THE PITTSBURGH STOCK EXCHANGE 
Eight years after the first oil well was drilled in Pennsyl- 
vania, at Titusville, by Col. E. L. Drake, the oil traders 
organized under the name of the Pittsburgh Brokers Associ- 
ation. The Pittsburgh Oil Exchange was really the first 
organized market which had a home, being formally organized 
with a membership of one hundred and eighty on July 25, 
1878, with Capt. George W. Cochran as president, Jonathan 
Gallager as vice president, W. N. Riddle as treasurer and 
S. M. Willock as secretary. 
The Pittsburgh Petroleum Exchange succeeded the Pitts- 
burgh Oil Exchange and was incorporated January 23, 1882, 
and organized July 7, 1883, with C. W. Batchelor as president, 
B. W. Vandergrift as treasurer and J. I. Buchanan as secre- 
tary. It formally opened its new building April 21, 1884. It 
was incorporated with an authorized capital of fifteen hundred 
shares and every applicant for membership was required to 
own not less than five shares. A clearing house was put in 
operation to facilitate handling the increasing volume of 
business and the first annual statement, issued in 1885, re- 
ported clearances in eight months of eight hundred and forty- 
three million, four hundred and sixteen thousand barrels of 
petroleum, averaging about four million barrels daily. The 
purpose of the organization, as stated in the charter, was “the 
establishing and maintaining an exchange for the protection 
and encouragement of the petroleum business in the city of 
Pittsburgh.” This was later amended on January 11, 1886, 
when the name of the institution was changed to “The 
Pittsburgh Petroleum, Stock & Metal Exchange,” to read: 
“The purpose for which this corporation is formed is the 
establishing and maintaining an exchange for the protection 
and encouragement of trade and commerce in the city of 
Pittsburgh.” 
With the advent of gas stocks in 1886 and 1887, and the 
development of rapid transit facilities in Pittsburgh, necessi- 
tating the issuance of securities and a market for them, and 
with the passing of oil interests into the control of the Stand- 
ard Oil Company, trading in oil gradually diminished and 
the brokers gave more attention to stocks. In 1893 trading