The Shinnston oil pool, producing from the Fifty-Foot sand of Upper Devonian age in the northeastern corner of Harrison County, West Virginia, was discovered in January, 1909, and drilling was mainly completed by 1912. Of the 228 wells drilled within the pool 208 were oil wells, 9 were dry holes, and 11 were gas wells. Initial production per well varied from a few barrels to 10,800 barrels per day. Primary methods of recovery (flowing and pumping) were exclusively used until 1925, when secondary methods (repressuring) began, and the entire pool had been changed to a mixed gas-air drive by 1932. As of 1940, 79 wells were still producing oil by this method, partly under unitized agreement.

The oil of the pool is segregated in a water-free sand along a homoclinal slope east of the Shinnston syncline and west of the Chestnut Ridge anticline. Under any structural theory of accumulation this oil should have descended to the bottom of the syncline, provided there had been continuous porosity and permeability. The actual manner of segregation indicates rather clearly the tightness or non-porosity of the sand west of the pool.