Steven Hites, a former railroad conductor in Skagway, lost his job in 1982 after a nearby mine shut down, causing an 85% drop in freight revenue.

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American accounts usually give the start of the oil age as 1859, the year that a former railroad conductor named Edwin L. Drake drilled his first successful well, near Titusville, Pennsylvania.

NEWYORKER: Unconventional Crude

Edwin Drake had no obvious qualifications to run the Seneca Oil Company except for two: as a retired railroad conductor, he could travel by train with a free pass, and--in what is required for the head of any start-up--he was very persistent by nature, indeed downright stubborn.

FORBES: The Pennsylvania Start-up That Changed The World