Henry, J. T. Philadelphia: Jas. B. Rodgers Co., 1873.
Land prices near strikes, royalties as ground was proven, and prices in the first boom years.
Each landowner asks 60 to 160 percent of the going rate. A lease rises 25 percent for each neighboring lease taken, and doubles beside each one where a well found oil. At Pithole in 1865, the Holmden farm went from $25,000 to about $1.3 million.
Every price in the game is a real period price, converted once into today's dollars at its own year's price level. Crude follows the recorded annual series: $595 a barrel in 1859, $18 in the 1861 glut, $172 in 1864.