Burkhart’s painting depicts Ohio’s oil boom in the 1960s when a large oil reservoir was discovered in Morrow County. Residents of the central Ohio county profited from leasing their land to speculators. Even local schools cashed in: a drilling rig was set up to extract oil at home plate on one school’s baseball field, forcing the baseball team to play all of its games away that year. In February of 1964, 162 wells were producing 27,000 barrels of crude oil each day.
Today, Ohio continues to be a major producer of oil. However, new technologies have unlocked additional energy sources in Ohio, making the state one of the biggest producers of natural gas in the country.