity in Toronto, built coaster brakes for bicycles too.

And he was a partner in the Comfort Soap Company before moving west in 1902.

In Alberta he got involved in natural gas ventures in Edmonton and East Calgary, where a well supplied fuel to the Calgary Brewing and Malting Company.

Archie’s oil patch smarts came from time spent in the Pennsylvania oilfields.

So when Calgary investors needed a general manager for the company that drilled the discovery well, they hired Archie Dingman.

Drillers Hovis and Brown did the heavy lifting – actually drilling the well, but Archie was the spokesman for the company’s operations.

So that’s why the historical records remember the “Dingman No. 1 well” as the discovery that changed western Canada forever.

ALBERTA’S OIL CENTENNIAL COMING SOON! – MAY 14, 2014

We are counting down to the 100th anniversary of the discovery of oil in Alberta – in the foothills southwest of Calgary at Turner Valley.

Watch for more stories about how this oil discovery changed Canada forever.

41 weeks and counting!



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